Cast Iron Skillet vs. Our Place Always Pan

The Our Place Always Pan has become one of the most recognizable kitchen products in the social media era, and its safety profile is genuinely better than traditional Teflon. It uses a proprietary sol-gel ceramic coating called Thermakind that is PTFE-free and PFAS-free. The marketing emphasizes its non-toxic credentials, and those claims are accurate within the ceramic coating category.

Cast iron is simply iron, carbon, and polymerized oil seasoning — there is no synthetic coating to evaluate. This makes cast iron's safety profile fundamentally simpler and more durable. There is no ceramic layer to degrade, no aluminum core to expose, and no replacement cycle to plan for. Cast iron handles temperatures that would destroy any ceramic coating.

Cast iron rates 'best' because it eliminates all coating variables. The Always Pan rates 'better' — it is a real improvement over Teflon but still a coated pan with the limitations that implies. For someone who needs wide-pan versatility with low-tox chemistry, the Always Pan is a reasonable choice. For someone prioritizing absolute coating elimination and generational durability, cast iron wins. The two pans serve slightly different needs.