First it was adding catalytic converters in cars, then regulating tobacco, banning asbestos, removing contaminants from drinking water. It never stops.
This is nothing more than one more rung in a decades long campaign of using the democratic process to hold companies accountable for pollutants and slowly improve the health and well-being of millions of Americans. Sure, air is cleaner and these interventions have all been amazingly effective, but qui bono?
Who are these people? What do they have to gain from all these laws?
I'm worried my grandchildren are going to have to grow up in a healthy, well regulated world where when they buy products in stores they don't have to worry about how it will impact their health or the health of their community.
Being American means slowly killing yourself and your neighbors for the greater GDP. I don't want us to lose that.
Coal was shifted from the home to the energy plant.
Is this better because the negative effects of coal burning were removed locally and moved to a central location? Or maybe because the local locations can no longer control their own consumption?
Yes, we absolutely have to figure out a way to transition away from it and both here an in other countries around the world. An outright ban probably isn't achievable or effective in the short term. We could tax it to raise the cost (discouraging use), and use those taxes to fund transitions away from gas to heat pumps or other solutions that don't involve pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Why is that a problem? At this point in the game most things that need to be done to address climate change and pollution are reactionary.
> If this comes down to CO2 there are bigger fish to fry, no?
You can say that about almost anything. There's always "bigger fish to fry", but that doesn't mean we should only ever deal with the "biggest fish". We regulate car emissions even though ships and airplanes are arguably the "bigger fish". We prosecute thefts even though most people would consider prosecuting murders the "bigger fish".
Not disagreeing there, but I think if we satiate the need to do something right now by cutting the rings on our six packs then we might not ever get to the other fish.
No; one of five CPSC commissioners gave an interview in which he indicated they're thinking about potentially doing something about the impact of gas stoves on interior air quality, in which he noted (generally) that the CPSC has the authority to ban products that can't be "made safe".
There's zero indication gas stoves can't be "made safe".
Switched from gas to induction and love it. I miss my stove every time i have to cook elsewhere. Mine is pretty much the cheapest induction range on the market (and i bought it used). Heats up way faster than gas (WAY FASTER, will get cast iron glowing if i leave an empty cast iron on the stove for a while at the highest setting), low/medium control is excellent and precise, and i really appreciate the lack of waste heat (pot handles don't overheat, kitchen doesn't quickly heat up from cooking - small kitchen).
The fact that the stove is more expensive is really the only downside. Not being able to use fabulous copper pans seems like the only meaningful downside but I'm not rich enough for that anyways.
I imagine as more people adopt induction it'll get cheaper. I think most folks just assume it's an over-priced electric stove, so there's a learning curve to adoption.
Anecdotally, I love my induction. It saves me so much time! When I first bought it a few years back, I was razzed quite a bit by co-workers whose only personality trait was they liked food. "You can't char peppers!" they'd exclaim. It's so funny to me to see so much passion for gas stoves.
39,90EUR in white, 49,90EUR in black in Germany, right now(including sales tax). I wonder why the difference is so wide, and if that applies to other induction cooking appliances in the US-market, too?
That's something that could happen. What could also happen is that builders and landlords use it as an excuse to cheap out on kitchen appliances even further while charging the same, the majority of potential gas stoves gets replaced with cheap underpowered coil ones, and the quality of life of the lower 95% degrades even further
Still can't understand the OUTRAGE. And I'm no-ones shill. Just happy to have them, because once you've tried them(good ones, with appropriate electrical installation) you're hooked, and don't want to go back, ever.
Maybe it's a cultural thing, Wild West, Cowboys, camp fire, which turned into phrases like 'Now you are cooking with gas!'.
From the outside it just looks like slum, favela, ghetto-style, third-world. Uncivilized.
Like much of your electrical installations, no matter if on the in- or outside :-)
What is there to understand? Tastes differ, your tastes in particular differ from some other people. Forcing your tastes on other people is as same as forcing other people's tastes on you. What would you say if your induction was to be banned?
Implying an improvement, like phased array semiconductor microwaves, or something like that.
Edit: Don't laugh, that actually was 'on the radar' about 10 years ago. IIRC the availability of the parts went away because the producing company has been bought by another, shifted goals, whatnot else.
The high current is found to cause racism and transphobia in children. You are only allowed maximum of 4 12V@5A conductors in the kitchen, it's unfortunate but we need to take care of this health issue for you.
Definitely tongue in cheek, but it's almost halfway believable. For every commenter here who talks about how they prefer their gas stove for [attribute A], [attribute B] and [attribute C], a commenter jumps in like clockwork to reply with the same "Have you tried induction, bro?" comment. Eerie...
I have envy. I'm only one year into my second home with a gas range and I'm over it. It has excellent control (compared to traditional electric), however I find the rest of it frustrating. Any grease splatter and I'm removing and cleaning grates, surfaces, and caps. There are burners that are slower to light than others, so I'm regularly fiddling with cleaning out the orifices.
I'll consider moving to induction after I get my electrical panel upgraded.
I remodeled my house and put in a gas line but also upgraded the electrical to the stove outlet so it would take any modern range. I went with gas because induction was relatively new, relatively expensive and I had never used it. Then youtubers started using induction hot plates, then my neighbors bought an induction stove and I was sold. You mentioned the biggest downside for me and that's the cleaning aspect with the grates. My grates are some sort of rugged cast steel so they tear up my scrubby pads, they don't fit in my sink well and all it takes is a couple days of cooking to create a mess on all surfaces of the range.
Just this morning I was making tea, looking at the stove and thinking to myself "gdi I have to clean this thing again." Even when I stay on top of it the ease of cleaning is nothing like wiping down a flat glass surface.
To use copper pans (or any non-induction pan) is to use a transfer plate, which allows the induction to work and heats up in a traditional electric way.
I've not had one myself but all my friends are so hung up on some annoying details of most induction stoves that I am kinda ok with my old normal electric one (never had gas, it's not very common around here). Details include: The touch screen not reacting well, esp if you spilled something, a magnetic fob to enable it and no way to properly store it, insane cost should you drop something and damage it (ok, that one's far-fetched)...
Forget climate and respiratory issues, I’ve gone induction out of pure convenience and don’t miss gas at all. My induction cook top heats up faster, has more precise control, retains less heat on the “burner”, and is way easier to clean. The only downsides I’ve found are you can’t char things on a flame, or use copper pots.
It seems like people keep comparing gas to “regular” electric stoves, which are definitely inferior in many ways. The biggest issue is they’re very inefficient, and take forever to heat anything.
Great, it explains the reason quite well: if somebody installs gas ovens, they probably get gas heating and water boiler as well at the same time (which is where the real money is at)
The respiratory argument I really don't understand with specific regard to gas vs electric cooking.
I don't care if my range is powered by alien technology that magically sequesters carbon somewhere else - When you heat something above a certain temperature, you are producing all kinds of chemical compounds that are not going to be good for you. It doesn't really matter how the mass was brought to that temperature. The contribution of a gas range to indoor air quality is absolutely negligible compared to what comes out of a deep fryer or frying pan once you hit 400F+.
If the primary concern is everyone's health & safety, we should mandate high CFM extraction hoods be installed above every range and run public information campaigns to encourage their use.
I don’t think that’s true. The worry is the NOx emissions (that is a combustion product from the foams, not from cooking), the amount being produced by gas stoves which was previously under-appreciated until recently.
Studies I’ve seen indicate that most domestic rangehoods (apart from the very high end ones) are not sufficient to effectively remove these gas combustion products.
The point still stands, the NO2 emission might be negligible compared to simple food emissions. From personal experience, preheating an (electric) oven to high temperature seems to result in lung irritation for days if I forget to turn on the extraction hood.
I don't know the numbers, but the premise here is not (a) that gas is bad or that (b) cooking releases particulate, but rather that gas stoves are actually constantly leaking very small amounts of particulate that in aggregate can cause harm along the same lines of other sources of PM2.5 pollution.
Gas stoves might be constantly leaking, but they only produce particulates when they are alight. Assuming you don't have an ancient appliance with a pilot light.
> If the primary concern is everyone's health & safety, we should mandate high CFM extraction hoods be installed above every range and run public information campaigns to encourage their use.
That may well be the sort of mitigation the CPSC goes with. (And probably just in new construction.)
Because there's no platform or ideology on earth capable of paid advocacy besides the oil industry, and certainly no political movements ostensibly grounded in "green" advocacy.
If you are going to claim that a position is invalid due to financial influence, you really have to do the basic math of how much profit is actually at stake on either side of the argument And weight the impact of said influence appropriately.
Who has deeper pockets and more to loose if anthropogenic climate change is real and caused by co2 emissions? If you truly think it’s the folks that are cutting grant checks to climate scientists, I have a bridge to sell you.
For those who don't know these are stoves that have on board batteries allowing them to generate, for a period of time, far more heat than an ordinary house circuit would be able to power. This replicates some of the advantages of gas.
But honestly I think the ban gas stoves thing is brought to you by the same people who gave us bans on plastic straws. "Let's maximally inconvenience people for extremely tiny environmental gains while ignoring huge contributors to pollution and climate change. That way we alienate as many people as possible and drive them into the arms of the far right."
See the problem is that the far right is so ridiculous and repellent that the left is having to work really hard these days to lose. They're having to push for things like banning gas stoves or the word "field" to have any chance at losing to the people who brought you Qanon and January 6th.
The reason why there’s a battle about gas stoves is that people care a lot more about the way they cook than the way they heat their house, but if they cook with gas, then they heat with gas. So if you want to push people away from gas heating towards electric heat pumps, then you need to attack gas stoves
Huh? The reason people have been talking about stopping use of gas stoves is that they put out pollution inside people's homes, which is pretty separate from the overall dialogue about fossil fuels or how to heat homes.
Approximately a year ago several jurisdictions banned gas hookups in new developments. The pushback was significant and severe, and it was all focused on how awesome gas stoves were.
Now we're seeing the pushback for the pushback. fvdesson is right.
Since when is there pollution inside homes from gas stoves? How have all of the millions of gas stove users been cooking multiple meals with them on a daily basis and nobody noticed this supposed pollution?
Because establishing a direct link to childhood athsma takes many data points, especially with a dirty sample group, such as parents who may or may not have had athsma also caused by gas stoves.
If you want to push people away from gas heating, just tax the shit out of gas. No household uses enough gas for cooking that it would matter that much to them. (We cook a fair amount and heat domestic water with gas. In the summer, our bills are around $30/mo, including about $12 in fixed charges. Quadruple the usage charges [add a 300% tax], and if I want to cook with gas, I still will, but I sure as hell will get rid of my gas water heater and boiler.)
If you roll out the tax as 25% starting in July, increasing 25% every 3 months after that until it hits 300%, people have some time to plan for it and you don't hit them this winter. Maybe you need to return 1/3 of the tax money to low-income households who are having a hard time getting their equipment upgraded in a timely fashion and 1/3 of the tax money in incentives to that same group [and landlords of affordable housing] to help them cover the capital costs.
Trying to backhand it by making people "not want" gas stoves seems like a longer and less certain path than just giving people economic incentives to do the thing that you want them to do.
- That would have an immediate financial impact on people with gas boilers in a way that banning new gas appliances does not. This kind of thing would need to be rolled out very slowly over time if you want to avoid extreme backlash. Constraints on new construction don't have the same effects.
(EDIT: Ah, you edited your comment to address this one - sure, if you can reliably distribute funds for lower-income people to replace their appliances then maybe. I bet you still get a lot of backlash from people who can afford it but don't want to though. Unless it's rolled out very slowly.)
- Ultimately we need to get rid of the infrastructure piping all that gas around too, as that's where a lot of the climate impacts come from. Any new gas usage at all, whether for cooking or heating, makes it harder to do that.
I just installed a new gas boiler (I wanted to go electric but it was massively economically disadvantageous). That thing is probably going to run for 20 years. If you have patience to wait a handful of decades, attacking gas stoves and waiting for trickle-up in consumer preferences to happen could be a good play. If you want faster change, tax and rebate is probably a better plan.
Utilities already have the means to bill and tax fuel. Most already have conservation rebate schemes in place. Many already have low-income billing plans and rate cards (probably all have multiple rate cards). I think you could reliably administer a tax, rebate, and capital credit scheme using mostly existing mechanisms.
Rebates on appliances at least are happening: the Inflation Reduction Act has $4.5 billion set aside for rebates on new electric appliances. There's not a new tax at this point but I don't think tax/rebate and banning new gas installations are necessarily mutually exclusive.
> I just installed a new gas boiler (I wanted to go electric but it was massively economically disadvantageous). That thing is probably going to run for 20 years.
You're making a bet that gas will remain economically advantageous over electric for 20 years. I don't know about you, but the way the winds are shifting, that doesn't sound like a good bet.
My electricity is ~53% in total and ~80% marginally in wintertime produced by natural gas. They're pretty correlated here and likely to remain so for a decade or more.
If they do disconnect and electric becomes advantageous, I'll have saved money for likely a decade and can consider switching at that point. (It was capital costs that made it non-advantageous, not operating costs.)
Not true, at least not by definition. I heat with oil and cook with gas. My gas stove is fed by an outdoor propane tank that's filled once a year. When I was house hunting there were plenty of houses with gas ranges but I didn't see a single one with gas heat, that's really uncommon here.
That would be the pragmatic solution; but in states like CA, where rolling blackouts are already commonplace to reduce the strain on the grid, the implications of mandating the use of more electricity seem dire.
Gas stoves aren't a significant _environmental_ problem, certainly in terms of CO2 (in fact, unless your electricity is almost entirely renewable or nuclear, they're probably marginally better than electric from a CO2 perspective). There is a concern that they're a health risk, though (though the evidence that there's a large effect is somewhat weak).
Personally, I like my gas stove, though I expect to have to adapt to something else in my lifetime (the big push in Ireland is towards heat pumps, and once gas heating goes it will not be economic to maintain the home gas network just for stoves).
A CCGT is about 60% efficient, and an induction stove is about 3x as efficient as a gas stove. So cooking directly with gas uses over 50% more gas than cooking on an induction top using electricity generated from gas.
Depends exactly where you live, but it's unlikely that all the gas generation is by CCGT; a lot of places would use far less efficient plants for peaking at least.
> and an induction stove is about 3x as efficient as a gas stove
Hmm, where are you getting this? From a quick look, gas stoves are about 40-50% efficient, induction about 85%.
You also have to consider transmission loss, and the possible (in many places likely) presence of coal in the electricity supply.
In any case this is all pretty irrelevant; stoves just aren't a big enough piece of peoples' energy consumption.
It was a quick Google that I can't find again. Efficiency numbers vary widely, since the size of the pot makes a big difference in the efficiency of gas or conventional electricity.
In one experiment, using coal fired electricity to boil a pot of water on induction released 0.29 pounds of CO2. Using natural gas to boil a pot of water released 1.16 pounds.
I don't think this is similar to the plastic straws at all. The focus for banning gas stoves is on the (respiratory) health issues associated with gas cooking of the household. It is not about climate change.
So says the climate change institute who funded the study.
The real reason seems to be elsewhere: people care about cooking with gas, but they use gas heaters if they have gas. If you can stop people from cooking with gas, you can switch entire houses to electric more quickly.
Somebody else mentioned the same argument but I'm not buying it. Gas use for heating has a much bigger impact on your personal finance than just a gas stove, but you're saying gas stove cookers have an almost religious devotion to using gas because it's so much better? The problem is... If it's almost religious then rational arguments won't reach them anyway.
> For those who don't know these are stoves that have on board batteries allowing them to generate, for a period of time, far more heat than an ordinary house circuit would be able to power.
Depends on ordinarity of a house. My ordinary house has 3phase power and my pretty cheap induction stove outperforms all gas stoves I had. When I was living in a flat, I only had single phase power, but 4kW should still be enough for a stove. In USA you typically only have 110V (or 220v for those daring), so anything electric is straining your circuit breakers.
Electric stoves and dryers are connected 240V, yes. Washers are typically only 120V because they only really have to power the motor - unlike in Europe, the washer has hot and cold water inputs, so it doesn't need to use a lot of energy heating the water.
The US has 240VAC though it's just not a common household appliance circuit. My induction cooktop (in Australia) draws 7kW and is supplied by a dedicated 20A circuit for it (because that's what you over-spec the wiring too).
It was put in to replace a gas cooktop which was there when we bought the house, and vastly out-performs that unit in speed and heat output.
If you converted you'd be pulling a dedicated circuit through anyway - no one's tying induction cooktops off to just whatever line you already have.
The one area gas can be better is if you're doing wok cooking, but that's more to do with how wok's are shaped and heat up then any limitation on the ability to get heat into them (I've not been able to find one of the adapters which apparently exists to solve this).
Article is from June 2020. I know why it is re-surfacing now, but I can't imagine why it was a big deal when originally published. So-called influencers earn their income from paid sponsorships from many industries, whether they admit to it or not.
I wanted to replace my old gas range with a good induction cooktop. Everyone told me that would reduce my homes value, electric ranges are a step back.
I think problem is the induction ranges aren’t properly marketed. They have an image problem not a regulatory one.
If you ever cooked both on gas an electric, electric is workable, but gas is much more controllable in terms of temperature transfer.
Specially when there's no direct contact between the pan and stove.
It also produces way more heat faster if you need to.
My experience with electric stoves is that you have to coax them into cooking things right.
Most of the particulate problems could probably be solved with better forced ventilation and air filters.
For example, where I live, commercial kitchens have an electric gas valve connected to the forced extraction systems of the kitchen, so you cannot turn on the stove unless the ventilation is on.
No shit they're paying for some marketing. IDK who was expecting otherwise. They're not stupid. They're not so apathetic they're just gonna roll over and take it. Sure most of the manufacturers are also in the electric stove business but they've got huge capital investments in manufacturing they don't want to lose so when the executive announces out of the blue they're considering a ban of course they open the marketing floodgates in response.
Marketing is one thing, astroturfing is another. Companies are free to do it, of course, but others are also free to call it out as the deceptive practice it is.
As someone that has a stove that uses propane as a source, I'm curious to see any information specifically about that. My 30 minutes of Googling seems to find things that are focused on natural gas and make no mention of propane. The only real info I can find is that propane has approximately double the BTU per unit of volume, and is (obviously) not primarily methane.
The vast majority of the electricity in our state comes from coal plants. I am all for slowly switching to electric in hopes of greener sources in the future, but if we all do it right now it would arguably be worse for the environment.
It’s politicized too which is ridiculous. I’ve seen takes that being pro gas cookery is right-wing.
Yes, it’s obvious that gas heat and cooking could cause respiratory issues due to combustion.
As a gourmand though, cooking on a gas range is the best experience wrt temp control and convenience. I prefer an electric oven, and the heating system I’m impartial to, though radiant hot water is what I fondly remember from youth.
You haven't used the fancy induction stoves, they beat everything in terms of temp control and speed. Plus you can program them and pair them with probes. See the Breville "Control Freak": https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/commercial/cmc850.ht...
Can you elaborate how you find gas more convenient that an induction stove?
I've worked in a kitchen with gas and I found it awful. It was harder to clean, you had to be really careful to not burn yourself when you had to do a quick wipedown. Making sure not only that you turned it off, but that anyone else there wasn't forgetful either.
Induction like I have at home now is so convenient. I have no worries. It responds super quick to temp changes, it automatically detects if I have something on the stove or not, so no fear of wasting power. You can't burn yourself. The surface is flat and super easy to keep clean.
If the power is out I can cook my perishables for fun, it does the fire thing when you sauté which is somewhat cathartic.
I’ve only rented one place with a gas stove and it was mind blowing how good it was compared to those god awful glass top electrics (which I own now) despite it being ancient. Hated the oven though, hence gas range / electric oven.
The thing about burning gas for heat in your home is that it's either very clean, or there is something seriously wrong with your system. There is no scope for it causing 'respiratory issues' except in a setup so broken that it's not legal (or shouldn't be legal) to operate.
Unlike for example a wood stove which might release some smoke into your house, at a level where it's not good for you, but not violently toxic.
In some countries unflued has heaters are common, which do cause indoor air quality issues. Furnaces that vent the exhaust just cause air quality issues outside, not inside.
But the article is about gas stoves, which do release significant NOx output into the house, which domestic rangehoods are generally not very effective in removing quickly enough.
>There is no scope for it causing 'respiratory issues'...
But it's also an easy platform to sell to the un/misinformed, and a great platform for a candidate who just wants what's healthiest for you and the environment.
In itself the subject of indoor pollution is not a "left vs right" thing just like climate hysteria or SARS2 scaremongering are not innately so. That said it is remarkable that it is those who proclaim themselves to be on the "left" side who are far more susceptible to this type of scaremongering than those who claim to be on the "right" side. This is probably related to the "left" thinking in terms of the collective over the group over the individual where those on the "right" tend to think in terms of (traditional conservatives) "group - individual - collective" or (libertarians) "individual - group - collective". This makes those on the "left" side more susceptible to this type of group think based on appeals to authority - the "experts" agree that gas stoves need to go, "experts" agree that masks need to be worn, "experts" agree that young children need to be exposed to "norm-breaking" or "queer" sexuality, "experts" agree that CO₂ is the main cause of the recent warm spell and that human activities are the main cause of the rise in CO₂ concentration - since it is expected for individuals to sacrifice personal freedom for the good of the collective. Sometimes the "experts" are real experts but often they are activists for a cause.
This is also inherent in the "left" vs "right" discussion since those on the "left" can gain fame by forwarding themselves as spokesperson for a "marginalised" group which is "oppressed" by "(fill-in-the-blanks)-normativity". Once one of these self-proclaimed "experts" gets into the limelight and gets the ball rolling the collective needs to follow to avoid accusations of "(fill-in-the-blanks)-phobia" or "*-ism". On the right the way to fame lies in portraying yourself as the defender of traditional values and/or being the one to fight the dragons coming from the left. This is a vicious circle since any new goofy idea from the left is fodder for a dragon-slayer on the right and thus the circle game continues.
The gas stove ban that is in the news is a US thing, not a EU or CA as far as I know. I haven't heard of any gas stove bans in the EU being talked about, though some were already on the table in an effort to get rid of gas altogether.
If I'm not mistaken, it was _not_ a political initiative, at least not initially, but talked about as an option by The US Consumer Product Safety Commission in the case if stoves could not be made safe, in response to scientific research revealing its hazardous effects.
Generally, right-wing parties care less about health hazards (if at all), so I wouldn't expect any supporting such a ban. Mind you, what is considered right-wing varies from country to country.
> The gas stove ban that is in the news is a US thing, not a EU or CA as far as I know.
Gas stoves are not banned in the Netherlands but natural gas is being fazed out leading to the same outcome. When I bought a new house in the Netherlands in 1996 I had no choice but to move to electric cooking since the whole are was built gas-free. I ended up buying/building an induction range out of a separate induction hob and an electric oven. I sold the house in 2002 after moving to Sweden where I now cook and heat the house on wood - no gas here but no need for it either given our 21 hectares of forest and land. I prefer the latter over the former by far since there is no way meddling busybodies or warmongering Soviet-wannabees can increase my heating/cooking bills.
That's not the point - only a few loonies on the left are pushing it. Most of the left and the right are opposed. That makes it not a left/right issue.
Yes. This doesn't mean gas stoves are banned (existing ones are not outlawed). In fact its not about stoves at all. It means some countries are doing at least something to address climate change.
Eventually we all need to move away from gas, this is about that. Not banning gas stoves overnight, but gradually banning all fossil fuels, which you can't do if everybody is still cooking on gas. You need to gradually reduce your dependency on it.
No, countries do not need to move away from gas even if you're convinced CO₂ is the cause of all our woes. What you'd want to move away from is natural gas, not gas in itself. There are plenty of other ways to get methane - which is what natural gas is (more or less) - which do not add CO₂ to the environment. Domestic waste can be fermented for local production, industrial, agricultural and forest-industry waste for larger-scale installations. Methane is a good energy carrier given the ease at which it can be transported and handled. It is not poisonous, it can be compressed and/or liquefied and it burns cleanly without the need for complex burner designs.
> It’s politicized too which is ridiculous. I’ve seen takes that being pro gas cookery is right-wing.
By now the playbook looks too easy for any lobbyist or interest group - just present any issue as left-right and the useful idiots do your work for you.
You cannot fry indoors without ventilation unless you enjoy choking on smoke.
Neither can you boil indoors without ventilation unless you enjoy coating everything in the room with moisture.
The combustion of a gas stove IME is a smaller contributor to ventilation requirements than both of the above. Maybe the moisture one is less relevant in low humidity environments like parts of California?
edit: I just checked, here in the UK new kitchens require extractor fans regardless of fuel used, which makes sense to me.
Not in the US at the federal level. Some states have code requirements about it. My house lacks one, which is annoying when I'm searing steaks, and I plan to rectify it when we redo the kitchen.
I can't help but think this gas stove thing is a distraction being propped up by the government, but I can't figure out what they're trying to distract from
Nah, that's not what I meant. It's just that I've been seeing these posts against gas stove pots in social media, and I'm always there being all "pro gas". I guess I can now send bills to the gas industry.
Do you have an induction stovetop now or a regular convection? Because in my experience induction is vastly superior to both convection and gas stoves. It provides far more and faster heat, cools nearly instantly and the nice ones at least give you flexibility where you put your pan.
The downside of induction is it doesn’t work with all pot types.
The big advantage gas retains is the ability to see with your eye exactly how much heat you’re producing. I do love being able to precisely tune exactly how much heat I’m cooking with. I assume this is why gas is so prevalent at restaurants.
But I’ve also found that at home once I get to know an electric stove (what does level 5 do vs 6?) I’m just as capable as I am with gas.
(I’m opposite of you btw. Had electric for a long time and just moved to a house with a gas stovetop.)
I have a "decent" electric radiant type stovetop. I have tried induction before and I agree that it's better than what I have for example, but there's just things you can't do without the fire. I guess it's something that depends on how much you cook and what you cook. Can't char tortillas or veggies on the electric stove top.
Unfortunately for me, since I'm renting I can't change what I have and even if I could, it's pretty hard considering the country I'm in (Germany). Not too fond of gas over here.
As a very frequent cook (with a high CFM vented range hood) I'm very excited to move to induction, but the main issues I had when checking a while ago was the lack of an ability to eyeball the level of heat and the lack of front control knobs (vs buttons or some other controls). I'm confident that I can adapt to the former and the latter seems like it's not an issue any more as induction becomes more widespread.
Of course, I won't make that change until it's time to buy a new stove.
Looks like somebody is _really_ running a campaign against gas. It's fine if you like induction, like it's fine if you like Apple products. Just leave me alone about it, will you?
It might be more akin to smoking; cooking with gas at home, buy a rider to insur your health insurance and that of your kids for respiratory disorders.
First it was adding catalytic converters in cars, then regulating tobacco, banning asbestos, removing contaminants from drinking water. It never stops.
This is nothing more than one more rung in a decades long campaign of using the democratic process to hold companies accountable for pollutants and slowly improve the health and well-being of millions of Americans. Sure, air is cleaner and these interventions have all been amazingly effective, but qui bono?
Who are these people? What do they have to gain from all these laws?
I'm worried my grandchildren are going to have to grow up in a healthy, well regulated world where when they buy products in stores they don't have to worry about how it will impact their health or the health of their community.
Being American means slowly killing yourself and your neighbors for the greater GDP. I don't want us to lose that.