In the kitchen

The kitchen is full of gadgets that make life easier, but we must be conscientious of the materials we are exposing our food, and ultimately our bodies to. Plastics leach endocrine disrupters and many cooking surfaces release heavy metals and chemicals that are known to bioaccumulate in the body.

Glass and stainless steel are best whenever available, but even these materials must be high grade, from trusted sources, in order to avoid hidden harmful materials. Find some of my favorite kitchen goodies here.

360 Cookware

I’ve done a lot of research and experimenting with cookware. At one time, I was really into cast iron cookware, but quickly learned the hazards of ingesting iron from cookware, and then learned that many brands have abnormally high levels of cadmium in their cookware. Then I jumped on the Le Creuset bandwagon and sadly discovered that when the glaze surface gets scratched (which is inevitable if you have a man cooking in your kitchen 😏) lead leaches from the damaged glaze. Another brand I have used is Xtrema ceramic cookware. I do love ceramic cookware, but again, there is the risk of damaged glaze releasing lead into the food and testing has confirmed lead in this brand as well. So it seems that no ceramic brands are truly lead-free unless they are brand-new and unharmed by utensils and wear.

I decided to look for the cleanest stainless steel I could find. With cookware it appears that we have to choose the lesser of the evils. Everything I read reiterated that buying stainless steel brands made in the USA is the best way to ensure safer levels of metals. I love that 360 Cookware also offers stainless steel bake ware, which is really rare. They also carry very high quality flatware sets.

All-Clad is another USA-manufactured brand with high quality, full-ply stainless steel options, but keep in mind that they also carry other, cheaper collections , some even with toxic non-stick surfaces. 10% of their products are made in other countries, including China, so just be sure to research the collections fully before deciding on one.

Unfortunately, in the case of cookware, you get what you pay for and cheaper collections are usually the result of cheaper materials.

Corelle dish set

It is very important to avoid patterns on your dishes. Sadly, patterns are painted on and then glazed over with lead-containing glazes. Every test done by the LeadSafe Mama on dishes with painted patterns (and most brands in general), show lead being used in the glaze. Corelle’s white dishes repeatedly come back clean.

I will caution you though, the mugs are NOT safe so check out the glass mugs I posted below.

Pyrex Storage containers

This set has a nice variety of different sizes. Heat, reheat, store and refrigerate in these glass containers. The lids make them so easy to use! We love to save on energy and reheat food in the toaster oven and the small rectangular pieces to this set are perfect for that.

Pyrex baking casserole dishes

Everything comes out perfect in a glass baking dish. There are no glazes or metals to worry about, and who doesn’t love that you can pop on a lid and shove it in the fridge, as is. Pull it out when it’s time to reheat, pop off the lid and stick it in the oven. Easy peasy and…err safe. That doesn’t rhyme.

Borosilicate mugs

A nice hot cup of Joe…and some lead? Ceramics and glazes are notorious for being full of lead. Add that nice hot beverage and now you are drinking leached-lead-coffee. 😳

These are my favorite mugs. They are nice and big at 20oz! You can also get them in 16oz. I don’t like a wimpy cup of tea or coffee, this does the job.

French Press

There is nothing like an organic cup of coffee made in a beautiful glass French Press! You can make one or more cups at a time and there are no plastic pieces or hoses to get mucked up with sludge that can’t be cleaned out. The simple design makes it easy to put your coffee grounds into the press for just the right amount of coffee, pour in some hot water, wait a few minutes, press and pour! Couldn’t be easier, or safer.

Life Factory travel Water bottles and more

If you are on the go and need a safe travel water bottle or to-go food containers, Life Factory has a variety of options made with high-quality European and North American glass and non-slip protective silicone sleeves that are dishwasher safe.

Tap water is full of all kinds of contaminants so a good habit to develop is to filter your water at home and carry water with you. When you eat out and drink the table water, you are usually drinking tap water which typically also includes fluoride. Be prepared with your own water from bottles that don’t add to the growing landfill of plastic containers.

Glass travel mug

I love a glass travel mug! Plastic variations, even labeled as BPA-free, just aren’t reassuring enough for me. I’ve had them, I’ve used them, but I prefer not to when there is a safer alternative, especially when it comes to hot beverages. I’ve seen studies suggesting that even BPA-free plastics are leaching chemicals into our foods, so when in doubt, toss it out!

InstantPot

If you are part of any Facebook groups, you’ve heard of an InstantPot, but have you experienced the ease and speed of using one yet? It’s life changing! There is a small learning curve, but don’t let that stop you. A few YouTube tutorials or help from a friend and you’ll be on your way to 90 minute ribs, 30 minute stews and 5 minute hardboiled eggs!

Blendtec Blender

There isn’t a week that goes by that we don’t use our Blendtec at least three to four times! With a restricted diet, we have to make a lot of custom meals for the kids. In particular, we make a lot of unique pancakes and “wraps” using ingredients like soaked black eyed peas and sprouted mung beans. We also blend our batter for the banana pancakes we make. The kids love making banana ice cream with the Blendtec and the Cuisinart ice cream maker. It only takes 20 minutes to make ice cream or sorbet!

We’ve never met an ingredient that our Blendtec couldn’t handle, including an avocado pit!!

On the Blendtec website, this blender is currently discounted at $387, Amazon has it for over $100 cheaper, yet it still comes from Blendtec directly!

Tribest glass personal blender

If you have to blend anything hot or warm, you don’t want plastic components touching your food or beverage. I love this blender for making camel milk, white cocoa lattes for the kids and bulletproof coffee for the adults. I wish this was around when I was making baby food in small batches! The handy little lids are great for on the go too.

The stainless steel blade assembly and tempered glass containers ensure that there is zero food contact with plastic. There is zero worry about any plasticizers or harmful chemicals leaching into your favorite recipe while you store it or take it with you.

Water filtration

You are exposed to your tap water daily, multiple times a day. It goes in and on your body and whatever is lurking in that water, whether it’s city or well water, is hitching a ride into your body! Learn about the many chemicals found in drinking water here.

There are a few ways you can go with this. You can filter your whole house with a basic whole house filtration device and then you can kick up the filtration at your drinking water either under the sink or using a pitcher or gravity filtration tank and then use inexpensive shower filter shower heads. Or you can invest in a more thorough whole house filtration system that will do it all, filtering drinking and showering water all in one.

At our beach house, we use a ProPur gravity filtration tank for our drinking and cooking water and their showered filter for our showers. At our primary home, we use a generic whole house filter, then we also filter our drinking water and freezer ice cub maker water with a separate system by AquaLiv.

Nourished Essentials

Nourished Essentials has created brilliant lids that turn your mason jars into low oxygen fermentation jars and oxygen tight storage jars. With customizable multi-purpose mason jar configurations you can use one mason jar to ferment, infuse, store, vacuum seal, serve or pour!

Stainless steel straws

Plastic straws are a detriment to the planet and there is no way to know what plastic they are made from, because they generally aren’t labeled.

Reusable straws can replace plastic use and you can carry them in a purse with you for the kiddos!

If you are going to use plastic straws, please recycle them yourself. You know the restaurants aren’t taking time to do that with every table they clean up!