Mmmm, what’s for breakfast?
Lunch? Dinner? What about snacks?
How many times a day do you use your cookware? And how certain are you that what you’re cooking in isn’t leaching chemicals into your food?
Our friend Miriam wasn’t sure—and it came to her in a dream. She had experienced gestational diabetes during the pregnancy with her first son, and had been praying for answers—she was eating right and taking care of her body but the diabetes wasn’t going away—and just after he was born, she dreamt about making food in clay pots.
Now, we’re in Berkeley, California, so when someone tells us that they had a dream and googled about it, it’s just another day, but Miriam didn’t just google her dreams. She turned them into a reality.
You see, what started as a small inquiry into clay pots turned into a mission to bring clay pot cooking to this country. After her initial research turned up chemicals in cookware, we tested her own cookware with the alkaline baking soda test and didn’t love what she tasted.
Miriam travelled the world looking for communities that use clay cookware as their standard, started taking pottery classes, and scoured the country for a source for high quality, pure clay. After years of study, hard work, and dedication to the cause, Miriam’s Clay Pots was born.
Our Top 3 Reasons to Use Clay Pots
Miriam has a whole slew of reasons the clay pot is the way to go, and you can read about those here but these are the top 3 reasons that really sold us on this We Heart.
Keep Your Food Pure
We all know about the dangers of teflon and plastic-coated pots but what about our stainless steel? The cast iron? Well, they’re better but when it comes down to it—they’re metal—and the innate characteristic of all metals is that they’re reactive. Food is a biochemical and heat is a catalyst—hello metal ions in our organs. Cooking in pure clay pot totally removes those metals from the equation.
Water Soluble Nutrients
This is a big one, folks. We go through all the trouble to get the best sourced, most organic ingredients we can, we steam and saute them to perfection—they taste so delicious—and we think that we’re getting all the vitamins and minerals there… but we not. Not if our pans are metal.
A lot of our nutrients, like vitamins B and C, are water-soluble. That means they dissolve in water and need water to be transported. Well, the steam that escapes your metal pot has those nutrients in it because there is nowhere for them to go.
These clay pots solve that problem. They are specifically designed to collect, condense, and re-incorporate the nutrient dense steam—this also keeps your food moist, aides in cooking, and makes the flavor so much better.
Food Stays Warmer Longer
Unlike metal, clay holds heat. You can expect your food to stay warm for a couple of hours while you take your time with the second helping…or the third.
The Benefits of Miriam’s Clay Pots
- Their ethically-crafted, pure-clay cookware contains no additives whatsoever.
- The porous nature of Miriams Earthen Cookware ensures an optimum heat level that will keep all the nutritional goodness of your food intact.
- You can cook food in the same amount of time—and with half the energy.
- The specific design makes it possible to use it for many different recipes, from making yogurts to baking and roasting in the oven.
- Oh, and it’s no-glaze, clay finishing makes it naturally non-stick in just a few uses (which makes cooking and cleanup a breeze!).
Hi,
Are you able to sauté and boil in them?
Yes! Absolutely. Here is a page on their site about use & care: https://miriamsearthencookware.com/how-to-clay-pot-cooking/
I second this review. I’ve been using Miriam’s Earthen Cookware for over a year. Don’t be scared away by the seasoning, it’s fun. Care and maintenance for MEC is waaaay easier than cast-iron (what I was using previously). As a bonus, if you buy your beautiful clay pots with the links above, you’re supporting Annmarie!
Can I just say that it’s awesome that MEC is eco-friendly, health conscious, woman founded/owner and made in the USA. Their pots work great. We should all be supporting businesses like them.
Organic when possible√ NonGMO√ Avoid microwaves√ No Teflon√… Healthy cookware? I never thought of it! I thought I had it all covered. Miriam’s Earthen Cookware, based on all the research I did is not only at the top of their game, but seriously, try your favorite soup and yogurt recipe in their pots… It’s so much tastier!
I do not but am interested in a more natural and cleanest way to cook! I am also wanting to give up my microwave so I am looking seriously into Miriam’s Clay Pots!
As the clay pots are porous is it therefore possible that nutrients can be lost and absorbed into pots?
Hi there! The nutrients from your food are actually more likely to be retained because there are nutrients and micro-nutrients in the clay already and nothing that will leach nutrients out of the foods when heated 🙂