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Excerpts from FDA Article:

Is That Newfangled Cookware Safe? 
by Dale Blumenthal 

    It's twice as hard as stainless steel, it conducts heat 28 times faster 
than glass, and it's nonstick for life. Anodized aluminum this new material 
is just one of the many new inventions that have revolutionized the cookware
industry in the past 10 years.
    Crock-pots cook dinner while you're at work, plastic coatings make the
perfect omelet child's play, and now, with coated anodized aluminum, you can
cook cheese to death without scratching the pan.

                                 Is It Safe?
    Questions about safety, however, have accompanied the introduction of 
new types of cookware. Do scratches on a nonstick coated pan mean that we've
scraped a toxic material into our perfect omelet? Does aluminum from pots 
and pans leach into the food we eat and cause health problems? Are there
precautions that should be taken when cooking with copper-clad pans? Do 
glazed crock-pots contain dangerous amounts of lead?
    Regulating these products also presents some unusual issues for the Food
and Drug Administration.  You won't find a regulation anywhere on the books 
that specifically addresses cookware,  says John Thomas, of the division of
regulatory guidance at FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
But, Thomas adds, when a type of cookware raises safety concerns, FDA gets
involved. 
    Chemicals that migrate from cookware into food are considered food
additives (substances that become a component of a food or otherwise affect 
its characteristics) and are therefore under FDA's jurisdiction. FDA
addresses safety concerns about housewares on a case-by-case
basis.
    For instance, after a California family suffered acute lead poisoning 
from drinking orange juice stored in a ceramic pitcher bought in Mexico, FDA
initiated a formal compliance action in 1971 limiting the amount of lead
that may leach from products used to hold food. In taking this action, the
agency relied on food additive provisions that prohibit adulterating a food 
by adding poisonous and deleterious substances to the food. Since then, FDA 
has tightened restrictions on lead. (See  An Unwanted Souvenir: Lead in 
Ceramic Ware,  in the December 1989-January 1990 issue of FDA Consumer.)
    
                                  Aluminum
    More than half (52 percent) of all cookware sold today is made of 
aluminum, according to Cookware Manufacturers Association executive vice
president Paul Uetzmann. But most of these aluminum pots and pans are coated
with nonstick finishes or treated using a process that alters and hardens 
the structure of the metal. 
    In the 1970s, Canadian researchers reported that the brains of
Alzheimer?s disease victims contained abnormally high levels of aluminum. 
The studies stirred a controversy about whether aluminum is the cause or
result of the disease. At the same time, many concerned consumers discarded 
their natural aluminum cookware.
    Stephen Levick, M.D., from Yale University School of Medicine in New
Haven, Conn., wrote in a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of 
Medicine,  out with my corroded aluminum pots.
    Dr. Levick has thrown away his pots and pans to no avail.?
    Researchers still are investigating the connection between aluminum and 
Alzheimer's disease. But according to Creighton Phelps, Ph.D., director of
medical and scientific affairs at the Alzheimer's Association, much recent
data support the theory that brains already damaged by Alzheimer?s disease
may permit entry of abnormally high levels of aluminum. 
    A person using uncoated aluminum pans for all cooking and food storage 

every day would take in an estimated3.5 milligrams of aluminum daily. 

Aluminum cookware manufacturers warn that storing highly acidic or salty foods 

such as tomato sauce, rhubarb, or sauerkraut in aluminum pots may cause more 

aluminum than usual to enter the food. (Also, undissolved salt and acidic foods 

allowed to remain in an aluminum pot will cause pitting on the pot?s surface.

                               Stainless Steel
   Uetzmann says that stainless steel accounts for 43 percent of
cookware sold today. Stainless steel cookware and bakeware is exceptionally 
durable. Says Uetzmann,  Its attractive finish won't corrode or tarnish 
permanently, and its hard, tough, nonporous surface is resistant to wear. 
    Like other steels, stainless steel is an alloy a combination of iron and
other metals. Unlike other steels, however, it contains at least 11 percent 
chromium. This chromium makes the steel stainless all the way through.
    According to the Cookware Manufacturers Association, stainless steel may
also contain other elements, such as nickel, molybdenum or titanium. These
materials can contribute special hardness, high temperature resistance, and 
resistance to scratching and corrosion to the finished stainless steel alloy. 
    As stainless steel does not conduct heat evenly, most stainless steel 
cookware is made with copper or aluminum bottoms. Manufacturers caution 
against allowing acidic or salty foods to remain in stainless steel for long
periods. Although there are no known health hazards from leaching of the
metal, undissolved salt will pit steel surfaces.

                                   Copper 
    Copper is called a noble metal by both cooks and chemists, but for
different reasons. Noble to a chemist means that the metal does not corrode 
easily. To a cook, it means magnificent in appearance. To both, copper fills
the bill. (See Cookware as a Source of Additives, in the March 1982 issue of
FDA Consumer.)
    Copper is an excellent conductor of heat, especially good for 
top-of-range cooking. Cooks often prefer copper cookware for delicate sauces
and foods that must be cooked at precisely controlled temperatures. 
    However, copper cookware is usually lined with tin or stainless steel.
FDA's Thomas says that the agency cautions against using unlined copper for 
general cooking because the metal is relatively easily dissolved by some
foods with which it comes in contact and, in sufficient quantities, can 
cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
    The toxic effects of copper are well documented. I. Herbert Scheinberg, 
M.D., one of the nation's experts on copper toxicity and professor of 
medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, cites a classic case 
reported by the New York Department of Health in the 1970s. Children
attending a movie matinee bought soda from the type of vending machine that 
drops a cup and fills it with carbonated water from one side and syrup from 
another. The check valve for dispensing the carbonated water was made of
copper. Overnight, a significant amount of copper had dissolved into the
carbonated water. The children became ill from drinking the soda
contaminated with copper salts. 

                        Ceramic and Enameled Cookware 
    In 1830, a Bohemian craftsman found he could create a permanent, smooth,
glassy surface on cast iron by finishing it with porcelain enamel. This 
highly durable glass is stain and scratch resistant and does not pick up
food odors. 
    Today, enamel-coated iron and steel provide colorful as well as 
practical additions to the cook's collection. Cookware made properly of 
enamel on these metals is safe to cook with, says Edward A. Steele, acting
director, executive operations staff, in FDA's Center for Food Safety and 
Applied Nutrition. Steele says that because of the high firing temperatures 
required, lead which could present a safety concern is not used in the
enamel for this cookware. 
    Lead, however, is used in some glazes for slow-cooking pots 
(crock-pots). But, in tests done in 1987, FDA found that the amount of lead 
that leached into food from these pots did not exceed FDA standards. (See An
Unwanted Souvenir: Lead in Ceramic Ware, in the December 1989-January 1990
issue of FDA Consumer.) 
    At the same time (1971) that FDA restricted the amount of lead permitted
to leach from housewares, the agency also established limits for cadmium
after it learned that this potentially toxic substance was sometimes
contained in the red, yellow and orange pigments used to color the interior 
of enamel cookware. In the mid-1970s, FDA inspectors discovered excessive 
cadmium levels in imported cookware and prohibited these products from
entering the country. 
    Cadmium was used mostly by foreign manufacturers. But, says Steele, 
manufacturers have discontinued its use, and consumers today are not in 
danger of cadmium poisoning from enamelware marketed today.