Do Indian vessels get cleaned in a dishwasher? What vessels do work and what don't work in a dishwasher?
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VESSELS YOU SHOULD NOT USE The first type of vessels or category of vessels that you cannot use are aluminium vessels. This includes kadais, your milk vessels, as well as pressure cooker, which are made out of aluminium or anodized aluminium that you should not be using within a dishwasher itself. The main reason for this is that the coating that is there on the vessels actually gets corroded and pitted, and makes the vessel unusable and also not safe to use. This is what happened to my vessel when I did try to put it in the dishwasher. You can see the discolouration that has happened to the aluminium vessel itself. The second category of vessels that you cannot use in a dishwasher are wooden items - like spoons, cutting boards, bowls, and so on. The detergents that are used in a dishwasher could typically strip off the wood from its natural oils, which makes them extremely dry and the wood actually breaks within the dishwasher itself. A real example is that in my in-law's place, they put a cutting board inside a dishwasher and it came out into pieces. The next category of items that you cannot use in the dishwasher are cast iron tawas as well as kadais. Cast iron normally needs to be seasoned well with oil to prevent rusting. When you put a cast iron kadai or a tawa inside the dishwasher, the detergents strip it of its oil and make the kadai or tawa unusable. If you do actually use it, then you need to start the seasoning process of the kadai or the tawa all over from the start, which is a long and tedious process. The next set of items that you cannot use are copper jars, copper plates and tumblers, and other vessels made out of copper. Normally copper requires a lot of extra effort to keep it shiny. In an Indian home you would normally use products like the tumeric to keep your copper vessels shiny. The minute you actually put it inside a dishwasher, it strips it of its shine, makes it extremely dull and black in some instances. The next item that you cannot put in a dishwasher are pressure cooker lids. Pressure cooker lids have valves which control the pressure within the cooker itself when it is cooking. The pressure of water within a dishwasher can insert food particles, and detergent particles settle inside the valve of a pressure cooker lid, which can cause the pressure cooker to malfunction when it is used. So it is extremely important to that you do not use a pressure cooker lid inside a dishwasher, primarily from a safety perspective. The next set of items are acrylic and melamine plates, tumblers, and so on. The high temperature within a dishwasher can cause melting, cracking or discolouration of this type of vessels. So, it is ideal that you do not use vessels that are not made also for a microwave. Do not use those as well within a dishwasher, because the temperature can harm this type of vessels. The next set of categories are plastic containers. We use a lot of these in an Indian home. Unless a container is marked as dishwasher-safe, it is not safe to use it in a dishwasher. Even Tupperware containers that we use predominantly over here, are not dishwasher-safe. I have seen other videos on YouTube where Tupperware containers have melted within a dishwasher. So, ideally, do not use plastic containers, specially the ones that are not labeled as dishwasher-safe within a dishwasher. So, now we've covered a lot of vessels that we use in an Indian home. So what can you use within a dishwasher? So, you would probably require a few minor changes in the type of vessels that you use in your kitchen itself. So let's take a look at what works really well in a dishwasher.
VESSELS YOU CAN USE
The first category is stainless steel items. So, you can switch a lot of the things in your kitchen like your plates, your kadais, milk vessels, to stainless steel so that you can actually then start using it in a dishwasher. When you are buying kadais or vessels for milk, make sure that you buy a heavy bottom stainless steel vessel or kadai, so that it prevents from burning of these vessels when you are cooking. I'm going to link a brand that I did purchase from Amazon in the description. It is really good for boiling milk. They do also have a lot of kadais and the base is extremely heavy and thick, so it avoids burning of the milk or anything that I am cooking in that particular vessel.
The next set of items is glass. So, glass gets cleaned extremely well within a dishwasher. Even extremely stained ones - like, if you've used a glass container for pickle, which makes it extremely stained with the spices and also with a lot of oil -, it comes out from the dishwasher sparkly clean.
I would recommend that some minor changes in your kitchen, switching from plastic to glass, is actually more beneficial in the long run. Specially from a health point of view, it is better to use glass over using plastic itself.
So, there are quite a few brands in the market like Borosil and so on, so I would link to a few in the description if you are interested to go and purchase it.
The next set of items are ceramic bowls, containers, tea mugs, and so on. Again, this category of items is cleaned extremely well. I use ceramic tea mugs, bowls, and plates in my kitchen and they get cleaned extremely well. One of the things you might want to consider switching are some melamine plates to ceramic plates itself if you want to use these plates in a dishwasher.
So, yes, not all Indian vessels work in a dishwasher. There might be some minor changes you would need to do in your kitchen to make sure that you're able to use these vessels in a dishwasher itself, but the long term benefits of using products that are dishwasher-safe are really high both in terms of time saving as well as in terms of safety to your family.
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