About 47 million homes use natural gas or propane-burning cooktops and ovens. Stanford researchers found that cooking with gas stoves can raise indoor levels of the carcinogen benzene above those found in secondhand smoke.

Is this one of those things we will look back at from the future and say: “I can’t believe that we did that?” like leaded fuel?

  • someguy3English
    6·
    2 years ago

    I really don’t get the hate for electric stoves.

    • TroyOPMEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Is this regional, perhaps? In Manitoba, electric stoves are just sort of considered normal – largely because of the cost of electricity being so reasonable. The high end houses here all get fancy induction cooktops with the nice glass surface that’s so easy to clean, which is a huge draw versus a gas burner (the principal drawback being you need certain types of cookware, but if you’re building a fancy house, get fancy cookware…)

      • someguy3English
        3·
        2 years ago

        I think electric stoves are more common in Canada (I’m Canadian too) but I see plenty of people saying they prefer gas stoves.

        • WindoLickerEnglish
          4·
          2 years ago

          Part of the love for gas stoves is more or less cultural inertia, part of it is the fact that they are in some ways easier to use(the instant heat adjustment), part of it is sheer contrarianism, and part is some people worried about being able to cook even during a power outage.

          Electric is pretty normal all over Canada, what I’d like to see is induction take over the standard electric range.

    • squigleyEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      There are reasons to prefer cooking on gas, but first let me state that the evidence is quite clear; gas stoves are bad for us and we should be phasing them out.

      • Temperature response. When you change the temp on a gas stove it’s instant (but then, induction stoves also have this benefit).

      • Predictable power. I can look at the size of the flames and know how high or low it is. Sure, the sensitivity of the dial or the size of the burner may vary between manufacturers, but that relationship between quantity/size of flames is something I can look at and intuitively figure out. Every electric stove is different. What does 5 mean on an electric stove? Damned if I know until I’ve had the chance to use it a few times.

      Is any of this enough to negate the health impacts? It shouldn’t be. Add efficiency on top of the health stuff and switching should be a no brainer. But then, many people’s only experience is older, shitty coil electric stoves. And those are really shit. I have one of those right now. It’s fictional and I hate it.

      Some people are going to question the science. Because people are naturally bad at science. Seriously, undergraduates spend almost as much time being trained to use methodology to overcome our natural stupidity as they do learning theory. Normal people are likely to think “my family has always used a gas stove and it hasn’t harmed us,” without thinking about how it had to compete with leaded paint, leaded gasoline, smoking, second hand smoke, asbestos, and a myriad of other harm factors we’re significantly further along in removing from our environment.

      And then there’s the ‘culture war’ idiots.