How food served and cooked in different metals impact your health

The culinary diversity of India is widely known; however, the diversity of kitchen utensils' material is not much deliberated upon. In this new age and modern living, people conveniently use non-stick and glass cookware. These might be easy to use, but they are not at all healthy. Ayurveda gives immense importance to the metals used for cooking food daily and despite the innovations in modern cooking, old-school cooking utensils are known to be the best. While some metals have a positive impact on your health, others may even harm.

Copper is known to be the best cooking metal for rice and is known to have anti-bacterial properties in it. For the same reason, it is said that drinking water in a copper vessel is known to have medicinal properties in it and can improve the digestive system, slow down ageing and can heal the wounds faster. You will be surprised to know that copper can detoxify your body and increase hemoglobin. It might be a popular metal used for cooking, but beware of cooking or eating anything acidic as this may impact the taste of the food.

Considered a precious metal, silver has antimicrobial and antibacterial properties in it. It is said to be cool in nature and is thus considered good for those with pitta personalities. It’s said that eating and drinking in silverware can calm down your temperament and improve your complexion. It can also improve your metabolic system and immune system.

You must have seen brass utensils in your Grandma's kitchen. Also known as pital, this alloy is often used in religious ceremonies. While it is okay to serve food in brass, the metal easily reacts with salt and acidic foods, when it is heated. Hence, cooking in such utensils must be avoided.

It is known to be the ideal metal for cooking any kind of food due to its non-reactive properties. Eating or drinking in this metal is considered to have a safe impact on your health. It’s a metal alloy made of chromium, nickel, carbon and silicon and has aluminium or copper coating at the bottom for heating purposes. This metal will rarely cause any trouble to you.

An ideal metal used for baking purposes, aluminium is the most popular metal when it comes to cooking. It has a larger than life use in the Indian kitchen and continues to play an important role in our lives. It is best to use scratch-resistant anodized aluminium cookware, as cooking into it will not release the aluminium in the food. Uncoated aluminium cookware can impose a greater risk and hence cooking and serving food in it should be avoided.

It is another cookware that’s highly popular in everyone’s kitchen. The reason behind this popularity is that it can withstand high temperatures and is mostly used for making food that requires slow cooking. The common usage of this metal is in form of Tawa, skillet and kadhai. It’s an excellent way of including iron in your body and for the same reason, most of the green veggies are cooked in iron vessels. But you must not store food in it as it gives an acrid taste to the food.

This type of cookware can be made of any metal, but the only problem is the Teflon coating that makes any cookware easy to use and clean. Most of the people think that it’s the healthiest option for cooking any food. Lately, several reports have suggested that non-stick cookware must be avoided as it can cause cancer when used at a high temperature.

It might not be metal but is considered for cooking baked dishes. Due to its non-reactive properties, it’s good to use for storing or baking any food. It’s a good heat conductor, however, you must take care of high temperature as it can shatter the glass.