Vintage green and white enamel Le Creuset cooking pot: positive for varying levels of Lead and Cadmium.

Introduction:

Tamara Rubin is a Federal award winning independent advocate for consumer goods safety and childhood Lead poisoning prevention. 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 XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for metallic toxicants (including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic). To read more about the testing methodology employed for the test results reported on this blog, please click this link.

Published: October 1, 2021

These posts today are placeholders JUST with the XRF data for the item pictured. They will be updated with more details a.s.a.p. All readings are done multiple times to confirm the results for each component before sharing one full set of the readings for the item pictured.

Reading #1 – Inside “white” enamel food surface of the pot
60-second test
Metals below in red and bold are considered unsafe for humans

• Lead (Pb): 24 +/- 8 ppm
• Cadmium (Cd): 38 +/- 5 ppm
• Mercury (Hg): non-detect
• Bromine (Br): non-detect
• Chromium (Cr): 3,332+/- 306 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 2,074 +/- 634 ppm
• Manganese (Mn): 2,455 +/- 201 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 21,400 +/- 500 ppm
• Cobalt (Co): 2,519 +/- 140 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 223 +/- 33 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 3,424 +/- 98 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 246,300 +/- 3,500 ppm
• Zirconium (Zr): 2,053 +/- 45 ppm
• Nb: 940 +/- 25 ppm
• Molybdenum (Mo): 1,082 +/- 34 ppm
• Indium (In): 19 +/- 6 ppm
• Tin (Sn): 34 +/- 7 ppm
• Antimony (Sb): 209 +/- 13 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 120 +/- 28 ppm
• Platinum (Pt): 80 +/- 42 ppm
• Gold (Au): 66 +/- 35 ppm
• Bismuth (Bi): 29 +/- 9 ppm
• no other metals detected

Reading #2 – Bottom of the outside of the pot – green enamel
60-second test

• Lead (Pb): 35 +/- 9 ppm
• Cadmium (Cd): 2,815 +/- 68 ppm
• Mercury (Hg): non-detect
• Bromine (Br): non-detect
• Chromium (Cr): 8,144 +/- 385 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 1,789 +/- 532 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 5,927 +/- 194 ppm
• Cobalt (Co): 1,819 +/- 95 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 240 +/- 31 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 30,800 +/- 600 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 150,200 +/- 2,300 ppm
• Zirconium (Zr): 13,100 +/- 300 ppm
• Nb: 970 +/- 25 ppm
• Molybdenum (Mo): 795 +/- 33 ppm
• Indium (In): 23 +/- 7 ppm
• Tin (Sn): 32 +/- 8 ppm
• Platinum (Pt): 105 +/- 66 ppm
• no other metals detected

Some additional reading that may be of interest:

• A link discussing the testing methodology used here on this website.
• A menu with buttons to lots of different categories of information that can be found here on this website.
• A link to my documentary feature film on childhood Lead poisoning.
• The short video that shows you how to search this site.
• Things you can test at home with a LeadCheck swab
• Things you really cannot test at home (better tested with XRF technology)

As always, please let me know if you have any questions. I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment – although it may take many many moons for me to do that (because I have disabled (Lead-poisoned) kiddos underfoot most of the time!) Thank you for reading and thank you for sharing my posts.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
Owner – Lead Safe Mama, LLC