Silicone Bakeware Safety. Who Knows?
I enjoy Christmas. I know that commercialism has taken over a lot of the holiday, but we still have choices to make as we create the memories that mean so much. It’s our choice, at this time as well as any other, what we will focus on.
One of the things that I love about this time of year is that EVERYBODY has a sale going on. The stores get really competitive and it’s a time when the latest and greatest is front and center. Since I love food, anything that is a kitchen gadget will peak my interest – at least at first. Although they have been around for a number of years, silicone bake ware is constantly in the advertisement papers now. There are cookie sheet covers, muffin tins, bread pans and specialty shapes of all kinds. With so much available, of course, my questioning nature comes to the fore.
How safe is this stuff?
I’m so used to either metal or ceramic or glass. Why do we need something new and different??
As a kid, I remember my mother cooking in aluminum cookware. Later we learned that the aluminum wasn’t so good for us because small amounts of it got into our food. We now know that metal toxicity is more common than we want to think about and can cause all kinds of health problems that can be as simple as aches and pains and as potentially complicated as contributing to Parkinson’s or Multiple Sclerosis issues and more.
Then non-stick cookware was all the rage. Years later, we know to look for BPA-free and so on. Even this “new and improved” can be somewhat suspect.
More recently, it’s titanium cookware with a ceramic coating that gets the nod from the most critical health care professionals as being the “safest” to cook in.
When cost is a major consideration, stainless steel is still an acceptable alternative.
Ok, back to the bake ware… I started a hunt for some answers.
Like most of you, I started with the websites known for this kind of information. I was shocked to find that next to nothing has been written on this issue. Since silicone molds have been around for a while, I would have thought that I would find information easily. After an hour of searching… ”silicone bake ware safety”, “silicone in the kitchen”, “silicone cookware” – silicon – with an “e” and without,
whatever I could think of to put in the search engine, then attempting several different search engines.
Finally, I found one article.
It said that silicone was known to handle very high heat (up to 425 degrees F), without breaking down,
BUT to be careful that whatever mold you used was made of pure silicone.
If there is no list of “ingredients” like there is on food products, it could be full of fillers.
The fillers could be anything and would most likely be toxic to the human body.
The article also stated that if you twisted the mold/pan and you saw WHITE - that indicated that fillers were used in the making of that mold/pan.
I know that it’s not much, but still a good thing to know.
So, in my humble opinion,
there is not enough information yet for me to feel comfortable recommending silicone bake ware to my patients.
Christmas baking is still a great way to build lasting memories with children and grandchildren. There are many healthier recipes for these things than there ever used to be. As for me, my grandson asked 2 years ago if we could make the cookies that “looked like little humans” (i.e. gingerbread men). It has become our tradition.