If you've been eyeing those colorful, "nontoxic" ceramic pans endorsed by celebrities like Selena Gomez and Stanley Tucci, you might want to read Tom Perkins' eye-opening investigation in The Guardian before making a purchase.
Perkins reveals that many popular brands marketed as "ceramic" and "nontoxic" — including Our Place's Always Pan, Caraway, and GreenPan — may be neither. These Instagram-friendly pans with their millennial-approved color palettes have exploded in popularity, but there's a concerning lack of transparency about what's actually in them.
The investigation explains that these trendy pans aren't traditional ceramics at all, but rather aluminum pans coated with a material called "sol-gel" — what one study characterizes as "quasi-ceramic." Unlike true ceramic cookware, which has been made from clay, silica and minerals for thousands of years, these new pans use a proprietary mix of chemicals that companies won't disclose.
"The companies won't tell the public what else is in the pans, and their formulas are shielded by confidential business information laws, making it very difficult to verify their claims," Perkins writes.
Independent testing has found potential toxins in these pans, including titanium dioxide (banned in EU food products), lead, mercury, and siloxanes. Even more concerning, these coatings can potentially melt at temperatures above 260°C (500°F), increasing the risk of chemicals leaching into food.
When pressed about their "ceramic" claims, Our Place admitted to a consumer protection site that their product is actually a "ceramic precursor" with a different formula: "We are heating it at a lower temperature, it never gets to that ceramic state. Ceramic is totally inorganic whereas our sol-gel has organic and inorganic substances."
The regulatory landscape is changing, with Washington state recently ordering manufacturers to disclose their nonstick ingredients. As senior toxicologist Marissa Smith explains, "It's challenging for regulators to know when we're moving to safe alternatives, but it's also hard for families who want to buy safer products."
The article says marketing terms like "nontoxic" have no legal definition. As Laurie Valeriano of Toxic Free Future puts it: "It shouldn't be up to consumers to sleuth and try to figure out the ingredients in pans so they can protect the health of themselves and their families."
Previously:
• Is antique cast iron cookware really better than new?
• Here's the best and easiest way to maintain your cast iron cookware
• Clearing up some myths about cast iron cookery
• My solitary adventures in the abyss of space with the Calphalon Cookware Set
• Le Creuset launches cast-iron Star Wars cookware
