XRF Test Results for 360 Cookware’s Stainless Steel 1 Quart Saucepan

Published: November 16, 2025
A Note from Tamara Rubin:

As you may know (if you’ve been following our work for more than a couple of years), Lead Safe Mama Community Members have been clamoring for us to use XRF technology to test and report on the results for the 360 Cookware line of stainless steel pots and pans. We’ve always recommended using a mix of stainless steel, glass, and cast iron cookware (more on that here), and so our online community is constantly on the lookout for new good stainless steel choices for us to evaluate (and specifically for us to test using XRF technology).

Given our primary focus (since March of 2024) has been on the Lead Safe Mama, LLC Community Collaborative Laboratory Testing Initiative (independent, third-party laboratory testing of foods, supplements and personal care products nominated by and funded by our community) — we simply have not had a moment to dive back into new XRF testing projects until recently.

In addition to gentle “pressure” 😉 from the community to have us test 360 Cookware products, over the past couple of years I  have also had several wonderful conversations with Bryan who, with his wife Beth, own 360 Cookware. 

I have been very impressed with Bryan and Beth’s personal commitment to making cleaner cookware products that are safer for use by families — while also sourcing as much of the materials for their cookware in the USA as possible! Bryan, Beth and I are 100% aligned in our concerns for the toxicity of the popular faux “ceramic” coatings found on so many pots and pans (Caraway, Always Pan, Green Pan, etc.) these days — not to mention the fact that nearly all of these pans are made of Lead-contaminated Aluminum (under the “ceramic” coating).

If you are not familiar with Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s work evaluating the scope of the issue and investigating this concern, The Guardian wrote a great overview piece (linking our work in this area) in June of 2025. Here’s the link to that article.

After The Guardian article came out, Bryan called me to check in (he was just as thrilled as I was about how comprehensive that piece of investigative journalism was). We had a great chat about the specific concern for Titanium Dioxide being used as a primary ingredient in the coatings on these modern non-stick pans being sold as “ceramic”.

Titanium Dioxide is the primary colorant in these cookware coatings (as it also is with most house paint and other modern paints and coatings — since it began to replace Lead in the 1950s). Titanium Dioxide has also been recognized by regulatory agencies in Europe as a carcinogen. Titanium Dioxide simply does not belong on the food surface of pots and pans — especially when that food surface is expected to wear and become unusable (with planned obsolescence) within five years of purchase (and often sooner!)

Where does that microparticulate Titanium Dioxide (the scratches of material on the food surface of your coated pans — scraped off with your spatulas and other cooking utensils) end up? In your food and in your body! You can read more about the concern for Titanium Dioxide based coatings  here.

In that call in June I asked Bryan if he could send us samples of his products to test and evaluate this year (as I thought I might have some time opening up to fit in some XRF testing) and he let me pick out anything from the 360 Cookware online shop that I wanted to test and report on. I chose several different products – each of which I thought would have a different mix of materials (stainless, pewter, wood composite, and more) — a representative grouping of products which would give us a good picture of the range of possible XRF test results for the 360 Cookware line as a whole.

Bryan & Beth (& 360 Cookware), Going Above & Beyond
The kind of response we want to see from companies!

Through this process I had the opportunity  to test a set of measuring spoons that 360 Cookware was reselling for another manufacturer  (not a 360 Cookware manufactured product). I chose to test this product as it was noted as being made of  as modern “Pewter”, and that’s always a red flag for potential Lead and Antimony contamination (based on the nearly two decades of testing of consumer goods that  I have personally conducted using XRF technology). Many manufacturers assume that “modern Pewter” is Lead-free, but that is simply almost never the case unfortunately. In some rare cases modern Pewter may be Lead-free (or very close to it), but in those cases the Lead has normally been replaced with Antimony, which is also a known carcinogen.

This measuring spoon product  did test positive for Lead. I alerted Bryan and Beth to this concern and they immediately removed the product from their website (and they also let us know that – based on this new information –  they won’t be offering any other Pewter products for sale in the future!)

All of the other products they sent us for testing tested incredibly clean (you can see the full set of test results for the 1-Quart saucepan below, and we will be publishing the test results for their Slow Cooker shortly too!), and we are very happy to be able to share the test results for an example of their stainless steel cookware with all of you here today. The XRF readings below are representative of what the XRF readings are for their other Stainless   Steel products as well, so we are sharing the results of this specific saucepan to serve as an example of what you can expect with their cookware.

360 Cookware’s quick response to the issue with the measuring spoons really won me over personally. Not only is 360 Cookware manufacturing clean, solid, heirloom quality stainless steel products — but they are 100% willing to put their “money where their mouth is” – walking the talk as it were! The function and design of their cookware is also exceptional, and we’ll be writing more about that soon.

As 360 Cookware is obviously an ethical company that is doing what they do for all the right reasons, we invited them to come on board as a sponsor of Lead Safe Mama, LLC, and earlier this month they joined us as an advertising partner for our email newsletter — a sponsorship that is helping us to cover the costs of our newsletter and also helping to cover the costs of some of the testing and reporting we are doing this winter (you can subscribe to the newsletter here, it’s free).We’re very picky about who we partner with (something we do by invitation only) and we now have just two corporate partners in our work – 360 Cookware and Naturepedic.

As a result of this new partnership with 360 Cookware you will see their banner at the top of every Lead Safe Mama newsletter from now until the end of 2025. They also created a discount code just for the Lead Safe Mama Community (YOU!) Start your 360 Cookware shopping with our link (here’s the link) and enter code “LeadSafeMama” for a 20% discount on anything you purchase from their site.

The full XRF test results for the saucepan pictured above are below. The saucepan came back “non-detect” (within the limits of detection of XRF technology) for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Arsenic, and Antimony in all components tested. The GUI interface on the XRF instrument let us know that the pan is a mix of 316 Stainless and 304 Stainless, which are two of the primary Stainless Steel alloys that one finds in most high quality Stainless Steel cookware. My husband and I are excited to be using these products in our own kitchen and also to have a USA based company (run by real people who are really interested in making a difference) that we can personally recommend to friends and family.

Please stand by for a second article with the full XRF test results for the 360 Cookware Slow Cooker (another heirloom quality product by 360 Cookware that we absolutely love – and have been using in our kitchen on a regular basis over the last couple of months!)

Note: The 360 Cookware pots and pans are not Nickel-free (although I am planning on talking to Bryan and Beth about what the options might be in that area for the future!) High quality stainless steel pans have been demonstrated (through independent scientific study) to be less reactive than inexpensive pots and pans – even if they do contain Nickel. You can read more about that here. If you are allergic to Nickel, we recommend that you not use any Stainless Steel products as even pots and pans marketed and sold as  “Nickel Free” can legally contain up to 2,500 ppm Nickel (as an example, please see our test results for the “Noni” Solidteknics pans). 

XRF Test Results for the pan pictured
– the 360 Cookware 1-Quart Saucepan

All readings are repeated multiple times to confirm the test results. One full set of readings for each component tested is listed below.

Continue Reading Below The Image

Reading #1) Inside Food Surface of Saucepan (Inside Bottom, Image Above)
60-Second Reading
Stainless Steel #316

• Lead (Pb): non-detect
• Cadmium (Cd): non-detect
• Mercury (Hg): non-detect
• Bromine (Br): non-detect
• Arsenic (As): non-detect
• Chromium (Cr): 165,700 +/- 1,200 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 1,408 +/- 406 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 690,200 +/- 2,000 ppm
• Cobalt (Co): 3,241 +/- 1,032 ppm
• Nickel (Ni): 101,100 +/- 1,400 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 2,961 +/- 282 ppm
• Molybdenum (Mo): 20,700 +/- 300 ppm
• Tin (Sn): 91 +/- 35 ppm
• Gold (Au): 290 +/- 142 ppm
• No other metals detected in Consumer Goods Mode