Don’t you love those handi biryanis?
They seem to have a distinct flavour. Well, that’s because the nutrients present in the clay pots. The benefits of clay pots for cooking are immense, especially when naturally made without any lead glazed coatings.
For thousands of years we have been using clay pots for cooking, unaware of the health benefits. The benefits of clay pots for cooking outshines their Eco-friendly nature.
Let’s take a look how cooking in clay pots enriches your food and makes you health and sustainable.
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Clay Pots Retain Nutrient Value of Food
Clay pot is a porous utensil that absorbs the oil, water, and heat equally and distributes across the food. This time consuming process ensures that the food is cooked slowly and gradually, retaining all the nutrients.
This slow cooking process enhances food and maintains quality, especially in meat preparations. Meat cooked in clay pots taste way better and have enhanced longevity.
That’s because equal heating and cooking which uncoils and denatures proteins like collagen, making the food tender and succulent.
So, unlike aluminium cookware, using clay pots for cooking don’t take away anything from your food rather preserve quality.
Reduces Oil in Cooking
The most well known health benefits of clay pots for cooking is the relatively less use of oil, making food healthy and nutritious.
You don’t need to add extra oil for cooking your vegetables and meat when you cook in an earthenware, as the clay absorbs and retains the oil.
The same porous nature of clay pots makes it ideal for storing water during summer.
As the clay pot traps the moisture from the oil and distributes the heat, your food moistens and cooks more optimally.
In other mediums, this moisture isn’t there so you need more oil and water to soften and cook.
This makes using clay pots for cooking a preferred choice for everyone.
Heat Resistant in Nature
As the name suggests, clay pots are made of dried and burning clay which makes the utensils quite heat tolerant.
So, this can easily tolerate a range of cooking techniques like wood fire, coal fire, gas stove and even microwave.
Clay pots are safe and you need not worry about burning or decay.
This heat resistant property is the chief reason that using clay pots for cooking is quite a thing, especially in slow cooking procedures.
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Adds Nutrients To Your Food
Unlike aluminium, ceramic and other materials, earthenware comes with the goodness of minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, sulphur etc adding the essential nutrients.
So, the benefits of clay pots for cooking far exceeds the environmental cause and actually adds valuable nutrients.
Balances Food
You don’t need to worry about your food being too acidic and bitter while cooking in a clay pot.
The inherent nature of a clay pot gives it an alkaline nature having the necessary ions and salts.
This takes the benefits of clay pots for cooking a notch higher as the food becomes well balanced in flavour and pH, neutralised by the alkaline pots.
Adds an Earthy Flavour
While most of the flavour in food is due to every person’s intricate way of cooking, a minuscule portion of it is the technique used in cooking.
Food cooked in different techniques impart a distinct flavour.
That’s why wood oven pizzas have a specific charred taste of the wood. Similarly, food cooked in clay pots gets the earthy flavour.
The moist petrichor kind of smell and taste of food cooked in clay pots is a tell all sign.
No Loss of Nutrient from Reheating
Lastly, clay pots are good at retaining heat and moisture.
The clay retains heat and holds the temperature for a longer period of time.
Reheating clay pots doesn’t require that much energy. Utilizing these benefits of clay pots for cooking, you can keep your food warm for a longer period, eliminating any need of reheating.
Also, when reheated the process runs quicker preventing loss of nutrients.
All your flavours and nutrients are intact in the clay pot.
All these attributes speak in favour of using clay pots for cooking. This isn’t just a way of cooking but a way of healthy and sustainable living!
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