Is Hard Anodized Cookware Safe for Everyday Cooking?

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Hard anodized aluminum is now widely used to make cookware. But if you are new to use the anodized cookware for the first time, you may want to know hard anodized cookware safe for everyday cooking?

Yes, anodized aluminum cookware is safe for your everyday cooking. Meanwhile, the ordinary aluminum is sometimes reactive with the foods that are acidic and make the foods poisonous.

But hard anodized cookware is right for your health and also durable. So, without any hesitation, you can use hard anodized cookware.

What Is Hard Anodized Cookware?

Now hard anodized cookware is very much popular worldwide. The causes are that they are very much durable, lightweight, and less expensive than other cookware. Besides, the hard-anodized aluminum pots are non-reactive to the food. If aluminum gets hard anodized, it creates a hard thicker aluminum oxide layer.

Thus aluminum cookware becomes more durable and non-toxic to acidic food. So, to make aluminum cookware more durable and safe for us, manufacturers do the anodization process. The thick hard anodized layer is non-stick and also hard.

However, a hard-anodized aluminum pot is 30% hard than a steel pot. When a hard anodization process takes place in the acid bath, a chemical reaction takes place. As a result, aluminum gets oxidize and becomes aluminum oxide. So, hard anodized cookware has a smooth surface and non-porous.

Is Hard Anodized Cookware Safe

Pros And Cons Of Hard Anodized Cookware:

As hard anodized cookware is non-stick and durable, people like it much. You will find any cooking utensils of anodized aluminum. Before going to have this cookware, it is a good idea to know the pros and cons of hard-anodized cookware.

Pros:

You can consider hard-anodized aluminum cookware better than some other cookware types. Because of some unique features, you must like it.

  • Durable and harder: Hard anodized aluminum cookware is hard and durable. The anodizing process makes the cookware stiff and stronger than aluminum. With the anodized utensils, you can make your cooking process easy and faster. So, if you want the cookware, which is durable, long-lasting, and safe, you can take hard anodized cookware.
  • Non-Sticky: Not only long-lasting, hard anodized cookware is non-stick. If the cookware is sticky, it decreases the food taste and seems hard to clean. For this reason, people search for non-stick utensils. And hard-anodized pots and pans are non-sticky.
  • Easy to clean: In the non-stick hard anodized cookware, food does not stick and quickly burn. So, after every time use, you can easily clean them. Besides, if your cookware gets a heavy stain, you can clean it easily with warm water and baking soda.
  • Non-reactive: Most of the acidic foods react with aluminum. So, if you use aluminum cookware, your food can get contaminated. For this reason, it is better to use hard anodized cookware. When aluminum cookware gets anodized, it does not react with your food and keep your food safe for you.
  • Fast Cooking: The hard anodized cookware helps cook food faster. As this type of cookware is non-stick, it produces more heat and fasts your cooking. With the typical pots and pans, you face difficulties to cook. Besides, you need less oil because it does not absorb oil.

Cons:

Though hard anodized cookware has many more advantages, it also has some drawbacks. It is necessary to know them.

  • A little bit expensive: If you compare hard anodized cookware to the aluminum cookware, you will see that the price of the anodized one is higher. It is the cause of its production process. But it is durable than other non-sticks.
  • Washing limitation: Most of the hard-anodized utensils are not suitable for the dishwasher. Some of them come with the label dishwasher safe. But the experts say that it is good for washing by hand for long time use.
  • Not suitable for scratchy or abrasive sponges: Like most of the pans and pots, you cannot use abrasive sponges to remove burnt spots and heavy stains from a hard-anodized pan. Just use a soft sponge-like scotch-brite. Or it will remove the coating of your cookware.
  • Hard to clean a burnt pot: As hard anodized cookware is not detergent-friendly, it seems hard to clean when your pot gets food-burnt. But there are some tricks and tips that are very helpful to remove the burnt spots with less effort.
  • Slightly heavy: Hard-Anodized aluminum cookware goes through a chemical and electrical process; it becomes somewhat heavy with its hard coating. But this heaviness is not a bad thing. If you always use lightweight pots and pans, it seems a little bit heavier to use hard anodized pots. But after several times uses, you can adjust to it.

Is Hard-anodized Aluminum Cookware Safe To Use?

A most common question for anodized cookware is that is hard-anodized aluminum cookware safe to use? We know that aluminum cookware is not suitable for health. But hard-anodized aluminum cookware is not the same.

When aluminum pots get hard anodized, its hard coating prevents the food from contacting with aluminum directly. Thus, your foods are safe when they are cooked in hard-anodized aluminum cookware.

From a study, we learn that if you cook in a simple aluminum pan, 3.5 mg of aluminum will go to your food daily. But aluminum is not suitable for our health.

Besides, when you cook acidic foods in an aluminum pot, the foods can be poisonous by reacting with aluminum. So, to solve this problem, you should use hard anodized cookware for your daily cooking.

Conclusion:

You see that you get more advantages than disadvantages with hard anodized cookware. You can easily use it, cook healthy foods in it, and store it easily. A set of hard-anodized aluminum cookware will last for a long time than the ordinary cookware. The price is reasonable, and the products are excellent. So, to maintain your food quality and easy maintenance of your cookware, you may take your decision to use hard-anodized aluminum cookware.

References: Drweil, TreeHugger

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