The worst cookware and storage containers
lurking in your kitchen to toss out right now. Alright. Why do I want you to throw out
perfectly good kitchenware? And it's certainly not to create
more landfill and waste money. But there are things in your kitchen
you probably use every day that are poisoning you and your family. As you
know, I call them deadly disruptors. And there are numerous deadly disruptors
lurking in your kitchen right now. So these contain, for the most part, compounds
that are called endocrine disruptors, sometimes called estrogen mimetics,
sometimes called hormone disruptors. These are commonly found in
almost all plastics. And we forget, plastics are a relatively new invention. Plastics did not exist until
really after World War 2. And plastics are now so
ubiquitous, they're in everything. Plastics, the vast majority of plastics, we now know
contain these estrogen-disrupting chemicals. And estrogen disruptors do exactly what they say. They mimic hormones and they mimic
hormones in ways that are incredibly detrimental to our child's development, to
our development, to our brain, and we need to get them out of our lives because
quite frankly, we are disrupted. One of the first big offenders is non-stick pans. Now, not all non-stick pans are bad. But most of the pans, the early
non-stick cookware made with Teflon. Teflon is P T F E and is a
known endocrine disruptor. Make sure you never buy nonstick cookware that says Teflon. And you can still
see them lining the store shelves. So put them down. Alternatives are the ceramic
based non-stick cookware. Sometimes they're called diamond cookware. Sometimes they're called
ceramic cookware. In general, these are not using these P T F E compounds. But, you should not feel safe to use
metal utensils with this cookware. You'll see advertisements on TV. This cookware is metal safe. Just don't do that. And I'll get to what utensils
you should use in a second. On the other hand, aluminum pans,
unless they are lined with ceramic, you should throw them away as well. Because
aluminum in itself is toxic to our brain. Aluminum foil, get rid of it. You should never line a
baking pan with aluminum foil. Heat makes that aluminum penetrate
into the foods you eat. Now, can you use aluminum as
a tent when you're baking a roast or something like that or a piece of salmon? Yeah. As long as it doesn't come in contact with the
aluminum foil. Use parchment paper. Parchment paper used to be the way all of us baked and
covered something, it's really easy to find again. Get rid of the aluminum. How about stainless steel cookware? Stainless steel cookware is great. Yes, you're right. It's a pain in the neck to clean if you don't
take some alternatives such as adding olive oil to your pan. And you should be
adding olive oil to your pan anyhow, because remember the only purpose of
food is to get olive oil into your mouth. Plastic storage containers. One of the things I think did
us in was Tupperware parties. Little did we know that these plastic containers
leach endocrine disruptors into our food. There are plenty of now glass containers
that you can use to store food in. And we have a whole pantry
full of glass containers. Plastic bags, plastic bags contain these endocrine disruptors. Instead of
plastic bags, used paper bags. There are now lots of paper lunch
bags on Amazon. When I was a kid, we took paper bags to school and our
sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper. You can still find wax paper and it
makes a great way of wrapping things. Butcher paper is readily available now. We need to get back to things we
used 70 years ago that work just fine. If you must use plastic bags or containers,
please only buy BPA and BPS free plastic. Just seeing BPA free is no longer enough. BPA is a known endocrine disruptor but its
replacements like BPS look to be just as mischievous. And obviously don't
buy your water in plastic containers. Don't buy anything in plastic containers. These things contaminate your
food with endocrine disruptors. Now, throw away your cast iron
pan unless it is ceramic coated. Why? Iron ages us. And the last thing you want is
additional iron in your body. And I can't tell you the number of patients
who are healthily using their seasoned cast iron pan and have elevated iron levels in their
blood when I look at them. And they're shocked. And the first thing I do is have them throw away their cast iron skillet. And remarkably,
their iron levels plummet to normal the next time I see them. Iron ages us. And the last thing you want to
do is introduce additional iron. The same with copper. Copper pans while gorgeous, leach copper into the
food you're eating. And copper has to be very carefully balanced in our body with zinc. And so people who are using copper
pans or similarly have copper piping in old houses are at risk
of actual copper toxicity. So it's an easy thing to avoid, hang your copper pans on the wall and admire
them, but please don't cook with them. How about utensils? I personally use wood utensils. I have drawers and drawers
full of wood utensils. Wood luckily can't break through
the linings of ceramic pans. Some of these plastic
liners, metal absolutely can. If you're gonna use metal,
look for the stainless steel. The last thing you want to
use is plastic utensils. That plastic, particularly if you're cooking
with them, is gonna leach into the food and you're going to eat endocrine disruptors,
which I assure you, you don't want to do. Finally. And this is something I think
all of us should be aware of. All of us love convenience. And there's
nothing easier than coming home from work, stopping by a store, and buying some
packaged pre-washed salad greens. I mean, what could be better? It's been washed for you. It's been double washed. But recently I decided to do an experiment. Some of you may remember my experiment with Costco
strawberries versus the farmers market years ago. And I bought a big package of Costco organic
strawberries and I bought some organic strawberries simultaneously at the Santa Barbara
Farmers Market. And I put them in the refrigerator. After about three days, the farmers' market,
organic strawberries were covered with mold. The Costco strawberries sat there
in my refrigerator for a month looking as pristine as the day I bought them. Now that makes me wonder, if
a self-respecting fungus or mold wouldn't want to eat those strawberries, What the heck was on them that prevented that from happening? So just this past few weeks, I've done an
experiment with prepackaged salad mixing. And I've done them in bags and I've done them in plastic
containers. And I've put them in my refrigerator, now going on 2 1/2, we're about to finish 3 weeks. And all of those packages look as
pristine as the day I bought them. If mold and funguses and other things that
want to eat your food won't eat your food even after three weeks, then why would
you want to put that food in your mouth? Because these things have been treated with
chemicals that don't have to be displayed on a label, that disrupt the microbiome that's
on these vegetables in the first place. And you don't want microbiome disrupting
chemicals in you swallowing these things. Plus they come in plastic containers. What's the option? Buy your food whole, buy the lettuce
whole, buy your broccoli whole. Take it home. It will take you an instantaneous
second to chop up that head of lettuce. Throw it in a salad spinner. I have two salad spinners. One is a pump action one and when
you're really having a bad day, there's nothing better than pumping on that salad
spinner to get your aggression out. The other, I have a pulling salad spinner and it's really
fun to start the engine and watch it spin. It'll get the water out. You won't have any storage issues. You can put it in a glass
container if you're done. And let's start really thinking
about what convenience means. It may be very convenient to
pick up these bags in plastic. But the way they have made these foods shelf
life stable, quite frankly, scares me to death. And it ought to scare you to death. Convenience is not worth harming your gut
microbiome, harming you from endocrine disruptors. We don't wanna be disrupted and get yourself
a couple salad spinners and have fun. I think you're gonna love this one. Believe it or not, some of the best ingredients, nutrients in citrus, are
actually in the white pith. That's the stuff that you peel off and throw away.
