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When you’re making a nice meal for your family, the last thing you want to do is worry about chemicals leaching into their food from the pots and pans. On the flip side, it also stinks to have a bunch of crusty food firmly stuck to the pans once you’re done. It’s a constant battle between convenience and health. Of course, the idea of non-stick pans is very appealing. But, as you might remember from episode 24 all about PFAS, ingredients like Teflon can pose a major risk to your health if you don’t use the best non-toxic cookware out there.
So today, I’m taking you through three categories of cookware. We’ll start with the “avoid at all cost” pots and pans and how to spot them on your next shopping trip.
Then, we’ll move on to the convenient and not-quite-as-bad-for-you category. I’ll take you through the pros and cons of PFAS-free nonstick coatings from brands like GreenPan and Caraway (trust me, I’ve tried them all). Generally, the options in this category have a short life span and might end up costing you more in the long run.
And finally, we’ve got the toxin-free options I swear by! Keep in mind – these still have their drawbacks when it comes to convenience and cost. So at the end of the day, it’s all about making the decision that makes the most sense for you and your family with all of the information at your fingertips!
In This Episode:
- 3 Non-Toxic Cookware Categories
- Cookware Options
- Choosing the Best Non-Toxic Cookware
What is PFAS?
Scientists think there are 15,000 PFA chemicals out there. They’re also called forever chemicals because they persist. You literally cannot destroy them. These chemicals get into our body through:
They’re everywhere. When you cook on them, those PFAS chemicals are transferred to your food, especially if you’re cooking on a pan that is scratched in any way. These chemicals accumulate in your body over time and they lead to things like cancer, birth defects, and heart disease. We have so much science showing how terrible these chemicals are, so it’s really a common sense thing that we don’t want to be cooking our food on these pans.
Episode 24 deep dives into PFAs – take a listen!
The Best Non-Toxic Cookware
Believe me when I say I’ve tried EVERYTHING. These options are convenient and toxin-free. They just might take a little bit of effort and have a little bit of a learning curve associated with them, but once you’ve passed that learning curve, they’re so easy to use. The best part is these will last forever. You buy and invest in a set of pans or pots and you keep them forever. From a sustainability perspective, these are going to be the best things for your health and the environment – a win-win!
1. Stainless Steel
This is my go-to. I love making one-pot meals and I use stainless steel. Stainless steel is as safe as you can get. It does contain trace amounts of nickel and chromium, but stainless steel mostly contains iron. The chromium and nickel will not leach toxins into your food.
The studies on this are interesting. When you cook something, you might leave your pot on the stove for a few hours, depending on what you’re cooking. To get the nickel and cadmium to actually leach out of the stainless steel, they had to leave the pot cooking with something acidic for 20 hours. Do you ever do anything for 20 hours?! That’s how long it took to get the chemicals to start leaching out of the stainless steel.
In my opinion, under normal cooking conditions, stainless steel is safe and it’s not going to leach heavy metals into your body.
Shop my favorite stainless steel pots and pans.
2. Cast Iron
I love me some cast iron. I lived in Italy for five years and those Italians know how to cook on cast iron. There are cast iron pans that have been passed down from generation to generation! Once you learn how to take care of a cast iron pan, it’s completely nonstick, easy to cook with, and completely toxin-free.
Here’s the thing with cast iron: it can leach iron into your food, especially if you’re cooking acidic things. If you’re somebody with high iron levels and that is a medical issue for you, you might want to avoid cooking with cast iron.
The cast iron pans we have in America are super heavy and bulky. You have to learn how to season them and take care of them. Most companies will tell you to season them with seed oils, which I do not do. I use tallow or olive oil for mine.
Field Company makes lightweight and smooth cast iron pans that I love. If you’ve never cooked on cast iron, that would be a great first cast iron pan.
Shop my other favorite cast iron pans!
3. Carbon Steel
Carbon steel is similar to cast iron. You still have to learn how to season them and take care of them. You also need to be aware of companies selling carbon steel that add a nonstick coating on top of it and avoid that.
That’s a lesson for all cookware. There are companies selling “toxin-free cookware” and adding a nonstick PFAS coating.
Shop my favorite carbon steel cookware!
4. 100% Ceramic
These aren’t coated ceramics. These are made out of nothing but ceramic. Remember to make sure you’re buying from a company where there’s no lead and other heavy metals. Ceramic comes from the earth. Xtrema is a company that’s really popular that tests for other metals.
I love baking in 100% ceramic. I don’t use 100% ceramic on my stove because it takes forever to heat up. I know some people love their 100% ceramic cookware for cooking. I love having 100% ceramic for bakeware. While I’m talking about baking, glass is the perfect bakeware!
Don’t Forget to Rotate!
You should always rotate the pots and pans you use. If you exclusively use cast iron, you might be getting too much iron intake. By rotating, you’re not cooking the same thing on your pot or your pan every single day. Then, whether or not something is leaching becomes less of a concern.
To wrap it up, if you’re looking for toxin-free cookware, avoid anything with a PFAS chemical on it. That includes anything nonstick or clay. You don’t want anything with a barrier or a glaze on top of it. The best options for your kitchen for nonstick cooking are stainless steel, cast iron, carbon steel, or 100% ceramic. Shop all my favorites in my Toxin Free Shopping Guide!
Related Episodes
Episode 24: What are PFAS “Forever Chemicals”? Here is Everything You Need to Know
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