Traditional slow cooker or crock pot recipes in conventional cookware can be harmful to health because:

Long hours of cooking in a metal or ceramic pots can allow chemicals like cadmium, lead, petalite (lithium) and metal ions [Al-Aluminium, Ni-Nickel (steel), Ti- Titanium (steel), MO molybdenum (steel), Cr-Chromium (steel), Fe-Iron (steel)] leach into your food! While food is breaking down and cooking, the food’s readily reactive biochemicals easily bond with leaching metals and toxins from the pot.

Harsh heat generated from the walls of a traditional crock insert harms food tissue and destroys important vitamins, minerals, and proteins.

In contrast, MEC cooks healthier slow cooker/crock pot recipes because:

Cooking in MEC on the stove top does the opposite with food. Since the pot is 100% inert, you don’t have to worry about anything leaching into your food and the food remains pure and unaltered.

MEC pots cook with earthen far-infrared heat. This unique and powerful form of heat cooks food without destroying the nutrients in it.

MEC cooks any slow cooker recipe in under 2 hours max. The unique far-infrared heat from MEC pots can cook the same food in less time – all on medium heat or less (stove top). This directly contrasts the many, many hours of conventional slow cooking! And no, the shorter time or the higher heat does not damage nutrients in this case!

Slow Cooking Beans & Lentils in MEC:

Most beans & lentils can cook within 40-50 minutes (compared to 6-8 hours in a slow cooker).

Cooking Bone Broth in MEC:

Beef bone broth, a typical slow cooker recipe that takes 12 hours minimum in a slow cooker, can be done in 2 to 2.5 hours maximum (6 qt. quantity). The broth comes out fully done, the minerals extracted remain intact, and the dish tastes more delicious and nutritious than traditional long hours of cooking. Our customers vouch for this:

“I enjoy cooking with Miriam’s Earthen Cookware. First, it gently steams the food and does not overcook it. I especially like making bone broth. Even the poultry bones produce a gelatinous broth! In other cookware, the poultry bone broth is liquid and runny. Great is the time it takes, only 3 to 4 hours instead of 12 to 24! I recommend Miriam’s Earthen Cookware!”

— Irene Walther, Orlando, FL | Feb 11, 2018

The Aspect of Convenience:

Of course, one might think slow cooking is more convenient, but what is convenience if it’s bad for our health and can make you sick? Besides, cooking in less time is what is truly convenient: all it takes is a little bit of planning. If it means your food is going to be far more nutritious, non-toxic, and healthy; it is totally worth making the switch.

Slow Cooking in the Oven with MEC:

You can also use MEC for slow cooking in the oven, and the food can cook much faster without much monitoring. Another clear advantage over using a slow cooker machine is the ability to fit more than one pot at a time in the oven!

Here’s how: Put all your ingredients together in the pot and set bake temperature to 230 D Fahrenheit. Set the oven timer to 3-4 hours for meats or 1-2 hours for vegetarian recipes, beans, or grains. The oven timer is a little-known feature that lets you use the oven for timed cooking, much like a programmable slow cooker. Once the set hours elapse, the oven will automatically turn to warm (in most cases, 170 d F) and will eventually shut off. With most ovens, you can also set a delayed start. Please make sure to read the oven’s manual before setting this up for the first time.

Miriam’s Earthen Cookware can transition from being a pressure cooker to a Dutch oven to a slow cooker all in the same cooking session, depending on how it is used!

To use MEC as a pressure cooker, add your ingredients to the pot (i.e. dried beans cooking from scratch, or meat), add enough water, and cover and cook until your ingredients are 3/4 way done. It is important in this case to leave ¼ of the pot empty to provide room for steam to build up – this steam pressure is what cooks your food quickly and efficiently.

Once your beans or meat is done, you can let it cool down and either store/refrigerate it (to add it to recipes later), or you can now convert the pot into a Dutch oven for the next cooking steps. You can do this by stirring in other ingredients (i.e. Vegetables and spices) as needed to complete cooking your dish — like when making a Chili.

Taking it one step further, you can transition your pot into a slow cooker: you turn the heat down to low and let the ingredients simmer and complete the cooking process. In most cases, the stove can be turned off 15 minutes before the food is fully done: the heat retained inside is sufficient to finish the cooking your food to perfection!