Is Stainless Steel Cookware Safe?

What is 304 (18/8) stainless steel?

304 stainless steel — also written as 18/8 — is the workhorse food-contact grade of the modern food industry. The numbers describe its two defining alloying elements: roughly 18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel, combined with iron. That composition is what earns the grade its food-contact status, and it is why 304 appears wherever food is prepared, processed, and stored — commercial prep tables, brewing and dairy tanks, mixing bowls, and cookware.

Chromium does the protective work. On contact with oxygen, chromium forms an extremely thin, invisible film of chromium oxide across the surface of the steel — the passive layer. It is stable, and it is self-repairing: if the surface is scratched or scrubbed, the exposed chromium re-forms the layer on contact with air. The passive layer is what makes stainless steel stainless. It resists rust and staining, and it places a stable barrier between the iron in the alloy and the food in the pan.

Nickel adds corrosion resistance and structural stability, which is why 18/8 and its close relative 18/10 dominate the 300-series grades used around food. SEIDO Cookware skillets are made from 100% 304 (18/8) food-grade stainless steel — the cooking surface is the grade itself, not a layer applied over something else.

Does stainless steel contain PFAS?

In cookware, PFAS questions are really coating questions. PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a family of synthetic compounds historically associated with the slick release coatings applied to nonstick pans. Stainless steel is categorically different: a metal alloy of iron, chromium, and nickel. The concern that attaches to nonstick cookware attaches to the coating, not to the steel.

An uncoated stainless steel skillet changes the shape of the question entirely. There is no coating on the cooking surface — nothing applied over the metal that can scratch, blister, or thin with use. A coated pan's cooking surface is a layer engineered to wear over time; an uncoated pan's cooking surface is the material itself.

SEIDO Cookware skillets are uncoated, built without synthetic coatings, and made without intentionally added PFAS. That wording is deliberate. It states plainly what is and is not put into the product instead of reaching for sweeping absolutes — the register a careful buyer should expect from any cookware maker.

Does stainless steel leach metals into food?

The honest answer, for every metal pan ever made, is that metal cookware can transfer trace amounts of metal to food — and that acidic ingredients and long contact times are the conditions that increase it. Stainless steel is not magically exempt, and any answer that pretends otherwise should lower your trust rather than raise it.

What sets stainless steel apart is how little it interacts under normal cooking conditions. The chromium oxide passive layer keeps the surface largely inert toward food, which is precisely why stainless steel became the default material of the food industry — for cooking, for processing, and for storage. It is one of the most extensively studied food-contact materials in use, chosen for that role because of its stability, not in spite of it.

In practice, ordinary cooking — searing, sautéing, deglazing, simmering a tomato sauce — is exactly what stainless steel is built for. Transfer from any metal cookware rises mainly when strong acidity meets very long contact, a general property of metals and acids rather than a defect of any single pan. Stainless steel sits at the stable end of that spectrum, which is why the same alloy family trusted for cooking is also trusted for food storage across the industry.

Why does an uncoated cooking surface matter?

A nonstick coating is consumable by design. It is applied as a layer, it delivers release performance while intact, and it thins, scratches, and wears with normal use — that is the lifecycle of every coated pan, regardless of brand. When people ask whether their aging nonstick pan is still fine to use, they are really asking about the state of that layer.

An uncoated stainless steel skillet removes the layer from the equation. There is nothing on the cooking surface to wear off, so there is no coating condition to monitor and no degradation curve to track. The trade is honest: you give up built-in release and learn a small amount of technique — proper preheating, a little fat, patience while a crust forms and releases on its own — and in return the pan has no wearing layer at all. SEIDO backs its skillets with a 5-Year Warranty, a commitment made practical by that simplicity: there is no coating whose condition sets a clock on the pan.

How do you verify what a skillet is actually made of?

Material claims are only as good as their specificity. A trustworthy listing names the grade, states clearly whether the cooking surface is coated, and publishes its material information where you can read it. Vague phrases — "premium stainless," "professional grade" — tell you very little on their own.

SEIDO Cookware publishes exactly that: its skillets are made from 100% 304 (18/8) food-grade stainless steel, made without intentionally added PFAS and without synthetic coatings. The full material story — including the grade, the passive layer, and the Proposition 65 position — is on the materials and safety page.

• A named grade: 304, 18/8, or 18/10 signals standard food-contact stainless from the 300 series
• A clear coated-or-uncoated statement about the cooking surface
• A materials page you can actually read, not just a bullet point in a listing
• A warranty in writing — SEIDO's is 5 years