Toxic effects from galvanized food preparation utensils, p2

A. Hi, Rodney.

If practical, I'd sandblast the galvanizing off. If not, you can remove it with muriatic acid (although this is a dangerous material, and a job for people familiar with using acids for metal treatment). But I'm not familiar with the zinc flaking off anyway, and am not convinced that it will happen.

Regards,

A. Hi Dianne. If you can sand the zinc off, that would be okay. But if that's not practical, the kiln sounds okay to me as long as you're not breathing the vapors. Zinc is an essential nutrient, not a toxin. The zinc issue is not exposure, it's overexposure. Using a welding torch may lead to overexposure; electric arc welding certainly does. But galvanized metal may have a very small amount of chromium on it as well, and a small percentage of lead in it. These are toxins.

Once the galvanizing is gone the steel is very subject to corrosion, although a good clearcoat will offer some protection. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Jonathan. I suggest high-temperature stove paint ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] rather than galvanizing. For a really fine approach, porcelainizing would be even better if you have a facility that can do it for a practical cost.

Regards,

A. Hi Deb.

Actually, this is supposed to be a public back-and-forth rather than a thread where I answer questions -- because that implies an expertise that I certainly don't claim to have :-(

Please check your grinder with a magnet to see if it is iron/steel -- I'd like to know. If so, it looks to me like it is tin plated, which would be a 100% safe coating. Hopefully someone is familiar with these antiques and will know.

Regards,

A. Hi Kirk. I offered my own personal opinion on that a while back: I think it's safe. The problem is who can answer? The manufacturers think it's safe; the government doesn't think it's so obviously unsafe that they've banned it. But there will probably never ever be the kind of tests that would be needed to conclusively prove that it's absolutely safe, or for that matter that plain steel, stainless steel, aluminum or anything else is any safer.

Regards,

A. Hi Linda. Your formula isn't poisoned, although I'm not quite sure why acids turned the strainer black. I'd guess that the strainer may be aluminum? Aluminum can turn black from the strong alkalis in dishwasher detergent. Is it possible that you cleaned it in the dishwasher and didn't notice that it had turned black . Acids like lemon juice and vinegar can perhaps also turn aluminum black, although I haven't noticed it. It's possible, I suppose, that the strainer was tin plated (which is a very food-safe material), but if it came with no information at all, I'm just guessing and, sorry, educated guesses aren't very reassuring.

Regards,

A. Hi Glenda. This is a complicated knot ...
1) one strand is that nothing is safe or unsafe, it's all relative
2) another strand is that you are using something for a purpose for which it wasn't intended -- which creates a situation where the designer specified materials without the intention of them being heated to charcoal fire temperature, whereas you & I don't know what materials he selected. For example, it seems unlikely, but still perhaps vaguely possible, that the tub has a clear vinyl coating
3) epidemiologists tend to not study such things, so there is no organized feedback if it was harming anyone
4) most manufacturers are not much concerned with the issue of casual exposure to heated galvanized materials; many "charcoal starter chimneys" are galvanized.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it whatsoever, but you and I do not have the corner on wisdom to call others wrong who are concerned :-)

Sorry for the non answer; it's just the way it is.

Regards,

A. Hi Brian. It's been said several times in this thread that zinc is an essential micronutrient, not a poison; and therefore that the potential problem is not exposure but over-exposure. I can't imagine how you could ever ingest a detectable amount of excess zinc from this, let along receive over-exposure.

You know that you need vitamins and minerals; zinc and iron are two of those minerals you need. Look up the MDR and how much is in your foods; you'll probably find out that most vegetarians don't get enough zinc and iron unless they're very careful :-)

Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Lynn. We have many threads about painting galvanized materials. Please search the site for that.

Hi Christine. Galvanized feed troughs and watering troughs have been used almost universally around the world for many decades and I've never heard of a problem with it. You would think that if there was a substantial reason to fear the application, that we'd certainly be able to read about it.

Regards,

Hi Qua. I am amazed that you got such detailed info from the manufacturer. You must have written to them with the same degree of politeness, charm, and flattery that you used in writing to us :-)

A "food surface", at least as I use the term, is a surface that food sits on and touches. And the reason that people and the FDA might be concerned about food sitting on zinc is out of an abundance of caution that too much could get dissolved into acidic food. Again, zinc is not poison -- it is an essential micronutrient, but you don't want to dose yourself with it by putting food on it and having some of it possibly dissolve onto the food.

The racks are food-safe chrome plating, the baking pan is food-safe aluminized steel. As long as you are not eating off of the crumb tray, you are not using zinc plating as a food surface ... and even if you did eat off of the crumb tray, the issue would surely be de minimus. This toaster oven should be fine. Good luck.

Best regards,

A. I don't think you have to worry about any contamination of the food, but I'll qualify that statement by saying that's just my opinion. That being said, the galvanizing will burn, and the zinc fumes can definitely make one sick if the vapors/fumes from the grill are inhaled. If it were me, I wouldn't chance it, metal fume fever is a nasty one. At the very least I'd light a pile of coals and burn the galvanizing off prior to using for cooking and around people.

I just bought some 1/4" stainless steel mesh for a home project over the weekend at my local big box store, it was readily available in the chicken wire section.

A. I once read a story about someone who made a batch of some kind of beverage in a galvanized trash can. I gather it was acidic. It made the people who drank it quite ill.

I'd strip the Zn off with some HCl or NaOH before using galvanized steel in contact with food.

Hi Fred. It's all just personal opinion because to the best of my knowledge no epidemiologists are studying the effects of consuming maple syrup that was boiled in a galvanized pan previously cleaned up by boiling in vinegar ...

... but I'll take the syrup off your hands if you wish, and savor it! It's not the right thing to do as you know, and I wouldn't sell stuff that was prepared in even the slightest questionable way because people can get freaky, but it sounds safe and delicious to me :-)

Regards,

Thanks Ted for your input on this.

A. Hi Jeff. Please review this page; that question was asked and answered a couple of times, including links to other sites.

Regards,

A. Years ago, substantially all of the hot-dip galvanizing was done with 'Prime Western' zinc, which is zinc with lead added to constitute 0.8 - 1.4 % of the deposit. Today, hot dip galvanizers are slowly abandoning this technology. The lead promotes better wetting of the fluxed surface and better draining of the molten alloy from the surface of the part. Spot test kits for lead are available for those who may be concerned about the lead.

Thanks Tom. Even with pure lead instead of 1%, the hazard depends on a host of circumstances. The lead water supply pipes in the city of Flint weren't considered unduly dangerous as long as the water was properly treated, but they were deemed very dangerous when the water treatment was skipped and their inert patina was compromised. Tens of millions of us are drinking water which passed through lead pipes. Replacing them was a nationwide "shovel ready" project, but due to some combination of simply not thinking of it, or local plumbers & pipefitters not being considered good targets for government largesse, it didn't happen.

Regards,

A. Hi Bob. Zinc is not a "food-safe" material, so it is not appropriate to use it in contact with food. Whether it's actually "safe" or not might possibly be another question, but I can hardly say it's safe when knowledgeable food authorities tell us not to do it, and when it violates the principal I've mentioned before of never using a material for food contact that wasn't designed for food contact. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Katherine. Firstly, nothing is 'completely safe' -- we could theoretically knock over our coffee onto our computers in such a way as to both get electrocuted as we discuss this. Rather, it's a matter of trying to assess realistic dangers worth worrying about vs. remote ones. Black & Decker is not trying to poison you, and we're not talking about a food-contact surface, and you've personally ruled out non-stick surfaces. So I'm going to say: "It's safe". Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi again. No I don't.

Regards,

Q. Hello Katherine. did you use/keep the toaster oven? I'm struggling with same issue. I've looked for a long time before deciding on a non-toxic air fryer. Ninja Foodi model SP101. Stainless steel interior. It does 8 things. While online, an alternative model, was on sale for less that does 11 things, Ninja Foodi FT301. I ordered then realized the interior looked different. Ninja customer service said it is zinc plated stainless steel. I read some really bad things about zinc heated beyond 500 degrees. this oven has 1800 watts and it's sear plate (which is coated with nonstick material) heats to 500 degrees. I'm thinking I should return before even unboxing.

A. Hi Dennis. If we don't even know quite what it is that you have, it's hard to say that it's food safe at grilling temperatures. But it sounds like a piece of steel you just need to carefully clean.

Regards,

A. Hi Mindie. Risk is relative and mostly just personal opinion. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Regards,

A. Hi. From experience, any thing made of galvanized will not last. Especially if there is water on it all the time. The galvanise will give up one day and corrode; it give out this white residue liquid and this can also affect metal utensils. It's worse if you use Chinese galvanized steel. Anything to do with food, it's best go for high quality plastic for storage. If for cooking, go stainless steel. If you build your own BBQ, try using 316 stainless steel; it may cost 3 times galvanised steel, but it last forever. Or if you just use normal steel is okay too, much cheaper, just have to oil it when not in use (this is same for cast iron). Peace of mind is after all what we need.

A. Hi Ben. Arsenic poisoning is caused by drinking arsenic contaminated water. The only relationship I see between arsenic and zinc is that some metal ores including zinc or copper might include arsenic which could pose an occupational exposure hazard during smelting. But as far as I can see, once you have zinc metal there is no connection at all to arsenic.

There is nothing wrong with prudence, but this metal fume fever issue, which arises when welders bring zinc to white hot temperatures, evolving clouds of zinc oxide, which they inhale because their face is constantly in the middle of the cloud as they watch the weld, seems to me to be a vastly overblown concern for those of us who are not welding. As has been said many times, zinc is an essential micronutrient, not a toxin.

Other readers are certainly welcome to try to carefully picture the exact details of your installation and comment upon it, but I confess to not having the time to try to deeply understand your exact design, or the designs of the dozens of other posters on this thread and the numerous other threads on the same subject -- apologies, but posting the questions and offering generic food for thought is all that I can do; I cannot personally offer individualized design evaluations :-)

Regards,

A. Hi Khalid.
If it has a further coating on it, like teflon or porcelain, it may be okay.

But bare galvanized metal is not a food-safe material for two reasons. Most galvanizing includes a dip in hexavalent chromium and this toxic material even in extremely dilute form has no place in cookware. Secondly, zinc is not considered a food-safe surface because it can dissolve into acidic food, and even possibly into alkaline food.

Regards,