Crunchy Stewardship
In this podcast we are taking a deep dive into what it means to steward our lives as God originally intended for us with the resources that God has given us. We will look at topics like food, medicine, finances, mental health and lots more through a natural lens with a biblical foundation.
Crunchy Stewardship
The Cookware Conundrum: Choosing Safe and Sustainable Kitchen Tools
In this episode of Crunchy Stewardship, cousins Chrissy Rombach and Katie Fiola Jones dive into the topic of non-toxic and safe cookware to promote overall health and wellness. They discuss the potential hazards of common materials such as non-stick coatings, plastics, and aluminum, highlighting the importance of making informed choices about what we use in our kitchens. They recommend alternatives like stainless steel, cast iron, glass, and ceramic, while also providing the best tips for finding affordable options.. Join the conversation about how to make your kitchen healthier without breaking the bank by logging onto their Facebook Group, Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget!
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship
00:41 Support and Subscribe
02:31 Introduction to Cookware
03:10 The Dangers of Non-Stick Cookware
12:09 Plastic in the Kitchen
17:09 Aluminum and Other Harmful Materials
20:22 Silicone and Stainless Steel
23:21 Choosing the Best Cookware
25:58 Recommended Cookware Brands
28:20 Cast Iron Cookware
29:41 Exploring Cast Iron Cookware
31:15 Stainless Steel vs. Cast Iron
33:23 Ceramic Cookware: Pros and Cons
37:27 The Versatility of Dutch Ovens
39:18 Non-Toxic Kitchen Materials
46:57 Affordable Cookware Shopping Tips
Links Mentioned
- Katie's Raw Milk Experience - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNxSwwyJKsU
- Blog: Find Factory Seconds - https://agapeinvests.com/factory-seconds-designer-deals-for-less/
- Katie’s Moving Videos - https://www.youtube.com/@KatieFiolaJones
- Dark Waters Movie - https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B081FJP1YN/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
- How to Cook on Stainless Steel Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5XcN3AyITY
Connect With Us:
Join Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crunchychristianmama
Follow us on Instagram @crunchystewardship
FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living
Hello and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship my name is Chrissy Rombach.
Katie:And my name is Katie Fiola Jones. We are two cousins who are passionate about learning and sharing knowledge to equip others to steward their spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, and physical health in order to honor God in every aspect of their lives.
Chrissy:In this podcast, we are taking a deep dive into what it means to steward our lives as God originally intended for us with the resources that God has given us. We are looking at topics like food, medicine, finances, mental health, and tons more through a natural lens and with a biblical foundation.
Katie:But before we get started today in our episode, if you have been enjoying our podcast, which I know that there's many of you out there who have been reaching out to us saying that you have been enjoying it, we would really love if you took a moment right now to pause the show and leave us a five star rating. Also, if you're not already subscribed, be sure to do that so you get notified when we have new episodes. This all helps other people find our show in the future, and we do want to reach more people with the knowledge that we have, so that way we can equip other believers with this awesome information that we have been kind of given, I guess. And if you aren't already signed up for our weekly newsletter, please go ahead and take a moment by doing that. You can go and click the link in the show notes below to subscribe. And last shout out is that I actually posted our very first YouTube video on our YouTube channel, which is just Crunchy Stewardship. Same like the podcast. So if you haven't found us over on YouTube, go ahead and do that. We'll be putting out other new videos in the future. But this video that I created recently was on my experience trying raw milk for the first time, which is just so crazy still saying it that like we now are raw milk purchasers or drinkers or whatever, and I'm really excited about it. But you, you gotta go check out that episode on our YouTube channel to see what my experience was like for the first time trying raw milk.
Chrissy:Unfortunately today's episode is not about raw milk. That
Katie:It is not
Chrissy:peek on on our YouTube.
Katie:sneak peek.
Chrissy:So today's episode, we are actually gonna be talking about cookware because this is one of those things that Katie and I are both in the process of preparing to switch in our own kitchens. But it's also one of those switches that does require a little bit more of a financial buy-in because, uh, as everybody knows, a good cooking set is not cheap. And so this episode, we are gonna take a look at the things to look out for, the things to look for in cookware. And we may or may not name drop a couple brands that are good and bad. So, keep listening and we'll go through it. So first off, we're gonna start off with talking about the things you wanna look out for, the red flags when it comes to cookware. Things that are no bueno, and how you can identify those.
Katie:Yep. So the main thing that I have learned in the last handful of months, my journey with cookware actually started probably back in. I, uh, maybe January or so, I was kind of introduced to the idea that the pots and pans that we had in our home were probably very toxic and poisoning us, actually. And that was the first time I had ever heard about this, was probably on a podcast episode, or actually it may have been mentioned in a book I was reading at the time. And this was like a news flash to me. I had never heard this. I never considered that my pots and pans were bad. And the main thing that I learned was really toxic in our cookware is basically anything labeled non-stick. So if you think of like Teflon pans there, there's a chemical in it, A forever chemical. It's like P-F-A-S-P-F-A-S. Um, I actually don't. Know exactly what that stands for off the top of my head. But these chemicals in anything that's basically non-stick, they come out into your food when you are cooking them. So when they are exposed to higher heats, they get into the foods, they also get into the air. So you think about when you're cooking and there's lots of steam and heat that's coming off of the pan and, and it's going up and you, you usually wanna have like the vent hood on. So it's taking the air out. So it's taking all the stuff out of the air and hopefully filtering it directly outside and pulling it outside. But basically these chemicals are in your cookware, both usually your pots and pans as well as baking trays. But you want to be really careful that you're not using these because they can be leaching into your food, into your air, and you are then ingesting it and inhaling it. And they have been linked to tons of terrible, terrible things. In fact, there is a movie that I'm going to Google right now'cause I don't know what it's called, but Mark Ruffalo is in it, and it's, it's a real movie or it's a movie about, a real story about the guy who. I think, I don't remember if he actually invented this chemical and then realized how bad it was or if he was just a part of the process of like realizing that these are really bad. But he's kind of like this whistleblower guy who was trying to warn the world about how terrible these chemicals are because they're basically poisoning everybody.
The movie's actually called Dark Waters, and the main character guy is actually a lawyer who worked for a chemical attorney's office who defended the chemical companies and. A small farmer from his hometown like came to him and asked him to defend the small farmer against the chemical companies. And so this guy agreed and it turned into this huge process that was, I think like 30 years long of trying to uncover the truth about Teflon. And unfortunately, the farmer who started this whole situation died in the process, specifically actually from. Teflon poisoning, and so it's a very eye-opening movie. It's called Dark Waters. It came out in 2019. I highly recommend you go watch it. It definitely changed my mindset on cookware and anything with Teflon in it in general. But I think, like thinking back to what I knew about cookware growing up, I feel like I always knew that Teflon wasn't the greatest for you. I never really understood the depth to which it was actually bad for you though. I always thought, oh, okay, it's not that bad, but I like non-stick, so that's what we're gonna stick with, you know? But then as I got older, I came to realize that no, it actually has a lot of health ramifications to it. It has cancer causing pieces to it, it has endocrine disruptors in it. Just the more and more I learned about it, the more I was like, oh, I actually really want to stay away from this. So it has been on my list of things to change in our house since I watched this movie, And so, uh, yeah
Katie:I actually haven't seen it just yet, but I do know about the movie from a podcast episode I listened to with that guy who's the main character in the movie. He was interviewed on a podcast that I listened to, and his story is just, I mean, it's wild. And now that you're saying that, I do remember. Yeah. He's the lawyer who was defending these people who are like, something's happening here in our tiny town and our cows are dying and our people are dying. And, and it's just really awful when it's really saturated.
Chrissy:It's really crazy because in, so the whole reason this tiny town in particular was feeling the ramifications of the Teflon so much was because the Teflon company, which whose factory was located like just north of the town or something like that, was dumping their waste into the river. And so this Teflon waste was in their water, like throughout their entire drinking water system for this town. And at this point in history, the FDA did not have any regulations on PFAS in the water. And so when this lawyer originally brought it to court as a problem. The Teflon company was able to skirt around the issue by saying, no, we have no regulated chemicals in our water that are outside of regulation point. And so essentially this guy had to create an entirely new regulation, which is one of the reasons why the court case took about 30 years. And now I've told you the entire story, but you should still go watch this movie. Um, there's actually one point in the movie where two kids are riding their bike and they look over and smile and their teeth are black. And it turns out that all the cows that were dying also. Had black teeth, and so in this town it's just a little tiny town. It was also known as like Cancer Valley because everybody in this town seemed to die of cancer and a lot of people had oral health issues and it was all linked back to this Teflon or the PFAS in their food and water, which is just so horrible.
Katie:it's so sad. And it is, it's something that like, yeah, growing up I had non-stick pans. Um, I had non-stick pans early on in our marriage up until more recently when I started learning some of this. And they're really great. I mean, they, there's a lot of benefit to having pans and cookware and everything that your food doesn't stick to. But what I learned is that anytime you see a product labeled as either non-stick or water resistant or anything like that, where it's like it repels stuff. So whether it's food or water or something. You know that it typically has one of these really bad chemicals in it. And so that's been really hard for me too because a lot of, uh, materials and things for babies are considered like water resistant or stain resistant, And so a lot of these other, products that we use in our households are also laiden with these really bad things. And so it's really hard to kind of, navigate the world of these toxic chemicals when they're pretty much everywhere nowadays, but especially, especially important to get rid of them in your cooking products because that's literally what you are putting directly into your body every single day, what you're cooking on. So I think when we, when we talk about cookware or when I even just think of cookware and what to be wary of and to almost like just completely avoid. That is one of the number one things. But I wanna also talk about plastic because, and we've talked a little bit about plastic and and stuff in the past, but when you think about cookware or kitchenware or dishes or anything that is in your kitchen, plastic is another one of those big things that I have been learning is just something you want to a hundred percent avoid at all costs. And so we have been going through the process of switching everything out in our kitchen, which again, is so hard because plastic is so nice because it's durable and long lasting. But it also, similar to the PFAS in non-stick pans. Plastics will leach into your foods, especially when they are heated up, but also when you have any kinda liquid in a plastic container. So if you are using plastic to keep your food leftovers in or plastic to hold your liquids to drink from, so your cups, you really wanna consider staying away from those and, and potentially chucking them and, and getting something new because that's another kitchenware item that can be really dangerous.
Chrissy:That is actually one switch that Max and I found decently easy to change. So we are currently in the process of moving just down the road. Uh, we're downsizing from a three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment, and in this process, we have made the decision to take this as an opportunity to get rid of a lot of the plastic cups and plates and things that we have, and replacing those with glass cups has actually not been nearly as expensive as I anticipated. Literally last night we went out to Crate Barrel, which is not a cheap place to find cookware. If anything, it's one of those places that I would try to stay away from because it's so expensive. But we found a 12 pack of glass cups for$36 that is with tax included. So I was very happy with that. And honestly, in comparison to glass cups on Amazon or other places like Walmart. They were cheaper than Amazon and Walmart. And Crate and Barrel has some great options for glass cups and bowls and things like that. So yeah, those are some things that are pretty easy switches and they're not super, super expensive, like pots and pans would be.
Katie:Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. So, yeah, so, okay, we talked kind of a little bit about the non-stick pots and pans, anything that has any, whenever you just see that label, I mean, Teflon people already started becoming a little wary of maybe a decade or so ago. But even if you just see a label that says non-stick, you know that it has some not great chemicals that make it non-stick. You wanna avoid plastic in your kitchen for any kind of kitchen product, especially actually. Um, one of the big ones too is cutting boards. Your plastic cutting boards. Can be really bad because you're chopping onto this plastic board, which can then release these microplastics into your food. But then the little grooves in your cutting board allow for bacteria to sit in and kind of make a home in, and then you're putting food back on top of it, which then can be exposed to this bacteria. So, uh, plastic cutting boards should be a huge no-no. You wanna kind of look for something that is wood or even, we've seen now these like kind of cool stainless steel things. They're, they're kind of noisy when you chop on them, but you can look for those.
Chrissy:Question about the stainless steel. Does it dull knives faster? Because I've heard that glass cutting boards can do that. So I don't know, would stainless steel cutting boards be the same way?
Katie:You know, I could see that it might be a possibility My mother got us. Like a stainless steel cutting board for Christmas and we use it every now and then. I think it just like looks really sleek, but I don't always love the noise of it when you're chopping like a, a bunch of stuff really quickly.'cause it's, it's much noisier. It's got that clang to it versus like a wood or bamboo or something like that. Like where it's a more dulled of a noise. So I could definitely see it being a problem of dulling your knives, but I don't know, we haven't been using it long enough for me to like take notice and it's not my go-to cutting board.'cause we have like other bamboo ones that I really like and I choose first. So the stainless steel one I usually use as a last resort more than my go-to. But good question. I don't know if anyone knows the answer, let us know.'cause now I'm curious, am I if I'm ruining my knives with this really cool cutting board. Okay, so we talked a little bit about the non-stick and the plastic, but another big one too that. Can actually be kind of tricky to pinpoint in your, especially bakeware, like if you have it or not, is aluminum. Now aluminum and stainless steel look very similar. They're that kind of medley, you know, cooking pan that you typically have. But a aluminum has been linked with things like, Alzheimer's and other neuro challenges, neuro diseases even. Um, there's a lot of toxicity to aluminum and it's something that a lot of us kind of know. You don't want to have aluminum in your anything. The aluminum can be found in baking powder. And so when you're looking for baking powder at the grocery store, you wanna make sure it's like aluminum free and you always wanna look for deodorant that doesn't have aluminum in it as well. But aluminum, same thing. You, you wanna avoid it in your kitchen because aluminum has been linked to a lot of, um, illnesses and diseases, so it's actually really hard. I found that most baking trays, especially if they don't say stainless steel on them, are typically aluminum. And people like companies get away with this because. Your average shopper going to the store can't really tell the difference. There's a, you can kind of tell the color shininess difference between the two of them if you have them side by side, but it's really hard when you're just going down the aisle and you're like, oh, these look good, and you just kind of pick'em up from target or something.
Chrissy:I feel like aluminum also starts to have a little bit of a metallic smell to it after a while. Currently, unfortunately, I still actually have an aluminum bread pan, which is kind of ironic because I grind my own wheat to make bread, but then I cook it in an aluminum pan and after a while it can, like when I'm cleaning it after baking bread, I can smell the metal in it and it's on my list of things to replace. But you know, one thing at a time here, we're moving, so that's enough on our page and for our checkbook at the moment.
Katie:Yes. Yeah, well you think like something like metal, like especially aluminum reacts with anything acidic or salty. So if you have something salty that you are cooking. So I, I consider when we cook potatoes, like if we do like roasted chopped potatoes or something, we would like sprinkle it with salt and maybe even some like lemon juice or something. So that's both like salty and acidic. It starts to wear and degrade that aluminum even more. And that's when it really is starting to leak into your food and that is very, very bad. And so you wanna be very careful of that as well. So those are like the three, I think. Main things that come to mind that, that I have learned that we need to be really aware of. Are there any other, like top ones that, like things that you can think of that we need to avoid in our kitchens? Chrissy.
Chrissy:You know, I actually did wanna touch on silicone because it's kind of plasticy. It's kind of rubbery, but it's also considered safe, and I've seen some mixed reviews on it. I have seen that some people say that if you're going to be using your cooking utensils, you want either 100% silicone or wood or bamboo. I've also heard some people say that silicone does leach into your food if it's exposed to like a high fat content or high heat. So if you're mixing something like cake batter or something like that, that has a very high fat content, that is something that can actually cause the silicone to leach into your food. Um, have you also heard about that, Katie?
Katie:So what I've learned about silicone, I kind of had to go backwards a little bit and really I like, I didn't even know what silicone was. I was like, is this a manmade product? Is it natural? So silicone is actually made from sand, but where you can get tripped up is, and you, you kind of hit the nail on the head, you mentioned 100% silicone. And that is really what you want to look for when you get anything silicone based, whether it's like a household product or a cooking product or anything for your baby.'cause there's tons of things that they make for kids that are silicone and you wanna make sure it's a hundred percent silicone because then it's that more natural product. If it's not a hundred percent, it can often be, um. There can be like plastic additives. And so you just wanna be careful with what is in it if it's not a hundred percent silicone. And so a lot of the cheap, like if you go to Target or Walmart and you just find like the$2 spatula, that's silicone, most likely, that also has toxins in it because it's probably not a hundred percent. So you just wanna be careful of that. So you're, you're definitely right. Same thing actually, Chrissy, I learned with stainless steel, you can actually advertise something as stainless steel, even if it's not a hundred percent. And there's like a certain percentage of it that you can have of other stuff. So in the case of cooking trays and stuff, what I learned is that it might not be a hundred percent. And it might have aluminum in it actually. And so then it's like, well, if I'm trying to avoid aluminum, you just have to be really careful that it is a hundred percent stainless steel, if that makes sense.
Chrissy:Don't. They also advertise like a percentage or a fraction on their stainless steel. Like if you're shopping for stainless steel, you can look for something like 1810 on it, and that can also kind of tell you how good it is or bad it is. Katie, I know you've done a little bit more research on that. Do you wanna touch on that real quick?
Katie:Yeah. I actually, so when you're, I guess we can kind of start diving into a little bit more of like. Now. Okay. If we kind of covered like all the things you wanna be really careful about, but now let's get into the more specifics of when you're actually picking things out. What are the best materials and yeah, what should we be looking for? Because obviously we've kind of talked about stainless steel, so let's, let's dive into that just a little bit more. As I mentioned, you want it to be a hundred percent. Um, I don't actually know exactly what this means, but I wrote it down from something that I was looking at, and so you wanna double check the actual stainless steel grade because apparently there can be lower grades of stainless steel versus like Yeah, like higher grade. Lower grade. I don't really understand it too much, but you do want to. Look for the higher quality, which is considered the 1810 stainless steel. And so I don't know if that's like, what, what that fraction means. I don't know if it's like so many particles of something per 10, I don't even know. But that is what I found in a book. I wrote it down here, so that way, if that means something to you or just when you're looking at the boxes of pans at your home goods store, that is what you want. Um, it's known to be more like corrosion resistant and have longer durability. Honestly, as long as it is just stainless steel and isn't like, it doesn't have the, any other like metal additives, I think that you're good. But it could just mean something lasts longer than something else.
Chrissy:I just looked it up. Google is a beautiful thing. Um, so apparently 1810 stainless steel means that it's made up of 18% chromium and 10% nickel, which means that it will be extremely durable to both rust and corrosion and is really high quality.
Katie:There you go. Good. Way to go Google. Well, yeah, obviously in general, when you're looking at products like not all stainless steel is made the same, right? So that's kind of the moral of the story. But when you're looking for pots and pans,'cause you're like, okay, well now I have to go and do all this crazy research to determine which pans have this 18, 10, and which ones are good performing and which ones aren't gonna, you know, degrade over time. But good news is that again, people have done lots of research and there are some top brands that have really good reputations for being very long lasting, especially when they're well cared for. So some of the trusted brands that we have considered and some that we even actually have are the, the top one by far is all clad and it's A LL dash CLAD. You've probably seen all clad either maybe in your home, your parents' home, your grandma's home. You maybe have seen them in the store. It, it's a tried and true company when it comes to stainless steel. Another like the other two that I came across that are also really good are called, um, Made In. So that's two words Made In, and then the other one is Calphalon. I've actually never said it out loud. I've only written it before, which is funny. I actually own one Calphalon Pan, but these are, these are the ones that are known to have like higher quality stainless steel. So if you're looking for some, those are what you should go with. You will notice though, when you are shopping for them, they are expansive, so just be aware of that. What other cooking things are you looking for, Chrissy? When you, now that you're making your switch, are there any specific materials or brands that you are going to look forward to now replace your old stuff.
Chrissy:Yes. so in addition to stainless steel, we're looking for stainless steel for like those pots, specifically for soups and mac and cheese, of course, because I've gotta get my mac and cheese in there.
Katie:Gotta loveve your mac and cheese
Chrissy:he. Yep. But then for our pans, because with our pans we like to saute a bit more, and with the stainless steel, it's really hard to get the stainless steel to a non-stick point. It requires heating it up all the way and then cooling it off part of the way, and then adding certain ingredients at a time, and you have to keep it at a specific temperature in order to maintain that non-stick point with the stainless steel. And honestly, that's a lot of work. I am not very good at it, so I feel like it's really hard to master. And so for cooking things that are more like sauteing, like vegetables and chicken and eggs and things like that, we're actually looking at, um, cast iron. And so we currently have one cast iron skillet and we love it. It's a Le Creuset brand and we use it for, almost any like larger dish that we cook on the stove. We actually haven't had a grill in a very long time, and so we've cooked chicken in it quite frequently. Um, most of our meats we cook in a cast iron. And we love it. Also, the nice thing about cast iron is, so this might gross some people out, but for some people it's really great if it doesn't gross you out, is that you don't actually clean it completely in between uses because the idea is to allow the flavors to kind of get into the cast iron to season the pan. So that with each use, your food becomes more and more flavorful because the flavors of the previous food is still in the pan and then it just adds to your next dish. Which Max and I have found that to be very beneficial in terms of just adding flavor to meat that's completely unseasoned. And we love the flavor of the meat that we cook in our cast iron. And so, um, yeah, like I said earlier. We use the Le Creuset brand, but there's a lot of really great cast iron brands out there. I just haven't really looked into them all that much. Um, I do know they can be a little bit more expensive, but they're super easy to find on Facebook Marketplace and things like that. So that is probably where I'm going to look to get smaller cast iron pans to replace our little frying pan.
Katie:Yeah, we love, love, love, love, love our cast iron pans. In fact, I think we do 80 to 90% of our cooking on our two that we have. We use them for everything. The really cool thing about cast iron is that you can use it on a stove top, but they're also oven safe. And so you can, like, I make biscuits in them, so I'll do, like, I'll kind of put it in there and then I'll put it into the oven and then cook my biscuits in that. And they are just very versatile. They, like Chrissy said, um, you don't wash them with any soap because it actually, when you use soap, it kind of takes away the nons stickiness, and so you have to season it after each of your times that you use it each cooking session, and you kind of use some like olive oil or just any kind of fat or oil on it to kind of season it and it locks in that non-ST stickiness. So it's like a natural non-stick. We tried some stainless steel pans that. I found, um, like at the thrift store and on Facebook marketplace, we actually use stainless steel for our pots. Actually, just like you said, Chrissy, we have like a steamer basket, one that we really like, but man, I have tried cooking on some pans with just like these tiny stainless steel ones and they are such a pain. I've literally watched so many videos on that whole making it non-stick and putting the water droplet on it. I mean, literally watch these videos to be like, when is like cooking properly on stainless steel? They're very fascinating, but yeah, exactly like you said, they're so hard to master and we've kind of given up and. Honestly, one of the best things too about cast iron is that they are literally made from iron. And so when you cook in it, just like your other materials that you're using, they're typically getting into your food. Well, there's certain ones that you really wanna avoid, but the great thing about iron these stainless or these cast iron pans is that it's actually adding iron to your food, which is actually good for you. And a lot of us are iron deficient, and so it's a, it's nice that you're cooking and you're getting like a benefit from your pan getting into your food in that sense. So we personally use the brand Lodge. Oftentimes you can find them at thrift stores. People get rid of them all the time because it does, there's a little bit of a learning curve, but I would say it's not as difficult to master as. The stainless steel pans are, they're, they're much easier and they're easy to get, like to bounce back from. Like, we burnt something so badly the other day on our pan and it was kind of a pain to like get it all off and everything, but they're totally fine. And it just took, honestly, it takes like more cooking on it to like get some of the bad stuff off. But yeah, so I really love them. So, okay. So stainless steel and cast iron. Chrissy, what else are you using in your kitchen or looking for in your move?
So one item that I got really, really excited about, I wanted to try it a lot, was ceramic cookware. I know Le Creuset has some ceramic stuff. Williams Sonoma has a ceramic line and Caraway is ceramic. I think Green Pan also has a ceramic line. I was really, really excited about it because it claims to be non-toxic and non-stick, and at first I was hesitant, like, okay, how can something be non-stick and non-toxic at the same time? If you look at their websites, they. Look like they're very safe, um, and they're durable and non-toxic and everything like that. But the more research that I've done on like non-filtered areas like Facebook where people can just share their opinions and it's not going to be filtered by somebody who's making sure that everything on social media looks correct um, for example, in our Facebook group, Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget, it's a place where people can share their opinions and it's not going to be filtered by these large companies. They can't really go in and delete these comments because it's, they're not in the Facebook group. And so these comments, um, aren't deleted. And so every time I would look at these Google reviews for these ceramic pans and pots and things like that. Um, I, they, all the Google reviews looked super good that they were safe and non-stick at the same time. It was like the best of both worlds. But then when I went to facebook groups and other areas that are not monitored by the company. That's where I started to learn, okay, maybe these are actually greenwashed a little bit, and they do actually have toxins that leach into your food. So the ceramic specifically for caraway, I believe has an aluminum base that the ceramic is covering over top. And so if the ceramic cracks for any reason or gets scratched in any way, then you're immediately getting aluminum leaching into your food, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid here by getting non-toxic cookware. And ceramic, historically is very safe to use. You know, we have plates and bowls and things that are ceramic, and so they're really great to use and they're super safe. But also like with cooking, you know, ceramic is not completely unbreakable, and so if it breaks or if it cracks or scratches, then you're stuck with whatever's underneath getting into your food. Now, if the bottom layer is cast iron, then by all means, that's probably great, but I haven't found that yet. So, um. Yeah, maybe something to create in a future business plan. Who knows?
Katie:ceramic itself is actually very safe and non-toxic, but just like you said, if it's a ceramic coated pan, the moment that it chips and you, whatever's underneath it is exposed, which oftentimes it is some kind of aluminum or other metal that is not good, then they're, those pans are basically useless. And so, yeah, same thing. We considered doing caraway, but I, my friend actually got caraway pans and hers chipped pretty quickly after she got them, like within a few months. And I was like, uh, if I'm gonna spend that much money on pans, I want to make sure that they're gonna last long and that I, I don't have to be super delicate and gentle.'cause like with my cast irons, they can take a beating and they are fine afterwards, but it's, yeah, the caraway ones, I'm like, mm-hmm.
Chrissy:That was one of the things that I saw in the Facebook, Facebook group chats that multiple people reported with the caraway pans was them chipping within three months, and that was really concerning to me. I'm not gonna spend$500 on a new set of pots and pans only for it to last me three months, so.
Katie:Um, let's just touch on a few other materials that are good in the kitchen and then we'll briefly just go over where we can, like how we can find these things for the, like in the most affordable way. Some of the other materials that are just kind of safe in general for any kind of cook stuff. You know, stainless steel is pots and pans. Even your cookware or your bakeware. If you find stainless steel bakeware, you can use glass a lot of times in the oven. So Pyrex is a really great brand for. Uh, loaf pans. We use ours for loaf pans. I also have just a traditional like kind of tray that we put baked items in. So like sometimes if I do potatoes or other veggies in the oven, I'll put them in a glass Pyrex that we have a hundred percent silicone, like we mentioned.
Chrissy:Max, and I love our 9 by 13 Pyrex for making brownies.
Katie:Yes.
Chrissy:I feel like that's something that cooks the desserts very, very well all the way through. So Pyrex for desserts, 10 outta 10 would recommend.
Katie:I also love that Pyrex, a lot of their dishes come with snap-on lids to them. They often are plastic, which you just don't want to you. You typically wanna hand wash them, so they don't like degrade quickly over time, but you also just don't really want them touching your food as much. But the lids are really great. We have a few that, yeah, when you're making brownies or a casserole or something, you just bake it, put the lid on it, easy for leftovers or bringing other places. So that's a really great option. A hundred percent silicone. Again, like we mentioned, if you're doing silicone in the kitchen, just make sure it is a hundred percent. This is really great for kids items that we have found because they make so many kids. Stuff like plates and bibs and silverware and cups and everything. They make'em all from plastic, so that was a big one that we actually had to switch was our kids stuff. And so we did switch to silicone. The other option for kids would probably be stainless steel. I've heard a lot of people really enjoy stainless steel for kids stuff, but Malachi right now likes to throw all of his kitchen things, and I just cannot imagine a stainless steel plate hitting the floor all the time. That would just be so noisy and so obnoxious. And so we decided to go with silicone for his stuff. Another material that is good and safe in the kitchen and is non-toxic is wood, and that's typically you wanna use wood for your cutting boards or for your mixing like your utensils, so your spoons and spatulas and stuff. That's good in wood.
Chrissy:One thing to be aware of with wood though, is a lot of them are coated with some sort of a lacquer or something like that. So you wanna make sure it's coated with something that's natural, like a mineral oil or like a tallow or something. If it's coated with anything that says lacquer in it, I would stay away from that. That's not very good to have. There is one thing on Amazon that I was looking at it, and it's like if you search for, uh, non-toxic cooking utensils on Amazon, it's one of the first things that comes up. And this bamboo cooking utensil set is coated with a quote unquote natural cotton lacquer. And I don't know what that is, but I think I'm gonna try to stay away from that one because it says the word lacquer, even though it's made from a natural cotton, essentially, I haven't been able to find out exactly how it's made. And so because the. Website is not clear on how they make this natural cotton lacquer. I'm gonna say it's probably not as safe as they are claiming it to be. Um, that's another thing. If you're looking for something. That you think is going to be non-toxic and you are trying to figure out how they make it in order to understand its toxicity and you can't find that sort of information, then it's probably not as non-toxic as they are claiming, because they're probably trying to hide how they make that item. So that's just another thing to keep in mind.
Katie:Definitely, yeah. Wood can be hard. You do need to take good care of your cutting boards and things. This is something I actually learned recently is that you want to, uh, like oil them. Pretty regularly because especially with bamboo boards, they eventually get really dry. You think? I mean, just wood in general. The, the reason why your tables around your house have this nice shine to it is because they are coated with chemicals to protect the wood over time from just disintegrating. If you leave wood out in nature, it will eventually break down and turn into dust. But with your cookware, it doesn't have that protective coating like your tables would, and so you need to oil it regularly. I learned this because our cutting boards just got so dried up and almost like wanted to like splinter and everything. So we, we got this oil to then. Keep them good over time. I can link to the one that we got because I did do some research on like there's specific oils that you want and that you want them to, those to be non-toxic and organic and everything. So
Chrissy:I am actually very sad about some of our wood cutting boards. So my husband's aunt makes cutting boards out of wood and like that's one of her side gigs. And so she made us some handmade cutting boards for our wedding as a wedding gift. And at the beginning of our marriage, we were really, really good at taking care of them. We would rub them down with beeswax after using them, and it was really helpful in keeping them nice and moisturized. So they didn't splinter or anything like that, but unfortunately we had not been very good about that recently. And one of them splintered like halfway down the cutting board, which made me so sad. There's just like this giant crack now in the middle of it, and I am like thinking of ways that we could potentially fix it Then, I'm also thinking of like non-toxic ways to fix it. I am gonna be cutting food on it, you know, so wood glue is not ideal. But yeah, so definitely if you get some of those wooden utensils or wooden cutting boards, just make sure you keep them moisturized with some sort of mineral oil or beeswax or something else tallow that's good for them to keep them lasting longer so that you don't have to just continue buying cutting boards.
Katie:So if you're gonna do ceramic, look for a hundred percent. Same thing with enamel. I've heard enamel, it can be really good as long as you find a good quality enamel, pot or pan or something like that. So I don't know exactly what that means, if it's go a good quality because I have not researched into it enough. But if you're gonna do that, do some research to find out and maybe let us know because I'm kind of curious what is, what is good when it comes to enamel. Yep.
Actually, you know, I just remembered. the one thing that we do have in our kitchen that is
Katie:enamel,
Um, is actually our Dutch oven. It's actually
Katie:enamel,
Coated cast iron. Um, and so I actually use this, I, I primarily use it for baking bread, but I've actually, I've used it for like making soups and stock. Um, and because it is cast iron. Like it, it has cast iron in the center and it's just coated. You actually can use it on the stove.
Katie:But you can put things in the oven with them. You can actually use them as like a baking vessel. So I've heard that it's a really great place to cook like a whole chicken. So if you're like trying to roast a whole chicken, you can put it into a Dutch oven,
Chrissy:What brand is your Dutch oven?
Katie:It is Sir La Table
Chrissy:Love Sir La Table
Katie:Yeah, I, I kind of inherited it slash stole it from my mother-in-law. Shout out to Pam. Thank you very much. Um, it was in her kitchen and I was getting into baking sourdough bread many years ago and you typically need a Dutch oven for that. And she had it and wasn't using it, and it was in the back of her pots and pans and I was like, can I just borrow this for a little bit and see if I like it? And she's like, just take it. I think I've used it one time and she got it like early in their marriage or something. So now it is mine. Thank you Pam, very much for that. I love it. And I actually, we were trying to find it in all of our boxes in our storage right now, like our storage unit. Because I don't have it at the moment. Um, and we have not been able to find it in all of our boxes, and I'm really kind of bummed. But there's, there's other ways to bake bread and to do other things. I just really enjoy my Dutch oven. It's just kind of a bummer that I don't have it, but just gotta wait. Gotta be patient. But let's jump into really quick before we end this episode. Where are you finding your pots and pans, Chrissy?'cause as we've mentioned a few times, when you're looking for these types of things, they're going to last a long time. If you invest in a good set of pots and pans and bakeware, and spatulas and cutting boards and all the things, they're going to last a long time. If you get the good quality stuff, but it's so expensive, what are you doing to make this more affordable? Is it just unavoidable that you have to just bite the bullet and buy something really expensive? What are your tips, Chrissy?
Chrissy:So two things. First thing, don't buy it all at once. You can do one pot a month or one pan a month kind of thing, and then months later, boom, you've replaced your entire collection. And so I would recommend that strategy. If you're one of those people who's super hesitant about secondhand items by buy one pot a month, I know in the end that probably you end up spending a little bit more money if you buy each pot or. Pan individually instead of just one huge collection. But that is one way that you could get them slowly but surely over time. A second method is you could just save money. You know, if you plan for it, you save for it. Dropping$500 on a very high quality cookware set is not a bad financial decision. You just have to plan for it and create space in your budget in order to do that. Um, the method that Max and I are doing is Facebook Marketplace because we don't really mind secondhand items, especially with cookware. I'm like, you can wash it and it's good. So Facebook Marketplace for sure, probably thrift stores also, although I have to find some good thrift stores because there are not many good ones near me. But thrift stores definitely have some good options. Um, grandma's kitchen, IE your own grandmother who maybe doesn't use her cast iron or stainless steel anymore. Um, grandma's are always a great place to get hand me down cookware, especially if she doesn't use it anymore. So see if you can, get any of your cookware off of your grandparents or your parents, because I'm sure parents. And grandparents just love giving their old stuff to their grandkids and to their kids in general. So those are some places that I would recommend. What about you, Katie? I.
Katie:Well, yeah. One of my favorite things is to buy things secondhand. I love Facebook Marketplace and I actually will set up little notifications on Facebook Marketplace for certain items that I'm looking for, such as like All Clad stainless steel pots and pans. So we did buy a handful of them from Facebook Marketplace. The other thing that I recommend checking out if you are really wanting to invest in the kind of more expensive, high quality items, such as all clad, is to look into their factory seconds. A lot of companies offer what are called factory seconds, and it's kind of exactly what it sounds like. It's anything that came outta their factory and didn't make kind of the top quality checks for being sold to customers at traditional prices. So these are their products that might have some scratches or dents or discolorations or the branding like logo on the pot or Pan is not centered, or basically they're just not a hundred percent perfect, but they're still a hundred percent usable. But what that means for you and I is that they sell them at lower prices. Now, you're still going to be paying probably hundreds of dollars for these pots or pans because again, they're still really, really good, but you're going to get a pretty decent discount for them. So for something like All Clad, you can look up all clad Factory seconds. I believe that Lodge, the cast iron company also does factory seconds, but a lot of these big name companies do offer them. Or on their website, they might have like a page where it says like. Some sort of like seconds or discounted prices. So it's just going to not be a hundred percent perfect. So if you're okay with that, then definitely check that out. It might be a really great way to save maybe a hundred bucks on your next set of cookware. So let us know if it works out for you. I will actually add a link where I kind of go a little bit more in depth on this, on a blog article that I wrote a long time ago actually, um, on finding factory seconds. So you can do that for anything for, from cookware to clothing items. So definitely look for those kinds of deals. have anything else you wanna add, Chrissy, before we sign off today?
Chrissy:Nope. Should I? No.
Katie:No, unless you wanna give us some words of wisdom.
Chrissy:Words of wisdom. Make sure you buy boxes when you're moving, even if you're just moving 10 minutes down the road. Just going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It's really annoying. Just buy boxes. Don't be cheap. It's not wise. It.
Katie:Well, hey, I, I'm gonna add a bit onto that. Don't buy boxes. You should go find them used. Actually, I talk about this in a YouTube video about our move. We just moved also across country and we did not actually buy a single box, but we had probably a hundred or so boxes because we posted on our Facebook page asking for boxes from our friends and family. And we also just looked on Facebook Marketplace. People get rid of boxes for free all the time, Chrissy. So no excuses.
Chrissy:You know, one of my patients tried to pawn 15 bins off on me, but then it flooded and her son was unable to get the bins from her house because her street flooded literally the day before I was supposed to move. So I almost had 15 free bins, but then I didn't. So that's unfortunate. Maybe another time. Next move. Next move. Okay.
Katie:Good words of wisdom. All right. Why don't you sign us off?
Chrissy:Thank you guys for tuning into our conversation today about cookware and good and bad things to look out for with cookware. Make sure you subscribe and join us over on our Facebook group, Crunchy Christian Mamas on a budget where we will be continuing this conversation. We would love to hear from you and hear what resonated with you, what kind of cookware works best for you and what doesn't, and we will see you next time. Until then, this is Chrissy.
Katie:And this is Katie.
Chrissy:And thanks for listening to Crunchy Stewardship. Bye.