Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution(news.stanford.edu) |
Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution(news.stanford.edu) |
The harder one is induction, where there are lots of touch controls, but I don’t see this issue on traditional resistive stovetops.
(This is in the US of course)
Resistive electric stoves suck and deserve their reputation, but induction is the best of both worlds: high power, accurate control, and you don't waste half of the energy due to the flame's heat going around the pot.
But the touch-sensitive controls are infuriating indeed. Nothing about induction requires them, it's just a dumb design fad.
No idea if it's true or if it was just an impressively creative salesperson.
But it sucks. I've accidentally burned cookware by having parts of the stovetop turn on intentionally. And sometimes, if my fingers are moist while cooking (imagine that!), the touch controls just go completely insane and I have to spend time drying my hands and the controls before I regain control over the stove.
IMO the new design with touch buttons is way more dangerous.
I can’t wait for knobs to make a comeback.
Admittedly I have other complaints about the microwave controls (why is it so damn many button presses to vary the power output) but it's not because the buttons are hard to use.
I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion. A gas stove is a tradesman's tool.
My guess is my cheap stove cycles, and the Control Freak applies power linearly, so whatever power level the stove uses didn't happen to make those pans buzz.
4 is the same as gas low. 7 is the same as gas high. 8 is wok hot. 9 is too hot. P is power - for heating up water. It's amazing.
It can melt your pan but it has a sensor to not let that happen. It does sometimes give the metal that blue color you get when you heat metal with a blow torch.
The sensor is also used for pan frying. It has presets for light to heavy frying and keeps the pan at the temp the whole time.
What is less obvious and what I would personally like to know is how much pollution remains if you have a hood above your gas stove that exhausts outdoors that is operating while cooking.
the craziest thing is no hood at all, if you cook once a day that stuff lingers all day unless you open a bunch of windows
Article: https://theconversation.com/replacing-gas-stoves-with-electr...
Underling Study: https://www.jaci-inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198(26)00537-...
The numbers:
[...]
We estimate average total residential long-term NO2 exposure across the United States to be ∼10 ppbv for people who own a gas stove (∼18 ppbv or more for households in the top 5% of gas burned while cooking) and ∼8 ppbv from total outdoor exposure for those with electric stoves, which cause no additional NO2 exposure.
[...]
Stratifying exposure by gas stove use intensity (i.e. by amount of gas burned while cooking, [...]), we find that people in households burning the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles of fuel nationally on average are exposed to 0.03 (95% CI: 0.01–0.07) ppbv, 1.7 (95% CI: 0.8–3.5) ppbv, and 10.3 (95% CI: 4.8–21.7) ppbv, respectively, of additional NO2 exposure from using their gas or propane stoves.
[...]
If the hood breaks down or the stove needs to be fully replaced, I will probably flip to induction. I had one in my old apartment and it was great
It's weird that noone here mentions there are electric stoves between gas and induction.
Asthma is clearly correlated to urban areas with exposure to various pollutants. We’d see those same clusters in suburban populations with gas stoves if these indoor pollutants were elevating risk.
I live in New York. The utility in my region successfully lobbied to hike delivery rates for electricity by 40%. My spring electric bill is $300/mo, as much as my peak August or January utility bill a decade ago. 3-5 years ago, various foundations were bussing hundreds of protestors to lobby for climate change legislation that is essentially outlawing new natural gas service. They also prevented construction of pipelines to serve NYC and New England with additional capacity. All new construction must be electric only.
I have the Gasland IH77BFH. If someone has made a hack to modify this by adding physical dials, I'd be tickled.
Can’t char a pepper on an electric burner
Can’t heat a nabe on an electric burner
Also during hurricane season, my gas burner still works when the power goes out.
The list goes on of things that electric simply cannot do. To claim one is superior over the other ignores a lot of the ways people cook. They are just simply different cooking tools.
The induction rings aren’t a patch on the gas ring for “proper” cooking. There’s simply no competition between them in that regard. Mad for anyone to suggest otherwise.
I’d wager you won’t find many commercial kitchens, even at the low/mid end not running some gas rings as well. I’d be amazed if any at the top-end were not using gas rings. The inductions are great for boiling some pasta or veg up fast though!
We have a massive outside venting hood overhead as well (which must have been required in UK building regs since at least the 90s?!?) so I really don’t care about indoor “pollution” lol.
Please explain how an induction cooktop doesn't give you the control and precision you need as compared to gas flame.
Sure, the reaction time is slower. You learn to think ahead.
Nothing is optimal. The tenements that my kids lived in as students had gas stoves and zero ventilation. That couldn't have been a good idea.
Our latest stove is induction, made by LG, with control knobs. I love it. Best thing is it's easier to keep clean. I'm learning to be more reactive about turning the heat up and down, just because I can. Maybe I'll discover what I've been missing all these years.
Julia Child wrote that a home cook doesn't have to be a chef.
If your kitchen is in your living room (and nowadays they all are) I would definitely switch to induction.
Technically since it appears the effects are nebulous to you and if consciousness means informed then it seems a conscious decision is not possible
I started my taxable life almost 30 years ago in a Chinese kitchen. I'm literally a born-in-the-fire professional cook first and foremost out of any other thing in life I do. Induction rocks, I don't know what your skill issue is. I get pots and pans hotter, way faster than gas, and the temperature control is as fast as the cooking implement can shed the excess heat. That is as fine a degree of control as you can possibly get, the only better thing would be instantaneous temperature and that's basically a thermodynamic impossibility.
Oh, and I disagree with the fire being more precise than induction etc.
It’s just what you’re used to.
Where it has a clear advantage is in boiling speed when used at full power. I've ditched my electric kettle for a stovetop one. There's not a day I'm cooking that I don't somewhat regret having replaced the old and crappy gas stove.
Even with very thick cast iron pans, the hot spots are there at any power. It takes longer for the pans to heat up and the heat is never uniform.
For pots with thinner floors, I bought thick heat diffusers. Again, they help - but they just make everything less responsive and probably a lot less efficient as well. Not to mention they don't actually make the hot spots disappear either.
- Can't temper chocolate, cook a hollandaise, or do anything that requires low heat without using a double boiler.
- Can't boil a large pot of water in under 20 minutes (unless you have a high-power/commercial burner that will absolutely murder indoor air quality/conditioning).
- Can't set the temperature of the pan (or even the contents), rather than just the power level. Think, maintaining an oil temp for deep frying, or a surface temp for browning.
That last one is a really big deal. Imagine if ovens still just had power levels (low/med/high) instead of thermostats.
They may be different cooking tools but if one is ruining the quality of your life + possibly children, wouldn't you rather do it the safe way? Or are your habits more important than your health?
But yes, I've also basically given up on carbon steel with induction. Cast iron seasons really well though.