subject: Usage Notes On Stainless Steel Cookware [print this page] Stainless steel is made from iron, chromium and nickel alloy mixed with trace elements such as molybdenum, titanium and so on. Stainless steel cookware is getting widely used. It has some advantages of metal and it's resistant to corrosion. However, incorrect use of stainless steel cookware may do harm to our health. Thus, it's important to know how to use them in right ways.
Do not store high acid and alkaline food with stainless steel cookware. Such kind of food include salt, soy sauce, soups and acid juice, etc. The electrolytes in such food and metal elements in steel stainless steel dinnerware can make complex "electrochemical reactions", which cause some metal elements dissolve and accumulate in human bodies.
Do not use stainless steel dinnerware with aluminium cookware. If put them together, the latter is likely to get damaged because of hardness distinction. What's more, aluminum and iron can form a "chemical battery" with some elements in food as electrolyte, such as salt, acid etc. It will make much aluminium mix with food and result in "aluminium toxicity" which cause intelligence drops, memory decline and dementia, etc.
3. Do not clean stainless steel cookware with detergent made from strong alkali and oxidant, such as buck, soda and bleach, etc. These detergent will also cause electrochemical reaction with some elements of the cookware and make some harmful elements dissolve.
Avoid high heat for cooking. With low thermal conductivity, stainless steel tend to cool down slowly when warmed up. Thus, the bottom part of stainless steel cookware is likely to get burnt and charred.
5. Do not buy unqualified stainless steel cookware. Such products are always made from cheap and nasty materials containing a variety of heavy metal elements, lead, aluminium, mercury and cadmium in particular, which is quite harmful to human health.
Stainless steel cookware can be a good cooking assistant if it's used in right ways. After all, it has many advantages that other cookware don't have.
