Radon in your Home

Did anyone watch the Dr. Oz segment about hidden toxins in your home which aired a few days ago? The issue that caught my attention in particular was the radon gas emitting from granite countertops as this was news to me. Radon gas causes lung cancer. With granite countertops being the popular trend for kitchen remodeling and in our case we had it installed when our house was built I was shocked to hear this. We tested our basement a few years ago and it had a very high reading at a level of 16 (EPA recommends this number to be less than 4) which is not a good thing, so my husband put in a radon mitigation system. Our readings were zero for the three months after installing it. However, I never thought to test our kitchen/family room area thinking granite could be emitting high amounts of radon.

Obviously, this was of concern to me so I made a few phone calls yesterday to a couple of testing agencies in my area and to my local EPA. One guy was a certified radon tester and he said he would use a Geiger counter to test the radon on my counters and in the living area for $95.00. He said the alpha particles is what he would focus on which apparently is what would identify radon levels. However, he notes on his website that in his experience, of the granite he's tested, there have been few that measure above the EPAs recommendation.

My concern is that I had read that Geiger counters (which is what they used for Dr. Oz's show) are actually not very accurate in determining what is radon vs potassium or thoron. Apparently a high clicking could be identifying potassium which is of no concern. And, thoron is another gas similar to radon, but of smaller concern because it doesn't have the life-span that radon does. This is my quick summary on the use of Geiger counters, but you can read more about granite and radon on www.radon.com.

A gentleman from my local EPA did call me back and expressed that Geiger counters is a bad way to test radon on granite countertops and recommended I do the following:

1. Re-Test the basement using either a short-term ($15) or long-term kit ($25) depending on fast I wanted results. These can be ordered from the EPA website which also provide more information on radon testing your home.
2. Test the basement again since it's been more than two years since our last test to ensure our mitigation system was working properly and no leaks have developed.
3. Test the area near the kitchen (in our case our family room) and check radon levels to ensure it's less than 4. If they are greater than 4 then the granite could be an issue or the readings are higher than the basement.

I expressed to him that my father had a continuous radon monitor device which is what we used previously to check our radon levels in our basement. The EPA gentleman indicated that this actually is not an approved EPA device because the company has never let them ensure the device provides accurate readings. He also went on to express that these systems may be inaccurate because they need to be calibrated and this system doesn't calibrate. However, if I wanted to test with this system again, it would be fine as long as I use the short-term or long-term test to ensure that the readings are accurate.

I asked the difference between the short-term test and long-term and he expressed the short-term is a quick few day test to see the radon levels in your home. Keep in mind they could be higher in the winter since we're closed in more and not as much outside air circulates around the house. As far as I'm concerned I wouldn't want this to be high at any time. The long-term test provides an average of the levels of your home since you would monitor this longer. Both these tests need to be sent in and in a few days you would get a report.

He also stated that in most cases that granite is fine and this rumor about radon from granite started with the marble and quartz industry. But, they have found that some granite from certain countries are an issue. He mentioned Brazil. Well, our granite is tropical brown which my husband seems to remember to be from South America while I searched and determined it's from Saudi Arabia. I also found this article about testing the most popular granite (ours being one of them) and how it's not an issue. I'm sure if I did even more research, I find equal amount of cases on both sides. So, since I like to play it safe rather than sorry....

I did order the short-term test though my husband indicated we already had a couple of them received when he ordered our radon mitigation system. And, I plan to borrow the Siren System my dad has from him today so we can do some quick initial testing.

If you haven't checked your basement (if you have one), then this should be the first place you check. Radon tends to be more of an issue in the soil around your house and it tends to be higher in the basement. If you have granite countertops, then you might want to use a short-term test like me and test your area around the kitchen or wherever you have granite. By the way, I did ask about those specific granite radon test kits and the EPA said they didn't believe those are accurate, but didn't get specifics. My own conclusion is that granite does emit radon (it's a natural stone), and they don't want you to test the stone because it will be higher. They are more concerned with what actually gets in the air. I think if my room levels near and in the kitchen come out high or is higher than my reading in the basement then I might invest in that kit or call the certified radon specialist to verify. I'm just hoping the readings are low as I don't really want to replace my countertops. I'll keep you posted.

Crock Pot Dilema

With the cold winter days and my son's piano class occurring smack dab in the middle of dinner on Thursdays, I wanted to call it "Crock Pot Thursdays." So last week, I got out my All-Clad crock pot with ceramic insert and proceeded to make my chili. Unfortunately, I ended up throwing that chili out because I got a bad can of tomatoes. Luckily the Muir Glen company has graciously said they would replace the cans of tomatoes and reimburse me for the cost of my lost meal. Now, that's customer service.

Anyhow, typically my husband would be the one to clean up the crock pot since I cooked the meal, but today I was doing it so I didn't have bad chili sitting there all day. It was at this time I noticed a discoloration in my white ceramic pot. Now, I expected to see some gray scratches, as we accidentally used a metal utensil a few times, but now I was seeing purple looking splotches that did not look normal. Nor did it look like something that should happen to a crock pot we spent $199.00 on. Additionally, I noticed spider like vein discoloration on the edge of the pot as well. After having just read a bunch of articles on the internet about lead leaching from lots of dinnerware (this will be a separate post), I also stumbled upon the question of lead leaching from these ceramic crock pots many of us love to use. Well, it seems that they all leach some amount lead, it's just a matter of how much. So, thus I started my search for a lead free crock pot. I saw there was an Elite glass version, but many of the comments weren't great and that one was way too small for us. I liked the ones you could cook on the stove, but every single one I found used a non-stick interior and I don't want PFTE or any other toxic fumes to be swirling around my house. I already got rid of all my non-stick pans except for my All-Clad grill that I use on rare occasions on low heat. Then, I thought I could find one with a stainless insert thinking this is the safest material for cooking I know. Well, a stainless insert crock pot doesn't exist that I could find. However, if anyone can prove me wrong, then please do so.

I did however, find an Americraft (Kitchen Craft) Gourmet Slow Cooker 4qt that was all stainless that sat on a hot plate. It's basically similar to the West Bend slow cookers that were very popular. I thought hooray, I finally found one, but then I found out the price tag of $399. My husband about dropped his jaw. $400 for a pot on a hot plate! I couldn't exactly argue. Then we also determined that the 4 quart pot just really wasn't large enough especially if we wanted to have company over. So, I continued my search. I found Salad Master made a 5 quart stainless multi purpose cooker, but apparently someone said that was close to $900 and goes for around $400 on ebay. Yikes! Geez, can't I find a safe crock pot that doesn't leach any metal or toxins into my food for my family without having to spend a fortune. I continued my search and stumbled upon someone mentioning a company called Xtrema. They have developed a ceramic line of cookware that doesn't leach any metal into the food and is extremely resistant to withstand extraordinarily high heat. This looked like the kind of company I had been searching for, but their crock pot is still in the development stage. I communicated with the Founder, Rich Bergstrom who confirmed they are in the early stages of developing a crock pot/slow cooker for Xtrema. However, it will not be available till Christmas 2010.

So, what to do in the meantime...well, I'm getting rid of my All Clad cooker. I guess I expected more from All Clad and do not feel I got my money's worth. I did consider purchasing a crock pot that perhaps stated they did not leach lead. I noticed Hamilton Beach's website stated the following:

"Hamilton Beach specifications applicable to all slow cookers and their components (including the earthenware crocks) prohibits the product from containing any measurable amounts of lead. Furthermore, the factories that manufacture the earthenware crocks for Hamilton Beach are certified ceramic production facilities whose ceramic ware is deemed to satisfy FDA heavy metal requirements. Hamilton Beach takes all reasonable steps to ensure that the earthenware crocks accompanying our slow cookers provide safe and satisfactory service to our consumers."

However, this claim does not put my mind at ease as I want to know exactly the tests done and how much metal is really leached because as far as I'm concerned, none should be leached. And, we all know that FDA requirements aren't that stringent when it comes to metal limits hence why California came up with Proposition 65.

I did call DeLonghi because I liked their new 5 quart crock pot, but am still waiting on answer from them as their customer service rep did not know the lead content if it had any. I will post an update if I hear anything. And, I found another website that had an in depth conversation of various crock pots, but none really stood out to be safe and lead free. In fact that is the site I found the info regarding Xtrema. I have to admit that one thing I really liked looking at the Xtrema website is that they put the test results on their website showing how no metal leaches out of their cookware. I think this is great! Every company should do this, but then again if they did, many might loose business.

So, in the meantime, I'm going to make use and learn how to use the stainless pressure cooker my husband pleaded for me to get for a long time. We only do a few meals in it now, but we'll need to expand that to our ever so loved crock pot meals. My husband and I agree that we still would like a crock pot just for the added convenience of needing a meal all ready to go if we to be gone all day and wanted to return to a hot dinner waiting for us. However, we're willing to wait it out for this Xtrema crock pot. I just hope the pot is at least 5 quarts and it comes out soon!