35 guides and brand reviews · last checked 1 September 2026
Guides
Written from manufacturers’ own documents, published lab certificates, statutes and peer-reviewed research — all linked, so you can check us. We don’t run lab tests, and we say where the evidence runs out.
If a study says something alarming and turns out to be wrong, we say that too — even when the alarming version would get more clicks. Several of the guides below exist specifically to correct a story that travelled further than the evidence behind it.
Quick answers
Short, answer-first pages with the products we score, the photos and the sources. Written October 2026.
The best non-toxic cookware in Australia
Four uncoated stainless sets tie at 85/100. Cast iron and Australian iron follow.
Is Teflon safe?
Inert at normal heat. The real risk is an empty pan on high heat, and PTFE is itself a PFAS.
Ceramic vs stainless steel cookware
Stainless hides nothing. Ceramic coatings keep their recipe secret. Solid ceramic is different again.
Is cast iron safe?
No coating and no PFAS. It does add iron to food, and enamel is the unknown.
The safest cookware, by material
The uncoated leaders, ranked on what their makers publish.
Is HexClad safe?
Stainless ridges over a non-stick coating whose chemistry is never stated.
Glass air fryers: is the basket actually glass?
Only one states it has no food-contact coating.
Stainless steel air fryers
Where the stainless actually is, and where it isn’t.
Is the Ninja Crispi safe?
A glass container with a coated plate under the food.
Glass water bottles
Glass is inert. The cap your mouth touches is the real question.
Non-toxic water bottles
Plain steel or glass, and a lid whose plastic has a name.
Glass food storage containers
The glass is rarely the issue. The lid is.
Enamel cast iron
No PTFE, but no maker publishes what is in the enamel.
Air fryers without Teflon
One states no coating at all. Three name PTFE.
Stanley Quencher
18/8 steel, a plastic lid and straw, and a lead seal under the base.
Owala FreeSip
Steel body, a plastic lid you drink through, and a lead-free solder claim.
Le Creuset skillet
Enamelled cast iron. The enamel recipe is not published.
Le Creuset vs Staub
Two enamelled cast iron makers, scored side by side.
GreenPan Valencia Pro
Ceramic non-stick, no PTFE, and what the coating claims rest on.
Solidteknics AUS-ION
One-piece seasoned iron, made in Sydney.
Fissler, line by line
Which Fissler pans are bare steel, and which are PTFE.
PFAS and microplastics, where they actually meet
Two contamination stories that get told separately — and one material that belongs to both. Written September 2026 from the current literature.
Do non-stick pans shed microplastics and PFAS?
A PTFE flake is both at once, by definition. But no study has ever measured particles and fluorinated chemicals off the same pan, and the best one that looked found no chemical migration.
Are there microplastics in your brain?
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.
PTFE is a microplastic and a PFAS at once
One material, two categories of concern, two separate news cycles. Once you see it, most of the labelling in this aisle stops making sense.
The one test that would settle it
Targeted PFAS testing missed over 85% of the organic fluorine actually present. There is a test that catches all of it, and two regulators already use it.
How much PFAS actually comes from your pan?
We went looking for the number and it does not exist. What does exist points somewhere else — an awkward finding for a site that rates cookware.
Reading the label
What the words on the box are actually claiming — and what they leave out.
What “PTFE-free” doesn’t tell you
Three claims that look interchangeable and aren’t. One has applied to the big fluoropolymer producers since 2015.
What PFAS in cookware actually means
The word is doing enormous work on packaging and almost none of it is defined. Including the part the marketing skips: PTFE is a PFAS.
Is “BPA-free” actually safe?
A true claim about one molecule. BPS and BPF replaced it, appear on no label, and the 2025 evidence does not support calling them safer.
What “food grade silicone” actually means
It is not a certification and no agency issues it. The two real standards behind the phrase, plus one test you can do at home for free.
The research, checked
Studies people quote at you, read properly — including the ones that got weaker on inspection.
Non-toxic cutting boards: the study says the opposite
Every “switch to wood” article cites the same 2023 paper. That paper found wooden boards shed four to twenty-two times more particles than plastic ones.
Water filters and the microplastics certification
NSF/ANSI 401 certifies microplastic reduction with a test for particles 0.5 to 1 micron. Its own definition of a microplastic starts at 1 micron.
Microplastics testing: what $598 buys you
A consumer water test costs $598 and will not tell you what the plastic is. The lab’s own page says the most abundant particles are the hardest to detect.
What is your air fryer basket coated with?
We read the pages for 56 air fryers. Most either name no material at all or admit a coating exists and never say what it is.
Which Pyrex have you got? The warranty tells you
Pyrex sold in Australia is two different glasses under one name. Ten years means French borosilicate; two years means American soda-lime.
Kmart, Big W, Target and Kogan: who tells you what it’s made of?
We scored 72 products from Australia’s biggest retailers on materials. The online discounter beat the shops with the big names.
Are black plastic utensils safe?
The study that made people bin their spatulas was corrected twice. The chemicals are real; the exposure figure was wrong by about forty-fold.
Is it safe to microwave plastic containers?
The “two billion nanoplastics” figure is a real measurement, quoted almost everywhere without the limitations its own authors listed.
Is ceramic non-stick actually safe?
It is genuinely PTFE-free. It is also not really ceramic, and the recipe is a trade secret.
Is recycled plastic food packaging safe?
Recycled plastic carries whatever was in the plastic it used to be. The UN said so in May 2026. The concern is specific, not general.
Rules that affect what you can buy
Statutes, bans and labelling duties — with the dates checked against the law rather than someone’s summary.
Which states have banned PFAS in cookware
Some states banned the sale. Others only require a label, which keeps it on the shelf. Most roundups blur the two, and several have Vermont’s date wrong.
Phthalates in food packaging: what the FDA has and hasn’t banned
It revoked 23 permissions in 2022 — because industry had already stopped using them. Nine remain. A May 2026 proposal is the first real movement since.
Practical
What we’d actually do, in a real kitchen, this week.
Is bamboo dinnerware safe for kids?
Those pale toddler plates are melamine with bamboo powder mixed in. A national regulator has told people to stop using them. They are still on sale here.
When to throw away a scratched non-stick pan
Nearly every page answering this is written by someone who sells pans. Flaking means replace. Scratched but intact usually doesn’t.
Lead in stainless steel water bottles: the sealing dot
Applies only to vacuum-insulated bottles, sits outside the inner chamber, and two barriers separate it from your drink. How to check yours in thirty seconds.
Non-toxic cookware: what to look for
Six things to read on the box, in the order that narrows the choice fastest.
Brand reviews
The same rubric, one brand at a time — what each company publishes, and what it won’t.
Made In cookware review
Five plies, named alloys, a thickness in millimetres. Almost nobody else describes the object that precisely, and it is why an uncoated pan outscores the coated ones.
Lodge cast iron review
A $25 pan whose safety claim is boring and obviously true. The only point we docked is about an unnamed seasoning oil.
Is GreenPan safe?
More forthcoming than most on chemistry, then it writes the headline as “PFAS-free … made without intentionally added PFAS”. Those are two claims, not one.
Caraway cookware review
A named laboratory and a report you can open — rare in coated cookware. The limit is that a test only finds what somebody thought to look for.
Our Place review
The strongest non-toxic marketing in the category attached to the thinnest published file. 2/10 and 3/10, and not because anything is known to be wrong.
Xtrema review
The only brand publishing dated certificates from a named lab. Also the one with the most awkward independent finding, which we are not going to bury.
PlanetBox Rover review
It names both steel grades, including the less flattering one, and explains why. That sentence is most of the reason it scores 90/100.
Klean Kanteen vs Hydro Flask
8/10 against 4/10, and not for the reason you would expect. One bottle sidesteps the lead question by design; the other answers it with a legal filing.
Original research
Work nobody else has done, because it is tedious and nobody pays for it.
Kitchenware materials: the numbers
Every product on the site, and what each one is actually made of. Price and materials quality correlate negatively - paying more does not buy better materials.
Which brands actually publish what’s in their products
We read the documentation for every product on the site. Exactly one publishes a named laboratory and a dated report you can open.
Being written next
In rough order. If you want one of these sooner, email and say so.
- Is stainless steel cookware safe? The nickel question
- Glass food storage: what to look for (and why the lid is where sets cheat)
- Cling film and sandwich bags: the cheapest swap on the list
- Cast iron seasoning: what is actually in “vegetable oil”
- Air fryer liners and parchment: what the coating is
- What a Prop 65 warning does and does not mean
Related pages
One useful email a fortnight
New guides, corrected scores, and any rule change that affects what you’re allowed to buy. The list isn’t open yet — email us and we’ll add you when it is.