Mexican bowls with lead-based paint.

Factual Questions
1

I have a set of four, decorative bowls from Mexico. They were purchased by my grandmother in about 1950 and they’re quite pretty.

Problem - they are painted with lead based paint.

I don’t use them for any type of food - they are decorative only. They are currently up at the top of a shelf just looking pretty.

Question is this - assuming Junior cannot reach them or contact them in any way, is he nonetheless being exposed to an unacceptable level of lead? As in, does lead leach out of the paint into the air?

I don’t WANT to get rid of them as they are quite pretty and they were from my grandmother who is now dead; however, I also don’t want to poison my infant son.

Thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc.

Thanks!

2

No, he’s fine, as long as the paint on the bowls is not flaking off or being abraded in any way.

3

Plenty of lead in the air as it is, I believe, from all those years of leaded gas. EVERYBODY PANIC!

4

Heh - ok the paint looks good - no flaking or chipping.

I assume that if it’s intact after 60 years it’s probably intact? Or should I regularly inspect them?

5

The only reason there has been such an uproar about lead in paint was because kids were eating paint chips. Ingesting lead is a problem. Lead paint sitting on bowls sitting on a cabinet is not anything to worry about for even a second.

The bowl could break and he could clean it up and be in no danger whatsoever (other than the danger of kids handling broken glass… heh). Don’t let your kid eat the bowls and he’ll be fine. He won’t get to them unless he climbs like a monkey, in which case I’d be more worried about him falling off the fridge than about him chipping off the paint and eating it.

6

And it’s only a problem with the paint chips because lead paint is sweet.

7

Are they painted or glazed with a lead based glaze?

8

Not anymore.

From here.

9

Humm - lead based glaze probably. It’s sort of sheer.

10

Glaze is a type of glass. It doesn’t flake like paint.

With fired pottery, the horror stories involve long-term storing acidic beverages and foods. The acid slowly attacks the glaze and some lead can leach out. If you had a pottery pitcher storing orange juice in your fridge, then you could get slow cumulative lead poisoning.

Here’s a ref where they tested some cut glass booze decanters. They found that brand new leadglass “crystal” decanters would leach significant amounts of lead into acidic sherry over a 2-month period. But they also found that the amount of lead greatly decreased after repeated use, so “aged” decanters were no longer a problem. If the lead-based pottery glaze behaves like glass, then probably your bowls are no big kitchen issue unless they were in daily use.

Food Safety 1995: leached lead from glazed pottery, lead crystal decanters

11

Thank you - this is a very informative post!

I will continue to keep my bowls up out of the way, but my mind is at ease about having them in the house. :slight_smile:

12

It’s sort of like your asbestos oven mitt or the asbestos mastic under your old tiles: as long as it’s not friable, you’re fine.

13

There was an article about this in Reader’s Digest many years ago. They were being poisoned by the fruit juice pitcher they used every morning.