Potential safety hazard for parrots- silicone baking mats

We had a seriously scary situation last night. I have done a ton of research into silicone safety for birds and actual, food grade silicone is considered safe. I have been using multiple silicone items around the kitchen with 0 issues for quite a while now. I figured since I have had no issues with any other silicone items, that those popular silicone baking mats would also be safe. I was pre-heating the pan with the silicone mat in it at 350 degrees (MFG says oven safe to 480 degrees) and within 5 minutes, the smoke alarm went off. There was no food to burn, no visible smoke, just the mat releasing some kind of fume the smoke alarm picked up. It is also not a particularly sensitive alarm, it's never gone off before, even when food was actually burnt.

I rushed Kiwi outside ASAP once the alarm went off and hubby worked on opening all the windows and getting fans going to get the fumes out. He said, in the kitchen, there was a light "burnt rubber" odor. Kiwi is OK, though I kept checking in on him all last night (and kept the kitchen door closed/vent running all night). I don't know had the alarm not picked it up and I went about baking on those mats for an extended period of time if it might have killed him, or had he been a smaller bird or closer to the kitchen. I strongly suspect there is something in this particular style of baking mat BESIDES FDA approved food grade silicone. I did a side by side comparison with some other silicone items around my kitchen. These just don't seem similar AT ALL to known-to-be-safe silicone items:



I also found numerous other people had problems with this style of mat setting off smoke alarms for no apparent reason too after looking it up online. I would strongly suggest bird owners stay away from this style of mat, even if other ACTUAL silicone bakeware is safe. My gut says we got extremely lucky last night that the smoke alarm picked up the fumes before Kiwi's tiny, sensitive lungs did.

Really good post! Its hard to find safe baking items for the kitchen.

Thanks for that post April...Good thing I don't bake often, but I am going to my cupboard right now and getting my silicone baking items together to give to my Mom and I won't be risking using them again.

Amanda_Bennett said:

Thanks for that post April...Good thing I don't bake often, but I am going to my cupboard right now and getting my silicone baking items together to give to my Mom and I won't be risking using them again.

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It is just the mat in the picture, the other silicone items I showed are fine and have never caused me a single issue

Ok, so upon further research, this style of baking mat DOES contain something other than silicone- FIBERGLASS I KNEW it had to have something else in there! Apparently that's what the woven material inside is. I wonder what other lovely things have been included in these that aren't in normal silicone bakeware?

I also found numerous reports online of other people using "silpats" with the same thing happening (smoke alarm going off and odors). I wrote as nice of a "concern email" as I could to the company. Waiting on their response...

I don't have any silicon baking items yet...still using my old school items. But thank you for this information and THANK GOODNESD your baby is ooo Kay!

Toni

I've always just used parchment paper over my stainless steel cookie sheet, but I was looking at these. Good to know! Will keep searching for something else!

April, I am so glad to hear that Kiwi is okay. It's scary to think that unlike food items, products don't have to label exactly what it contains. Thanks for the warning.

I'm a baker and friends and family are forever giving me things like that. On the mat, I wanted that to be parrot safe SO bad but I just had a bad feeling about it so used it instead to roll out dough on but never used it in the oven. I emailed the company and their answer just didn't alleviate any of my concerns at all so it never got used in the oven. Glad Kiwi is okay.

My friend lives in an apartment with a small bird and is forever telling me that he is concerned when other residents might be cooking with really dangerous cookware. Guess that's something difficult to have complete control of. I'll be glad when they take all that off the market; although it will be years before that stuff all disappears from kitchens.

So glad that Kiwi is safe!

Of course I am terrified to cook anything when I bring Kyleigh home now...lol

OOwl said:

I'm a baker and friends and family are forever giving me things like that. On the mat, I wanted that to be parrot safe SO bad but I just had a bad feeling about it so used it instead to roll out dough on but never used it in the oven. I emailed the company and their answer just didn't alleviate any of my concerns at all so it never got used in the oven. Glad Kiwi is okay.

My friend lives in an apartment with a small bird and is forever telling me that he is concerned when other residents might be cooking with really dangerous cookware. Guess that's something difficult to have complete control of. I'll be glad when they take all that off the market; although it will be years before that stuff all disappears from kitchens.

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I guess your 'gut feeling' was right. While I didn't observe any distress or signs of illness in Kiwi, odors with "burnt rubber" smell setting off smoke alarms cannot possibly be good. If the seller won't take them back, I can always use them for rolling dough or in my dehydrator (which I never run much above 120 degrees). The seller seems to think I did not wash them good enough before using because I did not wash them in a dishwasher. I am leery of that explanation, as there shouldn't have been such a residue a good scrubbing under warm water with soap wouldn't have taken off:20:

So glad that Kiwi is safe!

Of course I am terrified to cook anything when I bring Kyleigh home now...lol

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If you don't already, just go stainless or multi-clad stainless. Probably the only material guaranteed not to produce fumes or leech anything into the food.

Then all you have to worry about is the skill of the cook