Chefman 5-Qt. Slow Cooker with Natural Stoneware Crock

the heating element on our Crock-Pot brand slow cooker became erratic after the first year and took either way too quickly or way too slow. Either way it was really pretty bad. I looked around for other crock pots and noticed that a lot of reviewers were talking about Lead content in the ceramic. so before I wasn't going to buy a new slow slow cooker I wanted to make sure it was it least relatively safe. I researched about 6 or 7 websites and came up with the conclusion that unless I tested it myself I probably wasn't going to know for sure if it was entirely safe or if in fact this entire concerned about Lead was way overdone in the first place. While I was still researching I noticed this particular brand which I had never heard of before. they advertise no LEAD in the product. Well that was a check mark for me because I could stop worrying at least about one factor. but what about all the other factors? Again my heating element went Bonkers after about a year. But with only a few reviews on this unit I could not tell much about this unit. So I can't have a clue if this element will hold up or not. I do know that I really like the look of this unit on my dark brown granite countertop. It just looks cool without looking too cool. But all that doesn't matter unless it works right. So today for the first time I fired it up. I started making a stew around 10 a.m. and filled it half way and it was completely finished about quarter after 2 p.m. Just over 4 hours seem very reasonable to me. Now I must admit what I make a stew I just kind of throw things together and so never really repeat the same recipe twice and I have no idea if this was just dumb luck or not, but...the stew I made today blended better -by far - then any stew I can remember in the last four or five years! The Taste was absolutely superb. I can't really believe that this unit made me a better chef, though I will still hope it might have. I believe somebody made a comment about it being relatively easy to clean and I certainly discounted that comment pretty much entirely. Well, I have to tell you that I was pretty well shocked how easy this is to clean. I had left tomato, onion and potato stains on the unit for about an hour after it cooled down. In my old crock pot this would have meant hours of misery. So I read the instruction book and used only soap and warm water and a nice little sponge and started to rub it down. I have to say I was kind of flabbergasted that it just came off. I ran over to show a family member because I couldn't believe it and neither could she. in 40 seconds it went from total mess with baked on Grom to looking like it did when it was shipped. I like the fact that there is not the paint on the stoneware but that is it is natural. I don't know if that's the reason it was easier to clean because the painted product technically should have be easier to clean. But in fact I found the results actually the opposite and I must say that so far this is the best feature, if you can call it a feature at all. Since time and energy matter to me, I'm quite pleased. I believe someone mentioned the unit was wobbly because it only stood on three legs. This is true and I thought it would be a major problem. But it doesn't seem to be an issue, especially when there is food inside of it. Still something to be cautious about for the future but it didn't really seem to play today at all, which is good. So here I give this. Appearance 9 Cooking time 9 Ease of cleaning 10 Taste of recipes 10