Story:
Saladmaster: Are you eating your cookware?
A simple leaching test to see if your cookware is reactive to food and leach metals and other toxins into it.
Prepare an 250ml glass of water and stir a tablespoon of Baking Soda (Sodium Bi-carbonate) into the water thoroughly.
Taste the mixture in the glass
Pour the mixture into your cooking pot and bring it to a boil for 3 to 5 minutes
Off the heat, then scoop a teaspoon of the mixture from the pot, blow it cool
Taste the mixture
If the heated mixture tastes the same as the original baking soda water in step 1, your cookware is fine, if not, YOU ARE EATING YOUR COOKWARE!
The toxicity of Teflon coating and aluminum are well known to cause health hazard to the body. Take step to protect your health by using a non-reactive 316 Ti Surgical Stainless Steel Saladmaster cookware…
Other Versions
1. What do you think of the baking soda “test” for Saladmaster cookware? supposed to prove your pots are leaching metal into your food.
2. Is Saladmaster a scam, pyramid scheme, or legitimate MLM Business for Associates?
Facts Analysis:
The Saladmaster cookware products have been around for few years now, but there have been concerns raised against their product quality claims and the ways in which they market them. Let us analyze them and see how true their claims are.
What is SaladMaster
Saladmaster is a Texas company that began manufacturing the 7-ply cookware in 1994. Prior to that, the company had the 5-ply surgical stainless steel type of cookware. Saladmaster works somewhat similar to MLM business, where the products are not available for direct sale, neither on their website, nor in retail stores. They are available for sale only through an authorized dealer. The Saladmaster Company has been marketing their cookware products with various other means like conducting home demos, parties, and holding contests regularly.
Saladmaster Cookware Material
The Saladmaster cookware features 316Ti titanium stainless steel, boasting they are the only cookware company using the 316Ti surgical stainless steel. 316 Surgical stainless steel has Molybdenum added, and may have a higher content of nickel, which makes the stainless steel more resistant to very high temperatures—like over 600 degrees centigrade. But we do not cook food at such high temperatures. 316Ti technology combines 316 Stainless Steel with Titanium, which the company says maximizes resistance to chemical reactions with the salts, acids, and alkalis in the food being prepared.
Home Demos
Saladmaster offers free home demos in the form of ‘Hosting A Dinner,’ where their cookware is presented as a cure-all for cancer and other illnesses. Their main claim is that cooking in the regular Teflon, Aluminum, and other cookware pots will leach out the metal products into your food and that is going to affect your health badly. To ‘prove’ this, they demonstrate a Baking Soda test that we will discuss later. But note that, the way in which we cook our food, the cookware especially, is not the only criterion that decides our health. Our diet, exercise and daily lifestyle also contribute to same.
As stated in a first hand review of the Saladmaster home demo, there were many issues with their claims. During their demo, the executives claimed that:
Teflon causes cancer
Aluminum causes cancer
Iron causes cancer
Stainless steel causes cancer
Cooking your food too hot causes cancer
Glass cookware contains lead, which causes cancer
Those are inaccurate claims. As you can verify from Cancer.org listing known and probable human carcinogens, from the aforementioned claims, only “aluminum production”, “Iron and steel founding (workplace exposure)”, and “Lead and lead compounds” are listed there.
Teflon and Aluminum Cookware
Saladmaster says the toxicity of Teflon coating and aluminum are well known to cause health hazard to the body. This is again an inaccurate claim. Non-stick Teflon coated pots, when used correctly, under normal conditions, are safe — as long as they are not overheated. According to Kurunthachalam Kannan, an environmental toxicologist at the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center, at temperatures above 500 degrees Fahrenheit, the Teflon breakdown begins and smaller chemical fragments are released that can cause health concerns. You can read more about it here.
Studies have shown that in conventional aluminum cookware, migration of aluminum is a cause of concern for our health. It is because of this, Anodized aluminum came up, which is more harder, durable, and less reactive. You can read more about it here.
Saladmaster Baking Soda Test
The Saladmaster baking soda test described in the story is a leaching test that supposedly shows how the standard cookware leaks their metal products into your food. The above video is a similar demonstration that says surgical stainless steel is the best to cook, and does not leach chemicals into food. From the first hand review mentioned above, during home demo, the sales person conducts the baking soda test with some pots from the audience (perhaps used ones), and then with their Saladmaster cookware. After boiling the baking soda solution, a taste test supposedly shows how “metallic tasting” the water was from non-Saladmaster cookware. This they say is because of leaching of metal product from cookware surface.
There are few issues with the baking soda test. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) by default has a metallic taste. The carbonate in the baking soda reacts while boiling and it gets more awkward in taste, and the baking soda solution when boiled in an old, used cookware can certainly taste awkward. This is more to do with the residue of cooking over time, than the actual metal leaching.
Our Test
We conducted a similar baking soda leach test with a used and new stainless cooking vessel. Initially, before boiling, the baking soda solution was somewhat like salty, bitter and little fishy (metallic taste). The boiled solution in used vessel tasted very bitter and awkward, while that in new vessel was very bitter again, but less severe comparatively. Notably, in both the cases, the vessels developed white patches on their inner surface, which again, got cleaned easily. If that was the real metal leaching, we do not think the vessel would be cleaned so easily. It is also important to note that baking soda is generally not used in such quantity while cooking.
Dr. Robert O. Young Suggesting Saladmaster
As shown in the above video, Dr. Robert O. Young from California praises the quality of Saladmaster cookware — saying they maintain the pH of your food and give you great health. But according to Quackwatch.com, the theories and credentials of Dr. Robert Young are questionable, and the claims that he is a distinguished researcher are preposterous.
Dr. Robert O. Young wrote several books promoting his herbal and dietary supplements, which are not published in recognized scientific journals. Benjamin Abelow, M.D., who wrote the highly respected textbook, Understanding Acid-Base, has concluded that Robert Young’s understanding of biochemistry is deficient.
Dr. Young studied medical microbiology—training under Dr. Robert Bradford at the Bradford Research Institute in Chula Vista, California. Robert Bradford was convicted of laetrile smuggling in the 1970s, and was not even a college graduate. His alleged “doctoral degrees”—two of them—were acquired from credential mills.
In 2009, Young claimed that he had cured a woman named Kim Tinkham with breast cancer. However, she died of her disease about a year later. Young was also prosecuted three times, with various charges like taking blood samples from two women and using the samples to diagnose illnesses and prescribe products that he sold. In January 2014, Young and two associates were charged of grand theft conspiring to practice medicine without a license.
High Price $3,000
Saladmaster is certainly one of the most expensive waterless cookware you can buy, some sets of which can cost you more than $3000. It is a fact that the 316 stainless steel used in their cookware making costs more, and so does the titanium added. The company also offers other features like Versa Loc handles and Vapo Valve, along with a lifetime guarantee (the warranty mentions the handles, knobs and cords on the electric appliances are guaranteed for only a year though). Nonetheless, the high price of the Saladmaster cookware does not seem to be justified; it perhaps accounts to their method of marketing with free home demos, contests and others. Notably, we have seen many customers selling their used Saladmaster cookware online.
Conclusion
Considering all the aforementioned facts, the inaccurate marketing claims of Saladmaster, and their high priced Cookware products, it appears like they are selling their products based on fear of health.
The baking soda test and leaching of metals from cooking pots is mostly mentioned in the home demos and other online marketing stuff of Saladmaster, but as such, they are not mentioned in official description of their products (refer to their product description in Image Gallery).
Hoax or Fact:
Possibly Hoax.
0 Comments