The Pampered Chef small unglazed stoneware pan: 29 ppm Lead (safe by all standards, but I would not use in my home).

 

Posted: Saturday, March 14, 2020

Introduction: Tamara Rubin is an independent advocate for consumer goods safety, and she is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children. She began testing consumer goods for toxicants in 2009 and was the parent-advocate responsible for finding Lead in the popular fidget spinner toys in 2017. She uses high-precision XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for contaminants including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic. [bio link]

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The Pampered Chef unglazed Family Heritage Stoneware Classics Collection baking tray:

The full XRF test results of the baking tray pictured are below (so please scroll down). Here are links to some additional reading that may be of interest based on your interest in the test results of this item:

• Click here to see more unglazed ceramics items that I have tested.
• Click here to read more about the concern for Lead in dishes and pottery.
• Click here to see more items from this brand that I have tested.

I would not use this in my home, because the surface (that touches the food) is positive for Lead. That is a solid deal-breaker for me every time. Given how low the Lead level is, it may or may not be a long-term hazard with cooking (when the piece deteriorates with normal use, over time) but I am certain the potential long-term health implications have not been studied for an item with this low level, and I don’t want my family to be the guinea pigs on something like this – so all surfaces in my home that touch the food for my family  – are completely Lead-free. That’s one thing I am very strict about.

Context for my concerns with this item:

5 ppb (parts per billion) is considered “too much Lead” in bottled water – by current regulatory standards. 50 ppb Lead is considered too much in fruit juice given to children. 29 ppm is 29,000 ppb. Expressed in ppb, the Lead level on this pan (on the surface of the pan) is 29,000 ppb. If that surface wears – it will wear into my food (directly)… so at 29,000 ppb in an uncoated surface, isn’t it possible (theoretically) that 5 or 10 or 100 ppb could wear into my food, under certain conditions – especially if cooking in a hot oven, with acidic foods (like tomato sauce)? And if no one has studied the potential for Lead to transfer tiny amounts over time at those levels from a pan like this… why should I accept any possible risk?

Aren’t these pans likely leach-tested?
And wouldn’t that be enough to know if they are safe?

We should check with The Pampered Chef to see if these pans (unglazed bare ceramic) are ever leach-tested, and what the results are. They may not be required to be leach-tested, given the components of the pan (unglazed / uncoated bare ceramic), and the intended use (cookie-baking sheet). I will let you know what I learn about this! HOWEVER Please Note: Even if it is leach-tested at the time of manufacture, that doesn’t mean I have any confidence that it might not leach Lead at some future point in time (after years of use) – which has always been my concern with the leach-testing standard. More on that here at this link.

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Stay Safe Out There!
A quick note from Tamara

Hey readers – I hope you are staying well out there with all that is going on in the world right now. I’m hanging out mostly at home with my children – and have been doing so for about 10 days now. I pulled them out of school over a week ago – just to be safe. Each of my three youngest sons have compromised immune systems (which manifests in different ways for each of them), due to having been Lead-poisoned as babies.

In between kid-wrangling I am working hard to publish literally HUNDREDS of new posts (with test results for various consumer goods I have tested over the past couple of years, but have not yet had a moment to report on!). These posts have created a backlog in my system for more than a year now – and it’s actually nice to have a *break* with some time to catch up! To make this happen as quickly as possible, I am (as with this post) simply posting the images and the test results – without a lot of additional information. [Do not worry — I will continue to update them with more information as I get caught up and begin to have the time!]

For those new to my website, please check out the menu in the header of the website for more information about how I test things (and my background, etc.) On each post you can also click on any of the keyword tabs at the top of the post to find more items in that category. Here’s the post discussing the type of testing I do, and the specific instrument I use to detect, analyze and confirm metals content, and ultimately produce the resultant data for each item reported here – link.

Please Note: Test results reported below are science-based, accurate, and replicable. Test results reported here are from tests that were done for a minimum of 60 seconds each, and repeated multiple times, to confirm the results. As with all the testing reported here on my blog, a freshly-calibrated high-precision XRF instrument testing in Consumer Goods mode was used to test the item pictured here.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts!

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

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Test results for the Pampered Chef brand unglazed stoneware baking tray (Made in the USA) pictured on this post:

Front of Tray – Food Surface:

• Lead (Pb): 29 +/- 12 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 71 +/- 34 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 56 +/- 20 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 9,515 +/- 487 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 198 +/- 62 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 3,940 +/- 237 ppm

Back side of Tray:

• Lead (Pb): 29 +/- 12 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 73 +/- 34 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 48 +/- 19 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 246 +/- 46 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 10,600 +/- 500 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 207 +/- 67 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 4,891 +/- 277 ppm

 ~ End of Post ~
Scroll down for additional photos of this item.