[Boshizzle]

Tish, here something else you need to consider.

The ingredients in Kingsford charcoal and their purpose-

wood char - heat
mineral char - also for heat
mineral carbon - also for heat
limestone - for the light-ash color
starch - to bind the other ingredients
borax - for easy release from molds
sodium nitrate - for quicker ignition
sawdust - for quicker ignition

Now, I have no problem with any of those ingredients except the mineral char and carbon which is coal. The problem with coal is the nasty gases it produces.

There was a lawsuit brought against Clorox Co. (Kingsford is a subsidiary of the Clorox Co.) back in 2008 by the wife of a chef named James Beets who was the master chef for 10 years at a Weber Grill Restaurant where they cooked inside using Kingsford charcoal. He was diagnosed with blood cancer and his doctors traced it back to the benzene gas produced by the Kingsford charcoal used in the restaurant's grills. The lawsuit basically said the company failed to warn consumers that using the benzene-containing briquettes indoors could lead to the development of multiple myeloma.

What I find most interesting is that Kingsford introduced their reformulated charcoal in 2009. Did the lawsuit actually prompt the reformulation? That's a question I would like to have an answer to.

Now, will occasionally using Kingsford outdoors result in inhaling enough benzene to kill a person? I don't know of any cases where that has been proven or even suspected. So, I don't have a problem with using it. Now, if I were using it indoors in a kitchen filled with grills even with ventilation, I might be concerned.