logo
Toxic truth? The cookware craze redefining ‘ceramic' and ‘nontoxic'

Toxic truth? The cookware craze redefining ‘ceramic' and ‘nontoxic'

Yahoo3 days ago

The cookware industry has entered a golden age, largely driven by the wild success of a new generation of 'nontoxic' and 'nonstick' designer ceramic pans backed by stars including Selena Gomez, Stanley Tucci and Oprah Winfrey.
But the pans are likely not 'nontoxic' some independent testing and research suggests. Nor are they even 'ceramic' – at least not in the way the public broadly thinks of ceramics. Now, regulators are investigating some of the pan sellers' claims.
On Instagram, TikTok and their marketing materials, the social media-savvy cookware brands promise 'enchantment', and 'non-toxic materials and thoughtful design' that 'prioritizes the health and safety of you and your family'.
In fact, no legal definition for 'nontoxic' or 'ceramic' exists, and the marketing has drawn greenwashing accusations exacerbated by the companies concealing their pans' ingredients.
And the blockbuster sellers like Our Place's Always Pan, Caraway and GreenPan are typically made with a material that thinly coats an aluminum substrate and is characterized in one study as 'quasi-ceramic'. Meanwhile, independent testing and research suggests quasi-ceramics may contain toxins like titanium dioxide, siloxanes, lead and mercury.
Related: The best pans for every type of cooking – chosen by chefs
The claims are eliciting regulatory scrutiny. The state of Washington recently ordered quasi-ceramic producers to submit their nonstick ingredients to the state's ecology department as it attempts to learn which chemicals cookware companies are using to replace Teflon or other toxic Pfas, or 'forever chemicals'. The order is about 'transparency', said Marissa Smith, a senior toxicologist with the Washington department of ecology.
'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,' Smith said. 'There's this fundamental challenge of figuring out what's in our products and having the data to make those decisions.'
The nonstick, quasi-ceramics have in part quickly blown up because, their producers claim, they cracked the 'nontoxic/nonstick' code. Prior to 2019, nonstick pans largely used toxic Pfas, a class of chemicals that are among the most toxic man-made substances, and linked to cancer and a range of other serious health problems. The quasi-ceramic, design-forward pans with color palettes like 'spice' and a millennial aesthetic burst onto a market ripe for an alternative.
Their launches coincided with the rise of wellness culture and the pandemic's outset. With people forced to cook at home and on social media, the cookware became Instagram sensations – Caraway's monthly ecommerce sales jumped 390% between January and May 2020.
Celebrity involvement also fueled the quick ascents: Selena Gomez, Tan France, Gwyneth Paltrow, Stanley Tucci and Drew Barrymore now have their own quasi-ceramic pan lines. Gigi Hadid and Kate Hudson promoted their Caraways in the media. Always Pan's order backlog hit 30,000 early on. GreenPan made Oprah's 2024 Favorite Things list, and Caraway's profits grew over 500% between 2020 and 2023.
Throughout, the companies have relentlessly touted their products as 'nontoxic'.
Ceramic cookware dates back at least 15,000 years. The concept evolved across cultures – the medieval British pipkin, the ancient Roman testum and the Wampanoag Native American decorated pots. Throughout the ages, the basic formula remained the same: some mix of clay, silica and minerals fired at a high heat to create a solid piece.
The new quasi-ceramics are something else. The producers use some variation of a material called 'sol-gel' developed in the 1970s, a mix of silica, metals and chemicals. The material is sprayed onto an aluminum substrate – the pan is not quasi-ceramic all the way through.
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. The uncertainty alone raises suspicions among some public health advocates, but sleuthing of peer-reviewed research, legal documents, patents and regulatory documents around the pans raises more questions than answers, and points toward the use of toxic chemicals.
Still, Caraway states: 'We believe in full transparency with regard to our products, so we're happy to share testing reports with anyone via email to prove just how safe our products are.'
In an email to the Guardian, it declined to share the formula: 'The formulation of Caraway's ceramic cooking surfaces is proprietary.'
Responding in 2022 to I Read Labels For You, a consumer protection site that questioned the pan producers' non-toxicity claims, Always Pan maker Our Place conceded the products are not ceramic, but a 'ceramic precursor' with a different formula.
'We are heating it at a lower temperature, it never gets to that ceramic state,' Always Pan wrote. 'Ceramic is totally inorganic whereas our sol-gel has organic and inorganic substances. The inorganic material is glass/silica. The organic material is an organic polymer.'
In an email to the Guardian, Our Place said its pans' materials are 'similar in feel to traditional ceramics', and are made with 'a sand-based material, which is why it's commonly referred to as 'ceramic''. It did not immediately respond to a question about why it's marketed as ceramic if it's admittedly not ceramic.
The distinction is in part important because the surfaces can potentially melt at heat above 260C (500F), increasing the risk of chemicals leaching into food. The pans have also been reported to wear down and lose their nonstick coating sometimes within months of purchase. True ceramic can withstand much higher heat and is far more durable.
Other quasi-ceramic producers use a similar material, all of which include polymers. Polymers may mean any of tens of thousands of chemicals, including Pfas, which the sol-gel patent even details. Applying nonstick organic polymers may also create toxic monomer byproducts, Smith noted, but it's impossible to know without having the pan makers' ingredients. Nonstick can linings can create toxic bisphenol-A, for example.
A 2019 lawsuit alleged GreenPan's '0% toxins' claim represented false advertising. Citing GreenPan's patent, the suit alleged the pans contained silane, aluminum oxide, tetraethoxysilane, methyltrimethoxysilane, and potassium titanate. Regulators classify some of these as hazardous, but the suit was dismissed, though the settlement's terms are unclear. GreenPan has denied using aluminum oxide. It did not respond to a request for comment.
Smith said the state of Washington is concerned companies may be using siloxane, a chemical family often used to replace Pfas in consumer goods, but which sometimes pose similar risks. One industry study compared the performance of nonstick properties of siloxanes to Pfas in quasi-ceramic pans, finding Pfas worked better.
Independent testing by the consumer protection site Lead Safe Mama detected high levels of titanium in GreenPan, Always Pan and Caraway, pointing to the use of titanium dioxide nanoparticles. A 2016 study also identified titanium dioxide in quasi-ceramic pans, and showed how it can migrate into food. The toxic substance is banned in the European Union for use in food, but not cookware. It's a potential carcinogen that accumulates in organs and is linked to neurotoxicity, intestinal inflammation and other health impacts.
Caraway in 2024 acknowledged using nanoparticles, though they didn't say which. But, it claimed without supporting evidence, that the levels it uses doesn't cause health risks.
All told, there's evidence that the pans could contain such ingredients as titanium dioxide, lead, mercury, cadmium, siloxanes, potentially toxic monomer byproducts and other unknown substances. Even if the levels of individual toxins are low, there's no research into the health effects of all the toxins combined migrating into food, which raises a whole new set of questions.
Caraway in a statement to the Guardian said the company could not 'speak to the conduct or quality of any testing that is not its own'.
'Caraway is proud of the products we have developed and the progress made towards a cleaner home for our customers, there is still much to be done,' the statement added.
Public health advocates say the uncertainty is a red flag, and forcing consumers to 'go through tests and patents' to know what they're buying is 'absolutely ridiculous,' said Laurie Valeriano, executive director of the Toxic Free Future non-profit, which has raised concerns about quasi-ceramics.
'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,' Valeriano added.
Maryland-based Xtrema is one of very few companies producing ceramic pans as they have been traditionally made. Production takes up to 25 days, said owner Rich Bergstrom and produces a solid ceramic piece that can withstand high levels of heat. Companies passing off a softer sol-gel coating as true ceramic 'irks me – it drives me crazy', Bergstrom said. He called it a 'false term', and said it's being 'manipulated from a marketing standpoint to give you the impression that it's ceramic'.
Some of the pans also contain lead, testing Lead Safe Mama's Tamara Rubin found. The lids and cooking surfaces of the Always Pan and Caraway showed some of the toxin, which she said suggests aluminum substrates and pieces are to blame.
Rubin also found mercury in the Caraway and antimony throughout GreenPan. Caraway still advertises 'metals free', and GreenPan states its products 'lack harmful chemicals and toxins'.
Rubin is a polarizing figure for her generally absolutist positions on lead – if a product contains the substance, she recommends against it. This is the most protective approach, but companies and regulators point out that lead is naturally occurring and widespread in the environment, often found at low levels in ceramics' clay, as well as foods. They claim 'trace' levels of lead are OK, especially if it's not in a food contact surface. But there's no definition for 'trace'.
No federal limits for lead in ceramic cookware exist. If lead in a ceramic piece isn't leaching at the time a consumer buys it, then there isn't a problem, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told the Guardian in 2022. However, there's no testing or oversight program, or assurance it doesn't leach once it's scratched, chipped or worn.
The FDA has done little to scrutinize cookware materials throughout the decades because it's chronically underfunded and understaffed, said Tom Neltner, director of the Unleaded Kids no-nprofit, who has legally pressured the FDA to act on leaded food materials: 'With all the things coming into the agency, they have not looked at all these lead issues, and there's no public scrutiny of their priorities.'
However, the state of Washington is implementing the nation's first limits directly addressing cookware – 90 parts per million (ppm) next year, and 10ppm by 2028. Rubin found levels as high as 70ppm in the Always Pan.
Rubin in 2018 also found lead, cadmium and other metals like cobalt in Xtrema pieces, and advises against them for that reason. Bergstrom said he eliminated the highest sources of lead, like the logo on the pan's bottom. He also noted Rubin's testing looks for the presence of lead, but not whether it leaches into food.
True ceramic pans are less of a leach risk because the material is more solid than quasi-ceramic, Bergstrom claims. His pans have passed California's Proposition 65 leach tests of new products, and he also pointed to testing that showed no lead leaching from an Xtrema pan that had been used for several years.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Do Me A Favor And Stop Sending 'Happy Birthday!' Texts In The Group Chat
Do Me A Favor And Stop Sending 'Happy Birthday!' Texts In The Group Chat

Refinery29

time9 minutes ago

  • Refinery29

Do Me A Favor And Stop Sending 'Happy Birthday!' Texts In The Group Chat

Photographed by Ramona Jingru Wang. The past might be a foreign country but if you're an older millennial with a Yahoo email address and a drawer full of ankle socks, the present is no less baffling. Why are grown men trading punches over plushies? What in the name of god is the poop rule? Who's eating all the cottage cheese? Bewildering trends like these are hardly a modern phenomenon, I know, but in the age of TikTok they spread from one side of the world to the other before you can say 'Dubai chocolate'. Consequently, for those of us who dip in and out of social media instead of maintaining a constant online presence, logging into Instagram on a Sunday night can feel like climbing the Magic Faraway Tree and finding yourself in a strange new land. Still, crazes come and go and for the most part provoke nothing more than a chuckle or a raised eyebrow. So what if we lose the run of ourselves every now and then? Ultimately the clamor subsides, the dust settles and society rights itself again. Events rarely spin completely out of control because the majority of people, I like to think, know how to behave — online and off. And then a friend drops a message in the group chat. 'Happy Birthday Tash!' It is 7.01 a.m. and you are still in bed, rubbing sleep from your eyes. Within minutes, texts begin to arrive from the other members of the group. You can tell who's made an effort to personalise their message — or, perhaps, who is in a rush — by the presence of an extra exclamation mark here or an abbreviation there. 'Happy Birthday Tash!!!' 'Have a great day T x' 'HBD Tash!' The birthday girl, hopefully having a lie-in, is silent and now you are feeling the pressure to add a greeting to the chorus. The fact that there is a thoughtfully chosen card for Tash propped up on your dresser, to be handed over when you meet her later for a celebratory drink, is neither here nor there. Failure to participate in the birthday pile-on will be noted not just by Tash but by everyone else in the group. Dutifully, you tap out a message and head for the bathroom to brush your teeth. Friends coming together to wish another friend happy birthday. Harmless enough, right? Wrong. If you ask me, the person who sends that initial message is committing an egregious act of friendship hit-and-run. Think about it. DM a friend on their birthday and chances are you'll have to send at least one follow-up text when they inevitably ask how you are and what you've been up to. Share your well wishes in the group chat, however, and you sidestep the time-consuming business of engaging in further conversation — a particularly effective strategy if the friend in question is second-tier rather than BFF. Perhaps this is the cynic in me talking but I suspect, too, that the motivating factor for sharing birthday greetings in the group chat is less a desire to make your loved one feel special on their special day and more a compulsion to show off. There is a performative function to dropping a 'Happy Birthday!' text in a space where it can be seen by people other than the intended recipient. The fact that it unleashes, almost invariably, a flood of messages from other members of the group is confirmation for the original texter that they are somehow superior. That they have won the friendship race. (I'm not extrapolating here; check out these posts where proponents of such heinous behavior confess to relishing this very feeling.) It's the group chat equivalent of the juvenile mentality that was common in the early days of YouTube, when people — probably men, let's be honest — would scramble to be the first to comment on a clip, posting simply and quite pointlessly, 'first'. And what about the poor individual on the receiving end of this barrage of texts? Imagine waking up on your birthday, reaching for your phone and opening the group chat to find a stream of greetings all sent within minutes of each other. To my mind these aren't 'Happy Birthday!' messages. These are 'Gina's wished you Happy Birthday so now I'm wishing you Happy Birthday!' messages. Or 'Oh shit I forgot it was your birthday, good job Ellie reminded me. Happy Birthday!' messages. The overarching sentiment is not warm and heartfelt but guilt-stricken and insincere. For she's a jolly good fellow? Don't make me laugh. If you are lucky enough — or, depending on your perspective, unfortunate enough — to be part of a family group chat, there is a fun twist on this trend which involves adults who really should know better filming their kids singing 'Happy Birthday' to nanna or grandad or whoever and dropping the video in the chat. We know what you're doing, guys. Send the video directly to the recipient and pass up the opportunity to have the entire family coo over your little one's adorable lisp and idiosyncratic dance moves? Please. The trouble with this is that it creates a kind of one-upmanship, with each subsequent birthday kicking off a procession of pageant-like home movies in which grown-up siblings vie to outdo one another via the medium of their children's cuteness. I have a kid myself so I understand the drive to show them off but in doing so the person whose birthday it is — the reason for all this silliness, remember — gets forgotten altogether.

What Swift fan accounts should know about copyright after Barstool's 'Taylor Watch' canceled
What Swift fan accounts should know about copyright after Barstool's 'Taylor Watch' canceled

USA Today

timean hour ago

  • USA Today

What Swift fan accounts should know about copyright after Barstool's 'Taylor Watch' canceled

What Swift fan accounts should know about copyright after Barstool's 'Taylor Watch' canceled The rumors may be terrible and cruel, but the ones about Barstool Sports' "Taylor Watch" podcast being canceled are true. The podcast with 115,000 fans on TikTok, 78,000 fans on Instagram and 16,000 subscribers on YouTube — geared toward discussing all things Taylor Swift — aired its final episode on June 4. What was supposed to have been a celebratory moment for Swift regaining control of her masters started on a melancholic note as hosts Kelly Keegs and Gia Mariano sang "Ave Maria." The two sat in their brown leather chairs to acknowledge the termination of a show they've cultivated for two-plus years. "'Taylor Watch' is canceled," Keegs said on the 150th episode, "because having a music related podcast or something that can toe the line with lawsuits in general where it comes to music rights, whatever, is just not feasible with Barstool Sports at this time." One underlying issue lies in copyrighted photos, videos and music being used on social media. Several posts potentially opened parent company Barstool Sports to lawsuits, and the podcasters had two options: to cancel "Taylor Watch" or be fired. "It was all just stupid mistakes on my part," Mariano said on the podcast through tears. "It was never intentional. We would never think that we could just get away with something." "Or even jeopardize the company," Keegs jumped in. "We love working here." Long live the Eras Tour with our enchanting book The one- to two-hour episodes crafted a corner in the Swiftie community where fans (and some haters) tuned in to hear the thoughts of Keegs and Mariano. " Gia and I went to Paris Night 2 together, and there were some people coming up to us and saying what they liked about the show," Keegs tells the USA TODAY Network of Swift's May 10, 2024, concert. "Then by the time we were in Miami — that was a totally different experience — I couldn't believe how many people were coming up to us who knew who we were." The two hosts offered unfiltered thoughts on Swift's music, business moves, concerts and news. They would post short snippets to social media. A couple included some paparazzi photos and sped-up music pulled from the internet. "It's what I looked forward to every week," Keegs says. Her favorite part was the voicemail segment when people called in to offer their thoughts. "We got a call from a mom excited about the 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version).' She gave birth to her son when the first version came out and now he's a teen. She made him listen to 'Never Grow Up.' It was a beautiful full circle moment." Copyright's gray area So where do the legal lines lie for copyright? It's a perfect question for David Herlihy, an intellectual property, new media and entertainment lawyer who also teaches at Northeastern University in Boston. Copyright is the subject of entire college courses, so keep in mind the following is heavily abbreviated. Herlihy also provides an asterisk: " None of these things are absolute, but there are basic policy contours of copyright." Let's start with images and videos that fan accounts share on social media. Herlihy says the copyright of photos of Swift taken in a public place are owned by the photographers and can be licensed to news outlets. However, the photographers can't make merch with the photos, "because that's a commercial exploitation of her likeness." What about fan accounts that repost photos and credit them, do they need permission? Some cases can be deemed fair-use, which means using copyrighted material doesn't need permission under "certain circumstances." This balances copyright holders' intellectual property rights with the public's need to access and use information. "You're using the photograph for news reporting, commentary or for conversation, and the law regards news, commentary and conversation as valuable," Herlihy says. "So depending upon the nature of the use, the rights of the copyright owner may actually yield to other socially beneficial purposes." What Taylor Swift's trademark applications say about potential business moves. However, Instagram has a clear policy that users cannot post content that violates someone else's intellectual property rights, including copyright. 'Taylor Watch' is not the first account within the past month to get flagged. In fact a few behemoth Swift fan accounts with six digits in followers were recently sent to Instagram purgatory and deactivated for similar infractions including @ and @tstourtips. Meta, Instagram's parent company, did not comment on the deactivations to the USA TODAY Network. The accounts, which are not officially affiliated with Swift, share news, theories on upcoming announcements and records broken by the superstar. They foster micro-communities of the global fandom. And they celebrate moments like Swift buying back her first six albums from Shamrock Capital. For Keegs and Mariano, "Taylor Watch" was their safe space to gab about the superstar. 'It's not like we aren't Taylor fans still,' Keegs said. She tried to find a bright side explaining, "If we want to be poetic about it, I suppose you can say our watch has ended because [Swift's] gotten all of her stuff back." Don't miss any Taylor Swift news; sign up for the free, weekly newsletter This Swift Beat. Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network's Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.

I Scream, You Scream. They Don't Scream for Ice Cream.
I Scream, You Scream. They Don't Scream for Ice Cream.

New York Times

timean hour ago

  • New York Times

I Scream, You Scream. They Don't Scream for Ice Cream.

The Museum of Ice Cream is a sugarcoated daydream — or nightmare, depending on your tastes. The location in SoHo opened in 2019, spawning out of a temporary pop-up three years earlier that reportedly had a 200,000-person wait-list. It's less of a museum than it is a made-for-Instagram selfie emporium. You won't find much on display to spark any philosophical thoughts — what is there to say about the ephemeral nature of ice cream, or how about its role as a symbol of pure hedonism? You will instead find a banana jungle, a spiral slide, unlimited scoops of Fruiti Cereal Swirl and Ess-a-Bagel ice cream sandwiches. 'Ready To Rediscover Your Inner Child?' the museum prominently asks on its website. But in the depths of the museum's sprinkle pool, a feud has been brewing. The inner child belongs to adults, and the Museum of Ice Cream wants to cater to them. Though 'pinktinis' and sprinkle shots are on the menu, the party ends early: the latest available tickets on weekends are for 8 p.m. For years, the museum has wanted to extend its hours and liquor sales. Last week, the New York State Liquor Authority denied the museum's latest proposal, which would have allowed the museum to serve alcohol until 10:30 p.m. daily and midnight during private events. The application also sought to extend liquor consumption to all three stories of its building; alcohol use is currently limited to the main floor. 'We are requesting nothing beyond what other similar SoHo establishments already have — whether it's ice cream shops with licenses to serve alcohol or museums that host occasional private events. We're simply aligning with longstanding practices in the neighborhood and industry,' said Kate Ambas, a representative for the museum, in an emailed statement. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store