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…)

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.

While waiting for electricity, cook outside on a BBQ or camp stove as much as possible and open windows for a cross draft when cooking inside.

Once you have electricity, make sure you have a properly installed range hood that vents to the outside. Turn that fan on before lighting the stove and let it run for a little bit after.

I remember reading somewhere that that deals with the vast majority of the issue.

You can help out the range hood by using the back burners as much as possible.

You can reduce the use of the stove quite dramatically with an electric kettle, a microwave, and things like crock pots, toaster ovens, and electric frying pans.

One note on the BBQ: my wife does virtually all of her baking (breads, cakes, muffins, etc) on the BBQ, weather permitting.

We are also in the middle of nowhere. While we’ve always had power, it was only recently upgraded from 30 amp service to “real” power.

I hope your stove is one that runs without pilot lights. Pilot lights suck a lot of propane, and would have a proportional effect on emissions. When we switched away from pilot lights, out propane use went down from about 350 pounds a year to 250 or less.

Combustion byproducts (and gas leaks) in the house are really, really bad for your health. Should be at the top of your list health wise.