But you raise a question in my mind.
You said, “I discovered the beautiful yellow and turquoise Italian dishes I got from my grandmother had lead glaze on them, and I had been using them to cook red chile enchiladas.”
At what level is lead toxic in your system? For example, how many enchiladas would you have had to prepare in your grandmother’s dish and eat before you suffered harmful effects?
Is there anything on the market which could be used on the dishes so they could be safely used? Like a glaze or something?
Well, I’ve had an interesting time. I went over to Martha Stewart’s place and asked her what to do with the lead-glazed cookware that I already have, but all she wanted to talk about was how to make perfect macaroni and cheese.
Then I asked Jeeves, but all he could do was direct me helpfully to places where I could buy cookware.
Then I went to Google, who directed me to the Ohio State Ag Department, the Clemson website, and leadcheck.com, none of whom suggested any kind of protective coating or glaze for lead-glazed cookware. They all agreed, “Don’t use it.”
I wasn’t looking for info on how much lead is too much, but there are a slew of articles concerning lead poisoning in Mexico, where cheap lead-glazed pottery is the cookware of choice for low-income folks, leading to a chronic lead poisoning problem for them (and especially for their kids).
OSHA standards for workers require that they be monitored at exposure levels of 50ug/cubic meter (in air) and removed from the work exposure at blood lead levels of 80ug/100g of whole blood. Symptoms of lead toxicity are usually not observed in blood lead levels of less than 10ug/100g whole blood in adults. Of course, children are far more susceptible to the toxic effects of lead at lower blood concentrations.
Since leaded ceramic glazes vary from 40% to 80% lead content, there may be a few ounces of lead in a particular dish. Exactly how much of this leaches into the prepared food depends upon the actual lead content of the dish and the aggressiveness of the attacking media.
I guess we need to know the pH of the enchiladas and the lead content of the dish.
I heard years ago, that the Romans were poisoned by lead-they ingested a lot of lead from boiling their food in lead cauldrons, and drinking wine that had been stored in lead containers. One of the early symtoms of lead poisoning is the inability to taste salt-and the romans used salt like crazy on their food!
I think that was one of the theories on the downfall of the Roman Empire. They “dumbed” themselves out of power from lead poisoning. Although, I thought the lead was from their aqueduct system and plumbing.
wish I’d read this 15 years ago when I saw my toddler (then about 1 year old) with paint chips in his mouth. I called our county Health
Department to see about getting the paint tested for lead content, and was told that I could not simply BRING the paint chips in, I had to schedule an authorized home visit where some guy in a white coat would scientifically
remove the suspect paint chips and take them away to get analyzed. The next available appointment was 6 months down the road, and I might get the results within a year. Not wanting to wait that long, I ended up taking my
toddler in for a blood test to check lead levels. Would have REALLY preferred going to the hardware store. thanks for the (belated) info… (no, he didn’t have lead in his system then, but somehow in the intervening years,
his hair has turned Magenta. Maybe it was the PBB in the Milk???)
Wendy from Lansing, MI