Dear Readers,

I’ve been on a bit of a food kick lately. Our most recent newsletters covered pantry must-haves and favorite beverages. Today, we’re talking cookware. It’s a fraught topic that may cause anxiety. Case in point: the time I remember thinking to myself, sometime soon after my mother died, that perhaps the scratched-up nonstick skillet we used to cook eggs in had been responsible for her death. 

To be clear, it definitely wasn’t the skillet’s fault that my mother got breast cancer. A host of genetic and environmental factors were likely responsible. But somehow, the fear worked its way into my mind. I’m hardly the only one. An article in The Atlantic tackled nonstick cookware last year, and concluded: “There are still no good answers about America’s favorite cookware.” 

Here’s the bottom line. Teflon, that incredibly handy nonstick material, is a perfluoroalkyl substance, or PFAS, a forever chemical. At low and medium temperatures, cooking in a nonstick pan (that’s free from abrasions and scratches) is fine. However, per the Teflon company website, if you heat an empty Teflon-coated pan to over 348° — just two degrees below the smoke point of butter — “the coating begins to deteriorate.” That deterioration can transfer chemicals into our air and our food. And who among us hasn’t accidentally burned something or set off the smoke alarm? Not I.

This deterioration is just one of many ways that PFAS and other forever chemicals leach into our air and our bodies. According to The New York Times, “The chemicals are so ubiquitous that they can be found in the blood of almost every person in the country.” They’re also in nearly half of Americans’ drinking water. (In good news, this April the Environmental Protection Agency put in place new standards for drinking water that are scheduled to go into full effect by 2029.)

Given the prevalence of PFAS, is it worth avoiding the exceptional convenience of Teflon-coated cookware? That’s your call. (Unless you live in Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, or Rhode Island, which have all instituted legislative bans.) As the Marketplace Editor of a sustainable living magazine, I can’t recommend it. I consider environmental factors such as manufacturing and product life cycles as well as human health. The creation of more plastics, PFAS or not, is bad. And as awareness of Teflon’s downsides expands, so does the frequency with which people toss and replace their cookware. More stuff in a landfill is bad, too.

There are newer cookware materials out there, the most prevalent being ceramic nonstick. We’ve assessed both anecdotal and scientific evidence, and, from what we can tell, none of the trendy brands that use it, including Caraway, Made In, or Our Place, perform well in the long term. We had a great start with Caraway, for instance, but after a few months, we realized that the ceramic nonstick coating no longer worked. This seems to be a common, and frustrating, experience. 

At the end of the day, we’re going to play it conservative and just stick with the basics — enameled cast iron, cast iron, and stainless steel — that we’ve known and trusted for decades, and never needed replacing. 

I will note that all stainless steel cookware, including our recommendation, comes with a California Prop 65 warning. This ominous text warns people about chemicals that may cause cancer, and can feel omnipresent in the state. In this case, it’s because stainless contains chromium and nickel, both of which can be toxic in certain quantities. There’s no evidence that quality stainless steel cookware will leach harmful heavy metals. (The one exception you may want to pay attention to: cooking tomatoes or other highly acidic fruits for many hours, which can eventually degrade the material. If you make Sunday Sauce every week, you’re probably best off using enameled cast iron.) Bottom line: stainless steel is an excellent, and safe, cooking material.

At the end of the day, if you cook often, we recommend saving up to buy the pots and pans that will serve you for life. As my husband likes to say: “Buy once, cry once.” (Luckily for us all, one of our three top picks is a true bargain.) If you are considering investing in some fancy new cookware, you may want to wait ’til the Thanksgiving sales. Look for our favorite Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails in your inbox later this month.

In the meantime, happy cooking and happy shopping!

– Elizabeth Weinstein, Marketplace Editor