136 products checked · sourced to the maker’s own documents
We work out what everything your food touches is actually made of — the steel grade, the glass chemistry, what the coating really is — and score it out of 100.
There is no federal ban on PFAS in cookware. What exists is a patchwork of state law, and the important distinction is between states that ban the sale and states that only require a label.
Colorado, Maine and Minnesota have sales bans in force. New Mexico and Connecticut require disclosure. California requires cookware companies to state on their websites whether they use PFAS — a proposed outright ban, SB 682, was vetoed in 2025.
The full state-by-state table is here, checked against the statutes rather than someone’s summary.
The score out of 100 measures what it’s made from, not how safe it is — green means bare, inert materials with nothing applied to them, red means the food meets a coating or a plastic, or nobody will say what it meets. Here is the rubric.
100% ceramic throughout · no coating, no metal
One material from end to end. No coating, no cladding, no metal — so there is nothing applied that could ever come off, which is why it scores highest here.
18/8 (304) stainless tray · 18/0 (430) stainless lid · LFGB silicone · synthetic rubber magnets
Names both steel grades — including the less flattering one. The lid is 18/0, not 18/8, and they say so and explain why: the 400 series holds magnets better.
Tempered soda-lime silicate glass · published as 70 SiO2 CaO, 15 Na2O · lid resin and gasket not stated
The only company here that publishes an actual oxide composition for its glass. Not a marketing word — a formula.
“18/8 food service-grade stainless steel” · sport top, collar and sleeve all “medical-grade, platinum-cured silicone” · “100% Plastic-Free”
The only bottle on this site with no plastic in it anywhere. Steel and platinum-cured silicone, and nothing else — not in the lid, not in the spout, not in the collar.
Tempered glass bowl · 304 stainless accessories · food-contact coatings: none
The only air fryer here with no coating to disclose. Fritaire states the food-contact coatings outright as “None” — a glass bowl and bare 304 stainless accessories.
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Most of what gets sold as a non-toxic kitchen is not worth the money. This is the short list, ranked by how much contact the item actually has with hot food.
It touches hot food more than anything else you own. If you change one thing, change this — and you do not have to spend $125 to do it.
Heat plus plastic is the combination that actually has evidence behind it. Glass removes the question, and a set costs about $14.
Four hours in a warm bag, five days a week, for years. Stainless takes the whole question off the table.
The lead question in steel bottles is about a sealing dot at the base of vacuum-insulated ones. A single-wall bottle does not have one.
The cheapest swap on the list and the one that pays for itself fastest. We have not scored these yet — it is next.
Every claim linked to the study, statute or manufacturer document behind it — including, twice below, a widely repeated finding that got weaker when we checked it.
A PTFE flake is both at once, by definition. But no study has ever measured particles and fluorinated chemicals coming off the same pan — and the best one that looked found no chemical migration.
The “spoonful of plastic” study now has duplicated images, a formal rebuttal in the same journal, and a specialist arguing the method mistakes brain fat for polyethylene.
We went looking for the number and it does not exist. What does exist points somewhere else entirely.
It is not a certification. No agency issues it, and no law defines it. Here are the two real standards behind the phrase.
Some banned the sale outright. Others only require a label. Most roundups blur the two, and several still have Vermont’s date wrong.
No lab, no kitchen trials, no “we used it for a month”. We read declarations, published lab certificates, statutes and peer-reviewed papers — and we link every one so you can check us.
Our Place will not tell you what is in its coating. Pyrex will not tell you what its glass is. That is not a gap in our research. It is the most useful thing we learned, and we score it.
PlanetBox says the Rover is not leak-proof. Xtrema will not publish a maximum oven temperature. Our top-scoring pan is one we have no way to earn from. That is the only reason to trust the rest of it.
New scores, brands that finally answered a question, and any rule change that affects what you are allowed to buy. Nothing else, and no “wellness” anything. The list is not open yet — email us and we will add you when it is.
