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| Photo by janineomg |
Did you get or give a slow cooker for Christmas? They seem to be a pretty popular gift. I’ve been toying with getting one for a while. Hours and hours of slow cooking, in a safe and energy efficient way. The primal/paleo crowd seems to love them. So what’s the problem? Sadly, the potential for lead to leach out of your crockpot and into your food.
Crockpot inserts (what you put your food into), are most commonly made of glazed ceramic, which has a reputation for leaching lead. This made big news back in 2004 in an investigative report by Bill Gephardt from KUTV in Salt Lake City. He discovered that when ceramic ware was heated to just 80 degrees, it released nearly 10 times the amount of lead as a plate at room temperature. The FDA limits the amount of lead that is allowed to leach from cookware. But there isn’t a “safe” amount of lead to have in your body.
“Lead poisoning occurs when lead builds up in the body, often over a period of months or years. Even small amounts of lead can cause serious health problems.” – The Mayo Clinic
Since that report came out, many people have called the manufacturers, only to get mixed answers. The best that some of the manufacturers are able to do is to say that they are FDA approved.
This sketches me out. And I’m not really keen on any of the alternatives I’ve come across. For example, there are unglazed crockpots, but lead is naturally found in all sorts of ceramic materials, not just in the glaze – same goes for clay. The plastic (often nylon) liners that people used in their crockpots concern me as well – I avoiding heating plastic. There are also some aluminum crockpots out there – aluminum is also not something that you want accumulating in your body, plus many of them have non-stick coatings (Teflon or some variation thereof). And with stainless steel comes the risk of nickel. The thing to remember with crockpots, too, is that even though the crockpot is at a relatively low temperature, your food is in there for many hours.
Some people have gone as far as testing their crockpots for lead. But even if the test comes back negative, I’d question if it was tested at the right temperature, or after enough hours of cooking. Or what if acidic ingredients were used, or the crockpot was new versus old, or there was a tiny unnoticeable crack? If it has the potential to leach lead, then there’s a chance it will do so at some point in the future, even if it didn’t at the one point in time that it was tested.
I don’t really think that any cookware is completely safe. But on the safety spectrum, I tend to trust Pyrex, cast iron, and enameled cast iron. From what I’ve researched, those seem to be safest options out there. It’s too bad I haven’t come across any glass or cast iron crockpots.
For me, it’s just not worth the worry of questioning if my crockpot is leaching lead into my food. If I don’t feel confident that it’s not, I’d rather not use it. Until I find something that I can trust, I’ll just keep using the old fashioned crockpot – i.e. the cast iron Dutch oven.
Are crockpots worth the risk to you?
Shared with Food Renegade and Real Food Wednesdays.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Jeez. I love my crockpot. This is a bummer.
Bummer indeed – I love the crockpot concept..
I had a “Crock-Pot” by Rival that I threw out (getting old anyway) because I had heard that Rival brand did use lead in the glaze. I have heard from several sources that Hamilton beach brand slow cookers use glaze that is lead free. So I got one of those last fall and use it at least 3 times a week for making chicken stock. Should I worry? I find it indispensable.
From what I’ve read, when customers called various brands to find out if their crockpots were “lead-free”, they were told that the lead present was within permissible FDA standards. The lead was there either because a) there was some small amount of lead that was actually used or b) lead is naturally occurring in the types of materials that are used for crockpots. I find that unsettling enough to opt out of owning a crockpot, but everyone has a different level of risk-aversion.
Thank you for this info. I need to think on this.
Thank you for spreading the information about lead in slow cookers.
I went without using a slow cooker for years because of the possibility of lead. I recently got one, however, with an unglazed purple clay insert that is not only lead free, but rich in minerals. There are some expensive options that use the Zisha clay, but through another blog (http://pepperpaints.com/2011/01/14/thursdays-recipe-fail-fridays-kitchen-gadget-update/) I found an affordable option that is available through Home Depot online or amazon.
I’ve used it a few times and I’m happy with it so far. My only issues are that it cooks a little hotter than I can maintain in a dutch oven (which my research says is typical with all slow cookers sold in the last ~15 years) and that it will shut off automatically when the temp reaches various thresholds depending on the low, high or auto settings. It may not be the perfect solution for bone broth that I want to keep at a low simmer for days, but I can probably make it work and it has been great for pork shoulder and roast so far.
In the Texas summer, I’ll use the crockpot over the oven for slow roasted pork shoulder or brisket for (lettuce) tacos, etc. since it won’t heat up the house.
Hi Whitney, thanks for your comment and for sharing your experience with you clay crockpot – a lot of people are curious about these and may find your comment helpful.
When looking into slow cookers, the VitaClay crockpot (unglazed Zisha clay) was the one that came up most often as a potential alternative. However, there was still some doubt about if it was 100% lead free. Yes, the company made it clear that they did not add any clay, and they had tests done saying it’s 99.99% lead free, but there remains the issue of naturally occurring lead in clay. Apparently it can be an impurity in the clay itself, which worries me.
Also, for anyone that does have a VitaClay, you may want to check if the element at the bottom has a Teflon-like non-stick coating, as apparently some of the models do (potentially off-gassing toxic fumes when heated).
Fascinating stuff. I had never even considered the lead issue, since, as you say, all the big brands of crock pot are FDA-approved. If you’re used to making a ton of things in the crock-pot, I guess it just comes down to whether giving it up will seriously cramp your real-food style, or whether you’ll be able to switch without compromising (potentially) more important aspects of your diet.
For me, the crock pot is currently worth the risk, since it saves me enough time and money to actually buy and prepare real food! Fortunately, I think people who are eating real food and taking good care of their bodies will naturally detox (even heavy metals) much more efficiently than those who are on the SAD. I wonder, since lead is found naturally in so many materials, if people have just been detoxing naturally from it for thousands of years? After all, clay cooking pots have been a pretty universal device since cooking began. You might even argue that clay cooking pots (and thus, the lead they contain) are “primal,” right? :)
Hi Danielle, thanks for the thought-provoking comment :)
Unfortunately for us, we’re under a way heavier toxic load than those that came before us. We’re exposed to chemicals and toxins in so many forms, from the air we breathe, to all the man-made things we use, and the food we eat. A lot of that gunk accumulates. Plus, just because it’s “natural”, or comes from the earth, or people have been using it for thousands of years, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good for us. The whole tolerated vs optimal thing. I do agree with you that eating a clean diet plays to our advantage, both in terms of detox and just plain less crap in our systems. I guess I’m in the camp where since there are so many things that I can’t control, I exercise caution where I am able. A lot of the foods that I’d like to use a crock pot for, I just cook in the dutch oven (albeit somewhat less conveniently).
Great points (especially about the increased toxic load in recent years)! I guess it just boils down to doing what you can where you can. My family is still gradually phasing out teflon-coated pans, one at a time, as we can afford it, so I guess the crock-pot hasn’t been very high on my toxin-avoidance priority list. It’s definitely something to think about though – I’ve been doing a little more research about it to decide how urgent the problem is!
You might be interested in the results obtained at Terminal Verbosity (the blogger doesn’t give much information about herself, but the research sounds fairly thorough) when she did some lead testing on various crock pot materials. I’d be interested to hear what you think of her results.
http://www.terminalverbosity.com/2009/11/09/the-skinny-on-lead-in-crock-pots-it-may-surprise-you/
I so appreciate this informative post.
I have used a slow cooker (nearly every day) for most of my 10 years of marriage. I too find my Crock Pot indespensible!
Since I’m in the market for a new slow cooker, I am doing a little research. I will look into Whitney’s link. Again, thank you for this valuable information.
No problem! Let us know what you end up buying!
http://www.amazon.com/Lead-free-slow-cookers-certified-lead-free/forum/Fx2F9OPM23HF88J/Tx2DTC7T7D2ORBB/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B0028Y4FWU
I totally agree with doing what you can where you can. I don’t expect the crockpot issue to be a top priority for a lot of people – there are certainly bigger fish to fry (Teflon being one of them!).
Those results were actually what was on my mind when I wrote about some people testing their crockpots. I just ended up pondering that bunch of follow-up questions about testing methodology. It’s certainly a great start, but it just wasn’t conclusive or extensive enough to make me feel more comfortable..