I love Melamine and tiffins so was so excited to see a melamine tiffin (otherwise knows as bento boxes, Japanese lunch box or as we like to call it in Hawaii, kau kau tin). See above at 12 oclock position. I bought mine from pearlriver.com.

Is this the same as Melmaline or Melmalin (sp?) - (maybe a brand name) that was in use in late 50's, early 60's. Grew up on this stuff - everyday meals and the "good stuff" only used on holidays. It was light blue and NOTHING was ever chipped or broken.

Get out of my head! I was just shopping for this stuff today! But my route was hitting up my favorite thrift stores for a mix-&-match set to use as patio/picnic dishes. I found tons of great stuff (many seem brand new for just 39 cents each!) and I just went with a lime/teal/navy color pallet with pops of white and the collection turned out great!

And say what you want about plastics, but a)they are in EVERYTHING; I mean think about a hospital visit! & b)I've been using them all my life and I'm still healthy as an ox! And c)Those dishes above are super cute!

I grew up with Melamine kids dishes and camping dishes. We had some plates that were made with a piece of our artwork sandwiched in the middle.
They do eventually die. My parents camping plates are starting to bite the dust after close to 40 years of abuse and we shattered a bowl in the kitchen that had seen 20 years.
Whole Foods uses so really nice divided thick Melamine plates that I would love to find a source for.

I learned my lesson about melamine in the microwave the hard way. YIKES. The first few times it was fine, but man oh man when those plates melt, watch out. Who knows what I was cooking!

Melamine is harmful if you eat it. So is glass. Lesson: don't grind up melamine or glass and mix it into your food. Eating off it is a different matter.

With condo living I do a lot of picnicing in the summer and melamine products are perfect for that. Durable but most important light weight so I don't break my back logging my picnic basket around. Also eating outdoors very hot food isn't a major problem so I think I'm safe for now.

NYCchick: I am not opposed to melamine but you are over simplifying. The concern with food coming into contact with various types of plastic compounds is that recent studies have shown that they leach chemicals into the foods. There is evidence that microwaving in it is especially scary.

I don't know about you but whenever I have concerns about product safety I turn to the public interest group with the most at stake: parents.

Christ, that's all we need. There's always someone screaming about the dangers to their Snotleigh. And I'm saying that as a parent.

@Mary K - I had the same thing happen. Total plate destruction!

I would say that if you're nervous about melamine leaching into foods served on it, limit your use to cold, non-acidic foods, and make sure the melamine itself is not (overly) scratched, cracked or scorched.

I got the set of Pottery Barn Talavera Melamine dishes in photo #2 for my birthday last year... 4 red plates, 4 multi colored plates, 4 bowls, and some small salsa bowls... I LOVE them!

They're so cute and colorful, and the best part is they're hard to break! I also love how lightweight they are (I hate heavy dishes for some reason). We also eat outdoors on the patio most nights, so they're just perfect.

I can't say enough good things about them :)

Oh and thanks to Mary K. for the heads up about the microwave... I'll be sure to keep them away from it!

@trilobyte- because god forbid we trust the scientists :(

I love my melamine tiffin. The colors are always fantastic. I have a 3-tiered one in pleasing cool tones.
Great post.

Cute as they are, I just can't bring myself to eat food off of something made from formaldehyde on a regular basis. I would definitely use these for picnics on occasion, but could never let myself or my kids eat off of them regularly.

So funny, because honestly, this stuff scares me more than BPA. I looked up what it was made out of once, because I loved a set of mixing bowls.

Now lets get this straight: I am not one to panic. In fact, I still don't know if some of my plastics have BPA in them, despite the fact that I try to avoid it. I do NOT avoid plastic at any turn. After looking up melamine I found out it is FINE if not heated. But if its heated it can break down into original components: like ammonia, urea, and formaldehyde. None of which I'd like to be exposed to.

But if you're smart and safe you can easily use this stuff. Its just super horrible for the environment to produce, and has the potential to give off some nasty fumes. I'd rather stay away from it, personally.

I still have all the Boonton Melmac that my family ate off in the '60s. No, you cannot microwave on it, but when a dozen kids were having lunch or dinner at my house, it came in handy. We use it all the time for a small bowl of ice cream, a muffin or a sandwich.

"Or until our kids can be trusted not to throw the dishware."???

Seriously? I grew up eating off of real dished. Throwing them would never have been tolerated.

My IKEA countertops are melamine. They seem to be holding up quite well, not to mention the fact that they were cheap!

Nevertheless, it's glass, steel and ceramic for our tableware. No exceptions.

I spent a whole summer as a broke college kid eating every meal off the same melamine plate. By the end of the summer it had deep cracks, the paint had worn off, and the bottom had completely discolored. Yes, it had been microwaved often. No, my kids today do not eat from melamine dishware. And I agree...if your child is throwing the dishes, the solution is not unbreakable dishware.

Well, as long as you don't serve hot food on them, put them in the microwave, put them in the dishwasher (do you know how hot that water gets?), or serve acidic things like spaghetti, you'll be fine.

I don't generally use melamine because I like microwaving stuff and hate hand washing. BUT for a cute chip bowl? Sure.

Sorry, just can't go in for the melamine. In addition to the microwave melting danger, most of what I've seen on the market is NOT dishwasher safe.

For those of you being sanctimonious about not tolerating children throwing plates, how, exactly, do you keep a one year old from tossing his plate? Since telling my son "no" does not seem to work (the first 400 times), I wonder what you suggest the appropriate form of discipline is? I was born in a country where material goods were scarce and parents were generally stricter than American parents (mine certainly were), but, guess what? Toddlers were not given the good china- I had an enamel cup, plate, and bowl. And I'm sure I threw it sometimes.
I do not like the idea of eating from melamine- if the formaldehyde can leach at high temperatures, how do I know if my food is 160 degrees? What if I put a scoop of screaming hot food onto the plate? I also don't like dishes that can't be microwaved or go in the dishwasher. So, we use ceramic plates and my kids get Kidishes- made of break-resistent glass (and yes, my kids have tested it).

If we remove the question of whether or not it's safe to eat off of...can we focus on whether or not it's safe for the people making it? Most of it is made in China, where OSHA does not exist.

@EK - we have some kidishes as well, and we have some that are sold under the "duralex" brand (which is what the kidishes are.) We also have plain glass and it's ok if they get broken because kids should know that they need to be careful with things. Not at age 1, but certainly by the time you can reason with them not to hit, you can reason with them not to throw. And if it gets broken, then subsequent pieces are used only with supervision until the child can be more careful.

Also - stainless. I have little stainless bowls and that's what my 14mo old uses if I'm not sitting next to him.

and regarding the "cheap + convenient" comment....in my mind that often also equals "of questionable material and not necessarily well made, which means that I'll be buying more 'cheap + convenient' than if I had taken five extra minutes and spent 5 extra dollars."

ek76,

You just answered your own question:
"Toddlers were not given the good china- I had an enamel cup, plate, and bowl."

Safe and unbreakable. Everyone wins.

Melamine (which is somewhat separate from melamine resin, which gets shortened to just melamine and confuses things) is not in an of itself toxic. It's actually a utilizable source of nonprotein nitrogen, hence it's inclusion in pet food, human food, livestock food... the problem is so is cyanuric acid, another NPN source. When they are combined in a single product, that is when you get the formation of melamine cyanurate crystals (and some other similar crystal forms) in the kidney tubules, and that is when you get renal disease with high levels of intake.
Melamine resin, the stuff people make dishware out of, is safe. There is no cyanuric acid lurking to cause kidney disease if you scrape up the melamine and eat it somehow. The formaldhyde is involved in the chemical reaction and is bound up in the resin as well... if you like to microwave and heat off of hot plastics, it's probably not the worst of your problems. There's no lurking safety issues with melamine resinware, except the aforementioned heat issues.