Looking For Truly Non-Toxic Dinnerware With No Lead, Cadmium, or Other Toxins? Your Search Ends Here!
Serving food in healthy, non-toxic dinnerware is as important as cooking it in healthy cookware! However, a major problem that comes with selecting healthy dinner dishes is the lack of options. This article aims to inform you on the choices of healthy brands/options for dinnerware, and provide the best kind of dinnerware for healthy eating:
What Are The More Commonly Used Forms of Dinnerware?
One of the biggest drawbacks of choosing dinnerware is how limited the selection can be in regards to healthy materials. Here is a list of some of the most commonly used types of plates, bowls, and cups.
Ceramic Plates and Bowls
One of the presently most widely-used dish materials is dinnerware made of ceramic. Ceramics may use clay to help create a plate or bowl; however, only about 4-9% of a dish may be made with natural clay. Furthermore, this clay may be a secondary clay that is harvested at a site with impurities. To top things off, the piece is finished with glazes that can include lead, cadmium, and other chemicals. When eating warm or hot food from these pieces, the heat can cause these chemically treated ceramic cups, plates, and bowls to leach the harmful lead and cadmium into your food! Even ceramic plates that advertise themselves as lead free may not be truly “lead free”, as long as the lead content is beneath a certain threshold. Be careful when choosing your dinner plate set!
China and Bone China Dinnerware
Many elegant fine porcelain sets are also made of clay, specifically a unique soft white clay known as kaolin. The delicate crafting process of this clay and the detailed and intricate designs usually make china sets an attractive white dinnerware set for many. Bone china, as the name implies, also includes animal bone ash in its production to give it a smooth, slightly translucent look.
Despite porcelain’s fine make, high price, and expensive quality, eating food off a porcelain dinner set may also invite toxins into your body. The brightly colored, intricate designs on china sets are usually from a finish that uses cadmium or lead to achieve such colors. Additionally, there are many fake porcelain sets that are in circulation. These false porcelain pieces can contain any number of materials with toxins, if you are not careful. Porcelain style pieces still serve as wonderful art pieces, however!
Stoneware Dinnerware
Stoneware, like ceramic-ware, uses a type of clay in its creation, and the pieces get their name from the stone-like qualities. A lot of stoneware is reinforced with glass to make it stronger and more durable than other ceramic pieces. As a result, this type of dinnerware is not as porous. Because of its thick density preventing quick heat-up, stoneware is not very well suited for reheating.
When observing the healthiness of its material, one would note that stoneware is made from refined clay, which means the clay has many additives or other chemicals to refine it. Additionally, many stoneware pieces have a glaze finish, which as previously mentioned, can leach toxins into your food.
Glass Plates and Bowls
Glass dinnerware, like china, can make a very attractive dinnerware set. Most glass plates are made of borosilicate and are tinted with a lead coloring. What happens when you eat hot meals off these dinnerware sets? More chemical leaching, unfortunately.
Melamine Plastic Plates and Bowls
Plastic dinnerware is considered to be the most durable, being nearly indestructible in terms of kitchen accidents. Additionally, it is lightweight and can be used in a variety of settings. Despite its versatility, melamine plastic can be extremely harmful for health, as when it is subjected to heat it leaches harmful plastic and other chemicals. Even BPA free plastic bowls and plates can release a variety of harmful toxins and chemicals, which over time damage your organs and cause a myriad of health problems. While technically being dishwasher and microwave safe, the heat from a dishwasher and microwave can easily cause leaching, so in reality, a plastic dinner plate is not exactly “safe” for these devices.
What do these have in common?
When looking at all these forms of dinnerware, one issue is prevalent in all of them: all of them have some sort of toxic chemical that when subjected to heat can contaminate your food. Even if you look for lead and cadmium free dinner plates, a glaze on a piece still may have harmful chemicals. If you have taken the steps to choose healthy ingredients and non-toxic cookware but still eat from these types of plates, all your efforts can end up being in vain! After identifying this issue, Miriam’s Earthen Cookware developed a solution.

Introducing: 100% Non-Toxic Dinnerware, Handcrafted in the USA
After offering healthy cookware as a product for so long, Miriam’s Earthen Cookware now also offers sets of primary clay dinnerware: 100% non-toxic cups and bowls (dinner plates, spoons, salad bowls, and other utensils are in the works, too!). They are perfect for serving soups, tea, coffee, vegetables, herbal concoctions, and servings of dinner portions!
The clay used for making these cups and bowls are sourced from un-farmed and non-industrialized land in the US after being fully tested for purity. No chemicals or metals are present in the clay; it is lead free, cadmium free, and contains no other metals or toxins!
Toxin free dinnerware was highly requested by those who have been using Miriam’s Earthen Cookware (MEC) to cook their meals. They were not comfortable serving their healthily cooked food on a dinnerware set that may contain toxins. When they are taking strides to not compromise on their health by using non-toxic cookware, why should they have to serve their food on toxic dinnerware? As a result, MEC offers dinnerware so the food you eat retains its healthy quality throughout the meal prep process: from the production, to the cooking, to the serving on the table, to the stomach.

Unlike ceramic dinnerware sets, these cups and bowls are made with the quality that can only come from hand-crafting, as they are made without using any chemicals, glazes, or enamels. There are no added colors – they come in the natural color of fired clay and are lead and cadmium free. Because these cups and bowls are made from pure primary clay, which is inert and non-reactive, there are no chemical reactions that would normally occur from glazed dinnerware – keeping your food safe when served hot.
These cups and bowls are microwave safe, but they can also be used for heating small amounts of food right on the stovetop! Heating and reheating on the stove is a great option for those who have ditched their microwave due to the device’s precarious electromagnetic radiation. They can additionally be used in the oven, if needed.
One noteworthy feature is that there are no handles on pure clay cups. This is because, compared to traditional ceramic or metal mugs, a clay cup retains all of the food’s heat inside the vessel. With all the heat on the inside, the cup stays comfortably warm on the outside, making it safe to use without a handle needed! You can use them to serve tea, coffee, herbal concoctions and other drinks. The bowls also serve as excellent soup bowls without the risk of burning.
Best of all, this cookware is eco friendly and great for the environment. You will need less heat to reheat your foods in these pieces, saving energy. As an added benefit, because these cups and bowls are made from pure clay from the earth, once they reach the end of their lifespan it is safe to easily dispose of them. Once disposed, they will return to the same earth that they came from!
Want a Set of Pure Clay Cups and/or Bowls?
If you are interested in switching to completely non-toxic dinnerware or adding to your set at home, get them HERE!
