Of Course Those Instagram Pan Companies Were Lying to Us

But we’ve got an alternative that’s worth the splurge, plus a discount code

Last month, The Guardian broke a whopper of a story about those ceramic pans, like the ones from Our Place and Caraway, that burst on the cookware scene circa 2020 as alternatives to chemical-coated nonstick pans: It appears they are probably not, in fact, “nontoxic.”  

They’re … not even really ceramic.

According to The Guardian’s Tom Perkins: 

“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.”

Yikes…

The Guardian article is worth reading in its entirety for all the nitty gritty of what the heck those pans actually contain — a mix of silica, metals, and chemicals — and what we know and don’t know about the potential health impacts. But the TL;DR is that while the companies behind these pans have now admitted that they aren’t **technically** ceramic, they’re not willing to play ball with the journalists and regulators trying to understand what chemicals they contain, and whether those things are harmful to consumers. (The story didn’t mention Great Jones or Made In by name, but I have to assume that their “ceramic-coated” cookware lines fall afoul of the same issues.) 

Independent testing conducted so far suggests that many of the pans include titanium dioxide, a potential carcinogen that is banned in food, although not cookware, in Europe. FWIW, titanium dioxide is permitted in foods in the U.S., and is at the top of RFK Jr.’s list of additives to be banned.

As I’ve written before, cookware looms large in peoples’ minds when it comes to trying to reduce toxic chemical exposure, but in reality it’s a very small piece of the overall picture compared with air pollution, food and water contamination, and all the other sources of chemical exposure found in our household and workplace environments. So I don’t want to touch off an unnecessary panic for those of you who went the ceramic route and are now looking at your Always Pan like it’s a murder weapon.  

 It’s still possible that, in the fullness of time, we’ll discover that the “sol-gel” coating on these pans is 100 percent safe. Even if it’s not, whatever chemical exposure it creates is probably still relatively small fry in terms of your overall exposure to toxins.  

Having said all that, I find the whole thing both deeply shady and totally unsurprising from companies that so adeptly captured our attention through on-trend design and savvy social media strategies. As with so many CPG food startups today, this appears to be a case of A+ marketing minds selling a C- product.

Moving on…

The whole "ceramic" cookware scandal made me feel pretty lucky about a new, and definitely non-toxic, pan that I recently added to my rotation.

It’s a cast-iron skillet from a small family-run business called Field Company.

For years I’ve done most of my cooking on a 12-inch Lodge cast iron skillet. The surface is completely non-stick, despite the fact that I do none of the things the internet tells you are necessary to maintain a cast iron pan’s seasoning. The only thing I don’t love about the Lodge is its weight. It clocks in at over eight pounds, empty; filled to the brim with a one-pan pasta dinner, it is quite the arm workout. 

Field’s version is way lighter than my Lodge, and the metal’s surface is satiny smooth, having taken its design inspiration from the vintage American cast iron cookware of the 19th- and early 20th-centuries. 

Here’s the brand’s backstory: Two brothers, Stephen and Chris Muscarella, grew up cooking with their grandmother’s vintage cast iron, and as adults they got to wondering why contemporary pans are so much clunkier. That question sent them on a deep dive into materials science and the history of American cast iron — a journey that involved buying dozens of vintage pans made by the now-defunct cast iron masters Wagner and Griswold, flying to Poland to consult with a metallurgy expert, working with a biological chemist to understand the absolute best way to season a pan, and contacting hundreds of iron foundries to find one that could make their vision a reality. The Muscarellas put together a Kickstarter to fund the whole thing in 2016, and the rest is history. 

The pans that Field Company makes today are cast in green sand molds. The secret to their light weight and smooth surface is that the iron is machined (a.k.a. shaped) extensively post-casting to thin the pan’s sidewalls, and to reduce the pebbly texture left behind by pouring molten iron into a traditional sand mold. Their 12-inch skillet weighs 6 pounds, compared to 8.5 pounds for the Lodge version. Field’s design also departs from vintage pan conventions when it comes to the handle: a longer, more ergonomic design makes the pan feel lighter and easier to work with. 

I still love and use my Lodge, but I now reach for the Field first every time. The lighter weight and more comfortable handle just make it more inviting; it’s a thing of beauty, too.  

For anyone ready to pull the trigger on a new piece of cast iron, you can use the code CONSUMED15 on Field Company’s website for 15% off any purchase. This is not an affiliate link; Consumed doesn’t make any money off your purchase, nor do we have any other financial ties to Field Company. We just dig their pans and think you will, too.

Happy cooking!

PS: If you’ve been avoiding buying and using cast iron because you’re worried that you need to do something special and complicated to maintain the surface, fear not. Your pan will do just fine if you clean it gently — I use a scrubber brush and a tiny bit of soap, scrubbing just enough to remove anything stuck to the surface after cooking — then, dry it very well and place it back on the heat for a couple minutes make sure all that water is good and dried up.