We all know enough not to chew on old windowsills that might contain lead-based paint.

But have you also heard that we might be risking lead poisoning by eating off of vintage ceramics coated in lead-based glaze?

Well, there's certainly a lot of noise about it on the internet, but is this a real concern

we need to take seriously or is it just a lot of chemophobic hype?

And in our extended content for premium members, how you can test at home and find out

if your vintage ceramic wear leeches dangerous amounts of lead.

All of that and more is coming up right now on

Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. Vintage ceramics,

decorative or deadly.

Welcome to the show that separates fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience,

real history from fake history,

and helps us all make better life decisions by knowing what's real and what's not.

All over the Internet are warnings and articles that the common ceramicware you eat or drink from every day is laced with lead, and therefore using these pieces can be toxic. It's the kind of thing that has grown all too familiar. There are activists of all flavors, and many of them love to cry out that whatever this or that everyday thing is

killing us all, even though there don't seem to be any victims.

But as we always do here on Skeptoid, we give every idea its due attention, and analyze it

on its real merits, not on what random people say about it online.

So today, we're going to look at ceramic dishware,

in particular vintage ceramic dishware, and see if lead truly is leaching out of it at risky

levels that warrant mitigation. Having done many such episodes, my initial reaction was to be

eye-rollingly dubious of the claim. Compounds in

the glaze, which has been fired and turned into what's essentially glass, are chemically

...