Testing Cookware

[renewedhealth]

I've got some good stainless steel cookware that has been somewhat damaged by my absent-minded professor approach to cooking. I've also got some ceramic slow-cooker pots. And I've got heavy metal poisoning.

Being the curious, absent-minded professor-type that I am, I really want to test everything in my kitchen for the presence of toxicity leaching into what I cook. This curiosity deepened when a local N.D. related her story about her dd going to the ER for acute nickel poisoning and how she ditched her stainless after that. (She bought titanium, but I think the jury is still out on that one).

Anyway, as I've searched and searched the internet, I'm not seeing anyone test cookware except for some people suggesting non-conclusive magnet tests and the Neova stainless people, who are merely doing a baking soda "trick" showing that some cookware gives off a cloudy residue, and theirs doesn't. But what is in that residue? And what might be coming off of the Neova cookware that isn't visible?

Why isn't anyone testing this stuff and writing about it?

Maybe because it is so expensive to do the testing. Is there anyone out there that knows a chemist who can tell us the cheap and easy way that an ordinary person can test for things like tin, chromium and nickel or even lead leaching into our foods? Or does anyone know a source for inexpensive testing of how much cookware leaches? One of the people featured in the expose "Fateful Harvest" has an organization that does testing of dry things for $20 bucks a sample, but that won't tell me about leaching into liquids.

I just spent about 9 bucks each on two tests, but there is an additional 15 dollar charge per test for analysis. Heck, since I think I'll need to check the water I use in the pan first, it will cost me almost 50 bucks to test one pan!

Frankly, I might as well buy a whole set of enamelled cookware if I'm going to pay so much to test things! But my point is not just to get new cookware...it is to find out whether the purified water and organic produce I'm using is being defiled by my stainless cookware.

Can anyone point me in a new direction to solve this dilemma?

[HollieG]

Hi Rebecca,
I googled the topic "testing in heavy metals in cookware" and a post from your forum from 2007 came up. I didn't see that there was a response and I'm curious, have you found any inexpensive resources for testing cookware? Also, do you have any new thoughts regarding Titanium cookware?
Thanks,
Hollie

[Rebecca]

Stainless steel cookware that has been scoured will leach. How "much" I don't know.

Personally, I favor enamel and the new Xtrema cookware; I also use a stainless steel pressure cooker. Perhaps, you might upgrade to non-reactive cookware as you are able to do so.

I hope this helps you.
Rebecca

[HollieG]

Hi Rebecca,
Thanks, so you don't know of a lab that tests levels of heavy metals in cookware etc?
Hollie

[Rebecca]

Regrets, I do not.

[KaraL]

My first suspicion with heavy metal in stainless steel cookware sets would be in the cheap sets. Cheap manufacturing processes could very well lead to problems with contamination. I wouldn't suspect high quality stainless to be a problem though.

I would automatically think that porcelain would be trouble free either! Cheap porcelain could be the source for many types of chemical contamination.