When you’re cooking and using parchment paper, you certainly don’t want to use products that contain PFAS “forever chemicals” right? Mamavation tested 5 popular brands to help you out! You’ve trusted Mamavation to bring you topics like the safest salmon & tuna brands, best non-toxic collagen brands, & best spritz & hard seltzers, now join us as we bring you the lab reports of 5 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. It also contains affiliate links.
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.
9,000+ PFAS “Forever Chemicals” Are Impossible to Test For Directly
This part about the testing is very important to understand. Because there are over 9,000 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.
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.
Here were the results we received from the lab:
- Kirkland (Costco) Parchment Baking Paper — 12 parts per million (ppm) fluorine
- Reynolds Parchment Baking Paper — 14 parts per million (ppm) fluorine
- If You Care Parchment Baking Paper — Non-detect
- GIFBERA (Finish brand) Parchment Baking Paper — Non-detect
- Katbite Parchment Baking Paper — Non-detect
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.
Conclusion & Recommendations of Our Favorite Parchment Paper for Baking
The brands that are showing up as “non-detect” should be the safest brands available to you. Technically, because we tested them with a detection limit of 10 parts per million fluorine, we cannot be certain that they don’t have any PFAS in them, but they certainly don’t have any fluorine present when testing between 9-10ppm. That means if they have fluorine it’s under 9-10ppm. This is the exact standard that the composting industry uses to determine whether or not food packaging is “compostable.”
Therefore we recommend you purchase from one of the following:
- If You Care Parchment Baking Paper
- GIFBERA (Finish brand) Unbleached Parchment Baking Paper
- Katbite Parchment Baking Paper
These brands are using silicone instead of PFAS coatings to make the parchment paper non-stick. Silicone is preferable to PFAS because it’s not ubiquitous and not persistent.
If you are interested in more investigations like this, click here to see all the different products we have tested and ranked. Also, consider signing up for our weekly newsletter so you never miss another investigation on consumer products you purchase for your family.
Saalt Period Underwear PFAS “Forever Chemical” Lab Results
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 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
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.
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.
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
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!