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!