Cutting out chemicals

Yuck! One thing I like about living where I do is that most food can still be bought "as is" without a load of packaging. I get meat from the butcher, veggies from the greengrocer etc.

Quick question... I'm in the process of buying new pots and pans. My old ones are like peeling into the food.. What type of material is safest for pots and pans???

I would definitely say give those non stick (teflon) pan's etc a big fat miss. I'm totally brassed off about this cuz I LOVE my toasted sandwich maker and yeah, its teflon. :-(.  Now, I only want to use stainless steel or cast iron. I'm pretty sure you can get sandwich makers that are steel. Will have to look into this. Ive ditched my aluminum pots etc as well. I also freeze quite a lot of stuff in glass, but you have to take care with that. Ideally Im looking for stainless containers to freeze certain things. I know you can buy plastic thats BPA free.

Heres some more I try to do -

Ditch as many plastic utensils as possible, especially those used in hot food like those black "plasticy" ladles, and the like.

If you have to use plastic dont scratch or heat it.

I rarely use my microwave anymore. Someone said microwaving alters the molecules in the food, scientific facts aside, I have no trouble believing that.

Don't eat margarine. Someone said it was "one molecule away from being plastic" I dont believe everything I hear, but I believe this for the taste alone.

Only on the rarest occasions do I eat out. I much prefer cooking things I know where they've come from, what surface theyve touched, and so on.  You don't know what they put in it,  or their how clean they are behind closed doors.  (I LOVE chinese cooking BUT you cant trust them NOT to lace everything with MSG.) 

I have ditched cooking oils as many of them they go through some really horrendous processing plus they're likely to be GMO. I love olive oil but there are a lot of bogus claims here that its pure virgin, and its not. A lot of it is pure junk. Now I use good ol lard.

With the exception of carefully selected bacon, if I have to buy meat I NEVER NEVER buy it "doctored up" ie, marinade steak, or crumbed chops, ( I bluntly call it, one stink to hide another) This also includes corned beef and other processing with a high sodium content.

There's still much room for improvement, like not buying processed cheese. Haven't managed that one yet. 

mary I never heard of keurig, but did a quick look here... this may tell you more

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/kcups-recyclable-79359.html

Momine reckon youre right about those plastic cutting boards. They ARE unhygienic. I have one and Im gonna do what I know I shouldve done ages ago. TOSS IT!! Ive got a nice glass chopping board but its not so kind on a knifes edge, but VERY hygienic. I like cutting on board the best, but that is porous and can be unhygienic too unless you scrub and clean well.

Hi there, i am  saving up to buy some  that stoneware cookery and as far as oils and fats go,  because of diabetes, i buy the blue coconut oil, its  in  a tub, in nz you can get at bin in or paknsave, but is its pure and since  i have had that  my coletsreol had dropped. the docs said, what ever i am doing, keep doing it, have cut butter right down, i use the cocount oil as butter on my toast, its a solid mixture, til its hot  weather and melts and i just  put in fridge for abit, its good for diabetes and the brain, Alzimers etc. my brother in law has mild dementia and has already improved. anyway excuse me butting in here, i was  just reading posts and saw about cooking oils and thought some  maybe interested in the coconut oil.

p/s I also use coconut oil  as  a frying agent, eggs, bacon, chips etc.

Hey,

Is there a reason why you think glass boards don't sound good abigail? The one I've got, is especially made as a cutting board, so it's not like I'm using an old glass window pane or something . I've had it possibly 10yrs or so. Im taking it, it is "hardened glass". Is that what you mean by "oven proof" cookware?

Glad to help Fallleaves. Thx for starting this thread. Ive been trying to find out if there is a special glass that allows you to freeze things. Meantime, as I said I exercise extreme care. Make sure I dont knock the jars while theyre in freezer, and when defrosting, stand it on wood, not stainless steel bench. If we really delve into all this, it's a case of how deep is the rabbit hole? The list goes on and on and on, with how many toxic chemicals there are around us. Processed food is a real shocker. Heres a few more things Ive done (hope I havent repeated myself) :

I've gone back to as many natural things as possible, like what we were brought up with on the farm, butter, natural milk etc. Never did like margarine anyway and if people only knew all that goes into processing it theyd have a blue fit. 

I was sick of the watered down supermarket rubbish they call milk years ago. With the exception of a very limited supply of full cream milk (if its still an option, that is), Im fairly sure all our NZ  milk now is DECONSTRUCTED and powdered and made up again as so called ordinary milk (no cream taken out but still processed) or "calci trim" or other so-called slimming varieties. That all involves a process called extrusion which people like Sally Fallon (sp?) say introduces toxins into the food. Breakfast cereals that are flaked or puffed, are typically said to go through this same extrusion process. I haven't managed to completely get this out of my diet YET.

I also get our own free-range chemical free eggs. (YUM) We feed our chooks products that DONT include soy and that is sure a challenge to find stock feed without it. The feed is made up of NZ grown wheat, hammermill maize and barley. Thankfully we are in a favourable position to easily obtain this.

I source free-range hormone-free antibiotic-free chickens for eating, in a nearby area. They're fed from locally grown maize Not GMO. Theyre more expensive but at least theyre not pumped full of soy like the generic supermarket ones are. I read on the label 89% chicken!!!! What? When you read the very small print its there again. Danged soy... and even if I believed it was harmless, bar a few % its all GM here. PASS. 

Ive never thought of using coconut oil for cooking. I must stir myself into action on this one and try it.

skim has most protein where the bad stuff is, (in milk), glass?  I dunno, If they dull the knives (not good) & maybe means glass is coming loose. wish I had more "pyrex" for storing food

coconut oil is pure, it is natural and has no additives,  and  has certain attributes the body needs. has no colesterol and mine has dropped, what you buy is what you get, the wholesome product, it is good for the brain, people with memory problems are noticing a difference who have it .  The doctors told me, whatever i am doing, keep doing it as  my colestreol dropped from 7.5 to 6.1. and i dont take statins,  that pill has more side effects than you  care to believe. so i believe in coconut oil, straight off the tree and gets processed. shelled and put into containers.it does not need to go in fridge but that is optional.

Midnight unless you go through it reasonably quickly, it pays to remember coconut oil does have a shelf life. Ive known about it for decades, but only as a skin moisturizer. I had a VERY old jar of it and to be expected, when I lifted the lid, the small bit left was as rank as. Then recently I ended up with a 1 litre container of it from my Mum. It says on the container "organic". If all coconut oil is pure and has no chemicals then a claim to be organic would be unnecessary, or worse, just a sales pitch. Does yours claim to be organic? I don't know whether they spray the coconut trees or what. In any event, its wise to store it out of light. I have mine in a dark coolish cupboard. Storing in the fridge makes sense to me and I think I'll do that.

abigail, reasonable deduction, though I think it's not the glass giving way, but the knifes edge. Pick your poison... ingest minute steel fragments or minute glass fragments. As such, I won't be using it as a serious knifing board. I do use it to freeze things on which I need to keep flat or in shape. Pyrex is wonderful but it is very heavy and so is the price. Oh for some stainless steel containers, like 2 litres and NO plastic lids. Id love some for freezing extra milk when we get it .

wyo twas me.  Good on you for being vigilant. It's buyer beware. Read labels (if you can... that is, don't forget to tote your microscope to the supermarket) Just because something says organic, it may not necessarily be so. In NZ, what holds more clout are the words  "certified organic" with an accompanying insignia.

 For anyone with hens, see if you can source organic wheat, maize, barley, or at least NON GMO. You can also compliment their food by recycling your leftovers. Hens love love LOVE scraps like cooked up potato peels, carrots and pumpkin skins. They LOVE greens raw or cooked like silver beet and spinach. Ours are free-range so get bugs and what not from the pasture which is protein MINUS the excess baggage. Just as an aside, I was FURIOUS with myself the other night, (I'm super paranoid about chicken) and I left a leftover 1/2 chicken in the microwave to cool off so those little beelzebub's (flies) kept away....yeah you guessed it, I forgot until the next morning. Couldn't risk it, and tossed it.

I have a cast iron pan and its brilliant. Things just don't stick. I find I need to keep it lightly oiled if not in use otherwise it will rust but I use it so often thats rare. 

Musical, thanks for the links. Thing is that the only fat we use in the house is olive oil. According to the links, olive oil also provides many benefits, including on cholesterol, so I remain a bit confused as to why I should chuck my olive oil. We have never eaten margarine. I did use butter occasionally in the past as well  as some veggie oil, safflower for example, once in a while, but I have stopped doing that, especially since I do not bake cakes and things anymore.

it just says 100% blue coconut oil. but my sister says its the organic one. she researches stuff like this all the time, her husband  who has mild dementia, also has a  kidney failure,  they leak protine al the time,  the count was up again, she  gets blue berry jiuce, its a good help and the coconut oil helps to and he has cinimon, and all these nuts, and  this other stuff called tumerick, they into the health food, but his kidneys are a problem. the pills the doc want to put him on, have bad side effects and apparently can work in reverse and cause the problem he is trying to get rid of, quite useless really. anyway  hugs to all.

Musical, no worries, I didn't take it that way. I am just wondering. The info on the page seemed to say that the main downside to olive oil is that the specific kind of fatty acids can promote fat formation.

Most of the stuff I have seen discussing fats seems aimed at getting people away from margarine, animal fats and processed veggie oils. But in all these comparisons and discussions, olive oil seems to be one of the "good" oils along with coconut oil. The other caveat I have seen about olive oil, and that you also brought up, is the quality of the oil. This makes total sense, especially if you are in the US. Since I live in Greece, I am close to the source, and the stuff we get is from my cab driver's eco farm in Crete.

mommyathome - i read ceramic cookware is the best. this is the blog i read...

http://wellnessmama.com/5148/what-are-the-safest-cookware-options/