When you’re cooking and using parchment paper, you certainly don’t want to use products that contain PFAS “forever chemicals” right? Mamavation tested 8 popular brands to help you out! You’ve trusted Mamavation to bring you topics like the safest baking sheets, cookie sheets, & sheet pans, safest food processors, safest cupcake liners, & safest kitchen stank mixers, now join us as we bring you the lab reports of 8 popular parchment paper brands so you can avoid PFAS “forever chemicals” in your kitchen. Which brands are likely contaminated with PFAS? Scroll down for the answers to those questions.
Disclosure: This post was medically reviewed by Sondra Strand, RN, BSN, PHN. Donations were provided by Environmental Health News and Mamavation community members. Mamavation has only “spot-checked” the industry and thus we cannot make predictions about brands and products that we have not tested. Products and manufacturing aides can change without notice so buyer beware. This post contains affiliate links, with some to Amazon, which means Mamavation will receive a portion of those sales and we will use that to pay ourselves back for the testing. You can also give a tax-deductible donation to our consumer studies here through Environmental Health Sciences. Click “yes” when asked if the gift is in honor of someone and type “Mamavation.” Thank you!
Potential Health Effects of PFAS Chemicals from Research Over Decades
PFAS (aka PFCs or perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA and PFOS) are added to many products we purchase to make them “stain-resistant,” “grease-proof,” and “water-resistant.” In food packaging, they are used in popcorn bags, pizza boxes, fast food canisters & wrappers, and the flat dish on the bottom of cakes. They are also in carpeting, furniture, & clothing as “stain-proof” agents and you’ll find them on non-stick pans, some tooth flosses, and cosmetics.
Here is the list of health problems (PFAS) perfluorinated chemicals are linked with.
- reduction in immunity
- metabolic diseases like obesity & diabetes
- reduced vaccination response
- cardiovascular disease
- affect the growth, learning, and behavior of infants and older children
- increased risk of allergies & asthma in young children
- lower a woman’s chance of getting pregnant
- increase the chances of miscarriage
- increase cholesterol levels
- low sperm count
- smaller penis size
- increase the risk of cancer like testicular & kidney cancers
Because these chemicals are ubiquitous and persistent, meaning they do not go away, it’s important to limit your consumption of them as often as you can.
15,000+ PFAS “Forever Chemicals” Are Impossible to Test For Directly
This part about the testing is very important to understand. Because there are over 15,000 of these PFAS “forever chemicals” and testing is only available for about a couple dozen or so, it’s impossible to test for them all directly. Any critique of this form of testing will rely on this fact. Chemical companies hide behind the fact that they can’t be tested directly as a way to deny their presence. But the fact that 98% of people in the United States have some of these chemicals (PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, and PFNA) inside their bodies, in addition, coupled with the fact that close to 100% of samples of breastmilk show traces, it’s apparent how prevalent they really are. Therefore it’s not shocking to find them in parchment paper.
Not being able to test for all available PFAS chemicals directly was a real big problem for the composting industry when ascertaining whether food packaging was safe to be certified as “compostable” for the gardens of consumers. So they devised a plan to test instead for fluorine, which is the chemical all PFAS chemicals have in common. Testing for fluorine and finding it at certain levels can indicate whether PFAS was “intentionally added” or not based on how much is found.
Mamavation did this type of testing the other day when we tested the top period underwear products for PFAS and found 65% of them contained fluorine, meaning the period underwear industry has a big PFAS problem as well.
Because testing for fluorine is the only standard that is out there for food packaging, we’ve adapted this to parchment baking paper for our investigation.
Additional Cookware & Other Kitchen Accessories
Mamavation has been making recommendations for non-toxic products for many years. Here’s a list of some of the additional investigations you’ll need for the kitchen.
- Cookware
- Glass Measuring Cups
- Ceramic Cookware
- Stainless Steel Cookware
- Dishes & Dishware
- Air Fryers & Air Fryer Ovens
- Juicers
- Kitchen Stand Mixers
- Rice Cookers
- Waffle Makers
- Cupcake & Muffin Pans
- Baking Sheets, Cookie Sheets, and Sheet Pans
- Indoor Kitchen Grills & Paninis
- Blenders
- Nut Milk Makers
- Food Processors
- Toasters & Toaster Ovens
- Water Filters
- Kitchen Utensils
- Cutting Boards
- Disposable plates & foodware
- Cupcake Liners
- Plastic Free Disposable Straws
- Outdoor Grills & BBQs
- Sandwich Bags like Ziploc
Mamavation’s Investigation on Parchment Paper
Mamavation sent five popular brands of parchment paper to an EPA-certified laboratory, and they conducted tests of Total Fluorine by Oxygen Flask Combustion and Ion-Selective Electrode on all the parchment paper brands. The Level of Detection was 9 to 10 parts per million (ppm), meaning if the levels of fluorine were above that level, it would be detected. The parchment paper was purchased between April and July of 2021, and the contents were not opened and sent to the lab immediately. Late,r this post was updated in December of 2024 with three additional tests purchased earlier in 2024.
Here are the results we received from the lab:
- Baar Patapar Paper Vegetable Cooking Parchment Paper (uncoated, no silicone added) — non-detect (updated 12/24)
- Biocean Parchment Paper — 12 ppm organic fluorine (updated 12/24)(silicone coating)
- GIFBERA (Finish brand) Unbleached Parchment Baking Paper — non-detect (silicone coating)
- If You Care Parchment Baking Paper — non-detect (silicone coating)
- If You Care Baking Sheets — non-detect (updated 12/24)(silicone coating)
- Katbite Parchment Baking Paper — non-detect (silicone coating)
- Kirkland (Costco) Parchment Baking Paper — 12 parts per million (ppm) fluorine
- Reynolds Parchment Baking Paper — 14 parts per million (ppm) fluorine
As you can see, most of the parchment paper we found did not have detectable fluorine, but two of them did. “Non-detect” means that at the level of 9 or 10 ppm, the lab could not detect any fluorine.
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I am 72 years old. My Mom used waxed paper to line cake pans all the time. I am not suggesting it is healthy, but she never had a fire. Just an observation.
This is such valuable information! It’s reassuring to know there are safe, non-toxic parchment paper options available. After reading this, I might unwind for a moment with a quick round of idle breakout before updating my kitchen supplies. Thanks for sharing!
Why is silicone ok? This is a great article but isn’t silicone a problem too ? Please comment ?
Oh and why also does parchment paper need a coating anyway ?
I don’t think silicone is OK either. I’m wondering the same, Jay.
Silicone is a huge problem. Doesn’t degrade. Still they are promoting these as compostable.
‘If You Care’ claims that “our non-stick surface is made with a form of silicon, easily found on earth, that is non-toxic and easily composted. Not to be confused with other silicone coatings that are not compostable”
Upon research and reading up, I’ve tumbled onto someone (Health Home Economist) who recommends patapar paper instead. It seems it may be the best alternative to parchment paper.
Thank you Mamavation for the research done and the articles.
It seems that parchment paper manufacturing process itself does NOT either PFAS or silicone, according to this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment_paper
But like so many other products, loads of toxic ingredients are added into products that absolutely don’t need them, under various pretext. Humanity has been targeted, and it’s not ultimately for the pursuit of profit, although that’s been offered as such whenever a motive is sought.
100% correct.
i love to see the awakening of the west that is happening right now <3 i love you my brothers and sisters
Well, perhaps I will just use uncoated stainless steel and use ghee or a healthy oil for coating.
Si
Ghee Wiz, this tells me nothing! I mean, if the Costco parchment paper is the equal to the organic parchment papers where does that leave this discussion? And indeed is the silicone a problem? Why not just make the damn paper out of silicone if they’re going to cut it with silicone anyway?
Tom, I use a good parchment paper for things other than baking. One example: I buy raw cheese (only three cheeses that I know of in the USA). I take the cheese out of its nasty plastic wrapper, wrap in my quality brown parchment paper and insert it into a glass container, which is rather large and lots of airflow. So I can’t just put it in the glass container.
I hope this will cut down on the microplastics…perhaps it won’t.
Have a healthful day.
Wonderful advice! I will practice this immediately! Thank you so very much!
What about using wax paper for baking?
Waxed paper isn’t meant to be heated, and isn’t oven safe. The wax will melt off and into your food. I stopped using plastic sandwich bags and wrap sandwiches in waxed paper the way our moms did.
I bought some Reynolds parchment paper lately and as I was rolling a piece of it out I detected a strong chemical smell – I didn’t use it because it smelled so toxic to me so I googled it and came across your article. Well as they say the nose knows. Thank you for pointing this out, I am so annoyed that these mega companies put our health at risk and get away with this stuff.
When used at temperatures above 200° F silicone releases VOCs into your air and siloxanes into your food. Parchment paper is not safe to cook with.
I just read the same thing!!! Unbelievable. Here I was thinking I was doing the best alternative and come to find out.. silicone used above 200 degrees is HORRIBLE. well, who in the world bakes things on them under 200? I am glad you posted this comment as I was actually trying to find some parchment that perhaps doesn’t use silicone and then this article made is sound like its the best alternative… NOPE.
Waxed paper is an alternative
You cannot use waxed paper in the oven.
I am 72 years old. My Mom used waxed paper to line cake pans all the time. I am not suggesting it is healthy, but she never had a fire. Just an observation.
A healthy option is to “Grow your own”; for example banana or grape leaves for savoury meals and apple mint or sage leaves for desserts.
Storage: Beeswax wraps are excellent.
I was thinking the same thing. I can’t seem to find a sheet baking paper that does not use a toxic coating. There is a cupcake liner that doesn’t so I’m not sure why they cannot make a sheet paper out of the same material.
Silicon experiences thermal breakdown around 200 Celsius, not Fahrenheit. That’s around 400 degrees Fahrenheit. There are higher-temperature formulations, but even everyday silicone doesn’t breakdown until you get to about 400 F.
Well, darn. The main temperature i use it at is 415 for fish. I have avoided researching it because I need something!
Thanks for clarifying this –F vs C
Thanks for clarifying this –F vs C
I wanted to let others know that the IF YOU CARE parchment paper is awesome, and we’ve been using it for many months. I highly recommend it.
Does anyone know if Betty Crocker parchment paper uses PFAS? thanks
Damn, we switched to parchment paper after learning that FOIL paper was cancerous… and now I learn that parchment paper is also not only cancerous but part of a problem that’s destroying our planet. It’s like the Ozone hole all over again, but with far less of an outcry and reaction.
Does anyone know if Betty Crocker’s parchment paper has PFAS? Or does it use silicone? That’s the one I’ve mostly been using but I can’t find any info online about it having PFAS or not.
I knew something was up when I first heard of PFAS and then noticed how water just slides right off the parchment paper I use. All those times I burned it and caused my kitchen to fill up with smoke, and breathed it in… great. Capitalistic industries looking for ways to make things more convenient and cheaper have ruined our planet. I bet they’re the ones who knew first about the dangers… I mean the ones who probably first used it and used it the most – the fashion and garments industries. I still remember the first time I heard of anti-stain pants that had spills just slide right off.
Hiya, I’ve been suspicious for quite some time that ‘baking paper’ may be coated in PFA. I can only buy ‘Multix Greener Brown Baking Paper’ where I live. A couple of weeks ago I sent an enquiry to Multix asking if that paper contained PFA. No reply, so just now I have sent another request, asking for a yes or no reply, including ‘dont ignore me’.
Update: just received a reply from Multix – they say they use silicon – phew, relieved!
Silicone is not good for you as it’s usually not 100% silicone
You mean its not 100% silica? Silicon (as in silicon dioxide) is the mineral from which glass is made. Silicone is a synthetic polymer made from silicon, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, along with various other petrochemical derived chemical “plasticizers” to give it various desired traits such as color, texture, density & degree of flexibility or rigidity etc.
I read that silicone is bad for you too.
Siloxanes may be just as harmful to your health as PFA’s!
Make your own parchment paper!
How do you make your own parchment paper?
Update; Received a reply from Multix – their baking paper is silicon-coated – phew, relief!
I found a Baker’s Signature unbleached parchment paper silicone coated on Amazon, is this safe like If You Care?
I appreciate all that you do. Thank you!
I would love to hear an answer to this question as well!
Thank you! Wood Reynolds compostable be safer? It says chlorine free but also says “non-stick parchment paper”.
Hi thank you for this! So is the Reynolds’s compostable better then? It says chlorine free but does say “non-stick parchment paper” so not sure what it’s treated with.
While I am no expert on this, I suspect your detection limit of ~10 ppm is insufficient. The EPA is setting a lifetime exposure limit of PFOA etc to 4 parts per trillion (admittedly in water – I don’t know how this translates to paper) – about 6 orders of magnitude lower than the detection limit here. So all of the papers could be toxic at that level.
What is stunning to me is that we/corporations seem to have a safe until proven otherwise mentality. Then they shrug and say it is too expensive to fix, when after 60 years we find out that it wasn’t safe.
Dear Leah, I’ve been using Great Value walmart unbleached, certified compostable. Package says: this parchment is made from material from FSC certified forests and recycled materials. Paper made from a minimum of 60% unbleached fiber.
What is your opinion of this description?
Thank you so much, Debbie
I wanted to let others know that the IF YOU CARE parchment paper is awesome, and we’ve been using it for many months. I highly recommend it.
If you care has silicone and if you bake over 200 degrees it’s as bad as PTEF or other chemicals. Read comments above!
unfortunately “recycled material” is a huge red flag. Doesn’t matter if its “post-consumer” or any other, recycled material WILL INCLUDE thermal papers such as those used for receipts or for use by any thermal printer – which contain bisphenols such as BPA, BPS, BPF, etc etc., which as we know are EDCs (endocrine disrupting chemicals) hormone mimicking & xenoestrogenic. There is a whole alphabet soup of bisphenols, so any product claiming to be “free” of one particular bisphenol (ie “BPA FREE”) is highly misleading. What it would need to say is “xenoestrogen free”
I wish/hope there is some way you might call attention to allergic reactions to Modifeid Food Starch in food. Several years ago, I found out that I am allergic to Modified Food Starches. It took 15 years of extremely painful gastro problems before I was able to isolate the problem source. I since found out that a friend’s husband had anaphylactic shock episodes before figuring out the cause was Modified Food Starches. Searching online, there are groups formed by people who are allergic to Modified Food Starches. It is almost impossible to eat out as MFS is a hidden ingredient and it takes research of food labels (which most restaurants do not have access to, nor do they wish to look for MFS in the ingredients lists. I wish Modified Food Starches could be listed on the Allergen Lists that restaurants now have for customers. I have no idea how to achieve that goal. So, I thought I might appeal to you to bring attention to the problem. Thank you so much for your help.
Do you know what safe cookware to use to cook/steam baby food?? Thank you for your amazing research!
For the past 15 years I have cooked and baked and nothing but visions cookware since glass is supposed to be nonreactive to anything and not leach anything into your food so that’s what I’ve been doing. Especially great when you’re making soups that take you a couple hours like mine too and you aren’t leaching nickel and stainless steel into your finished product to feed your kids Or yourself for that matter because you wanna be around as long as possible and have all your mental faculties as long as possible to for the sake of your kids
What about butcher paper?
Non toxic cookware I think is ceramic, bamboo, stainless steel, carbon steel (proper seasoning… ????????♀️
Stainless steel …….no coatings
I would second the recommendation for Visionware, which is essentially Pyrex. I also love Corningware – a solid white type of ceramic stoneware. I don’t believe either are manufactured anymore, but can still be found second hand. Not all are meant for stovetop use, so look on the bottom for the use indication text. Because they will be used/secondhand they sometimes may or may not have the text anymore in which case I would say just exercise good judgement. If its a square shaped casserole style dish with short handles then it was probably NOT meant for stovetop use. If it’s a skillet or sauce pan style shape with a longer handle then clearly that was most likely intended for stovetop use. Be advised that there are some fear-mongering articles floating out on the web claiming that corningware/visionware etc are dangerous and prone to explosion. The tests that were conducted to produce this effect were quite ridiculous using extreme temperature shock differentials in which they super-heated a piece to over 400/500 degrees and then placed it in ice water, or took a piece from a freezer to open flame. So as long as you don’t do anything stupid like that, they are the best cookware pieces out there IMHO.
If women get poisoned when their breast implants go awry, does that mean there is a safe level of silicone? I want a link to how much silicone is safe and who did the peer reviewed tests.
Answer: Silicone is not safe. It’s synthetic unlike silicate. Silicone leaches toxins found to cause cancer. All parchment paper is coated with it. Our food world is a murderous land mine field.
In cybersecurity we have a dilemma: convenience and security, with more convenience you usually need to shortchange security in some way so you need to strike up the right balance between the two. Similarly in the food industry convenience comes with the price but a huge price that you always pay over time and we see its ill effects everyday. In the end, there are no free meals. Convenience when it comes to food, unfortunately, comes with a bunch of landmines. We need to bake in stainless steel or glass and do the hard job of cleaning. There really is not way around it. Or accept the potential effect of toxic chemicals in your baked goods which is more convenient, to each their own.
They don’t. This was debunked literally 30 years ago. Silicone is incredibly safe. Look up peer reviewed articles instead of listening to insane people in this comment section
Silicone is NOT SAFE. Countless updated studies in the past 30 years (especially this past year), proving silicone causes cancer and numerous other detrimental health conditions.
There is no “proof” in science. Proofs only exist in mathematics. In science, we have evidence, and that evidence can be weak, strong, or somewhere in between. We do NOT have strong evidence of silicone “causing cancer’. We have moderate evidence that some siloxanes that can be released from silicone bakeware, under certain circumstances, may be endocrine-disrupting. This is not the same thing as “proof that silicone causes cancer”. I’ve read the studies on silicone and siloxane leaching, and while they are concerning, we have no definitive links to anything.
Yes, “Doubt is our product.” – right out of the Phillip Morris/RJ Renolds playbook back when they were seeking to shirk liability for cancer caused by cigarettes, having known internally for decades that it was so. Is it any surprise that as those two companies were in court over the cancer link and seeing the writing on the wall, that they began buying up all the food companies? (ie Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco) They took all their tobacco chemists and lobbyists, and just moved them right over to those food companies. We are in this situation because we have allowed companies to justify use of anything that suits their profit motive with a claim of “there’s no proof of harm”. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Thank you for your investigation. I was searching for this since I bake a lot. I was wondering if there are any other chemicals on parchment paper we should look out for.
Most (all?) parchment papers that don’t contain silicone do contain one of the family of over a hundred PFAS/PFOS chemicals. Silicone is thought of as less dangerous than PFOS/PFAS, in part because we don’t (yet?) all have measurable amounts of it in our bloodstream as we do with PFAS/PFOS chems.
PFAS/PFOS chemicals are forever chemicals. We have no idea how to get them out of ground water, where they are increasingly showing up as a result of spills from the many manufacturers who use them for waterproofing, stain proofing, fire proofing, etc. etc.
Maybe we all need to go back to using a little oil on our metal pans, with elbow grease to clean them after. Maybe the convenience we all want has too high a price.
…as long as the pans we are putting a little oil on are not aluminum, I would comment.
Silicone breaks down in the body much faster.
The sad thing is we can’t bake on our metal pans either.
“Maybe we all need to go back to using a little oil on our metal pans”
Not if it’s vegetable oil.
Coconut oil would be better, but I’d use tallow or lard.
I use butter for cooking in a cast iron pan. Works great. Clean with napkins.
Thank you for the article! But Silicone is also potentially dangerous. Silicon dioxide used as an anti caking agent in food has been shown to cause autoimmune diseases. Are there any plain papers that use only natural ingredients?
My gosh John..
Silicon Dioxide is Sand. -Eating Sand does Not cause autoimmune disease.
Breathing in, tons of fine, silica dust causes silicosis, & can increase odds of autoimmune disease. Could that happen with this wax paper? (if it were even made of sand).
aand Silicone is an altogether different word & substance (notice the “E” at the end of Silicone)? Cured silicone is safe & essentially inert. That’s why it’s used for cooking utensils & food grade items.
I recently read an extensive article about plastic and silicone. It stated that manufacturers consider silicone to be a plastic.
I so wish our foods and all products could be simplified.
It’s a polymer yes, so that’s what they mean. Silicone may leach in a similar way as plastic but we just don’t know as much about it because they are busy with other nasties like PFAS, bisphenols, phthalates, etc. But if you were to choose between silicone vs. PFAS for safety…choose silicone.
Leah- If parchment paper also has silcone- is it better to use a Silpat silcone baking mat? I switched to If You Care parchment paper a couple years ago to stay clear of silcone. Which is safer in your opinion? Thank you for all you do!
Answer: Silicone is not safe. It’s synthetic unlike silicate. Silicone leaches toxins found to cause cancer. All parchment paper is coated with it. Our food world is a murderous land mine field.
I’m wondering if you meant to say parchment paper, rather than wax paper. This does bring up another good point though, Leah have you tested wax paper, and butcher (the white) paper? Trying to think of what I might use in addition to the 3 parchment papers you mentioned are the most clear of PSAF.
Has King Arthur parchment been tested? You say silicon coating is not the best but better? Please respond to [email protected]. Thanks so much
On their website, KAF says it is silicone coated.
cool article
We live in Australia and can’t get the baking paper you suggested. How do we find out what to use here? Thanks
Look for a brand that adds silicone instead of a non-stick coating. It’s not a perfect solution, but a better one for sure.
Can you tell me what is the safest underwear to get?
Organic cotton is the way to go. Avoid polyester and other tight-fitting underwear.
Thank you so much for this article and doing the research! We were looking everywhere trying to find info on which parchment paper didn’t have pfas.
I use a chrome free, silicone based parchment that is made by
Paterson company in Reno, Nevada. They won’t sell direct but can tell you who Carrie’s it.
I found “Reynolds Kitchens” compostable parchment paper at the grocery store. It says on the packaging that it is made with “totally chlorine free (TCF) manufacturing process.
Hi Sue,
Does this mean it’s brown, rather than bleached white?
Thank you,
DK
What about Regency parchment paper? Made in the USA, made of 100% natural wood pulp, no bleach or silicone. I found this one after doing some research a couple years back. I think this one was overlooked. You can get it on Amazon. It’s pricey, but since you can reuse it (depending on what you cook obviously), and considering it’s nearly impossible to find anything that doesn’t have toxins in it, it’s worth it imo!
thank you for your article however I do not know what the safest parchment paper
is. Please reply to stanshirl711 @gmail.com thank you.
Thank you very much. Who would think about chemicals in parchment paper? I am very grateful for your research.
Thank you, I so appreciate your research!
Is it possible to test King Arthur’s parchment paper? They have the right size and doesn’t curl, besides the company is employee owned.
Thank you.
That would be great – I hope you are able to test the King Arthur’s parchment paper, Leah.
DK
I sooo appreciate the work you do!!
thank you!!!
You are very welcome Carol!
Thank you so much for your research! What about Reynold’s kitchen unbleached parchment paper roll? Is that safe?