Fragile as glass

A one-year study on breakability

By Culinate staff

December 10, 2010

The January 2011 edition of Consumer Reports magazine features one of the nonprofit’s trademark exhaustive studies into a particular safety topic, in this case the possible hazards of glass bakeware. (No, you can’t find it online; so far, the story is available to paper subscribers only.) The CR findings? That tempered-glass bakeware — specifically the Pyrex and Anchor Hocking brands — is simply too dangerous to have in your kitchen.

Not only, CR concluded, are there too many confusing restrictions on proper use of the popular baking dishes — among others, don’t put them in an oven that hasn’t preheated fully, don’t set a hot glass dish on any surface that isn’t shielded by a dry cloth or potholder, and don’t cook anything without some liquid in the glass pan, yet don’t add liquid to hot glassware — but when a dish breaks, it’s apt to do so explosively, causing not only burns from hot food but cuts and stab wounds from flying glass.

(Sadly, this issue isn’t new; ConsumerAffairs.com reported on the problem two years ago.)

In the January issue, Consumer Reports also revisited the ongoing issue of methylmercury in fish, reminding consumers not to eat canned tuna along with swordfish, shark, tilefish, and king mackerel. Left out, however, was any mention of Pacific Northwest albacore tuna, a fish often touted as being low in mercury.