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lkramer 22 hours ago [-]
I find it significantly harder to cook with electric than gas, and the first hurdle these days is always that for some reason all modern stoves use awful touch interfaces instead of just plain knobs. I don't understand how we got there. It should be obvious to anyone that it's a terrible interface when you are trying to multitask several pots and might also have greasy hands
syntaxing 22 hours ago [-]
Simply not true. There’s a ton of induction and electric coil ranges with knobs. Just look at the Bosch line.
mort96 22 hours ago [-]
I haven't seen one in a kitchen in decades, other than extremely old ones. The touch control design is absolutely everywhere. At least here in Norway, where ~all stovetops are electric.
XenophileJKO 22 hours ago [-]
I just bought an LG induction stove, all knobs except oven temp setting.
kibwen 19 hours ago [-]
I know someone who just bought a brand-new consumer-grade convection oven with induction cooktop. Knobs for the stovetop, buttons for the oven.
expedition32 21 hours ago [-]
I mean they probably exist but the standard induction plates that they deliver with kitchens are all touch control. You learn to live with it.
farley13 21 hours ago [-]
Agreed - maybe not lots - but I got myself a HIS8055U three years ago specifically because it had knobs. No regrets there. I wish it had one larger burner, but completely night and day with traditional electric.
agos 22 hours ago [-]
they are definitely a minority, not "tons". On the Bosch website I can't even find them.
Maxion 22 hours ago [-]
Not really in Europe, at least not in the nordics. All Bosch are touch controls.
ericpauley 22 hours ago [-]
Am I missing something? A quick search for electric ranges on Home Depot shows simmerstats at every price range.
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)
pornel 21 hours ago [-]
Induction is the good one - it has instant response like gas.
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.
cassianoleal 21 hours ago [-]
Induction is shit. Horrible stuff. Not nearly the same level of control and heat dissipation as gas. Much better than resistive, but about 10% as good as gas.
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.
grandma_tea 20 hours ago [-]
Have you ruled out the possibility that you have a bad stove?
cassianoleal 18 hours ago [-]
It depends on what you call bad. It's certainly not top of the line, thousands of pounds worth, but it's not a cheap one either. Honestly it's my first induction one, so who knows?
That appears to have poor feedback about the induction cooktop itself, and is inferior to, say, Bosch. Cycles on and off, poor pan detection, lower peak power, areas being affected smaller than the lines on the top etc.
cassianoleal 2 hours ago [-]
Perhaps. Again, I'm kinda new to this, and that one had stellar reviews, was well within my budget and with a good discount when I bought it, and mainly - it fit the hole I needed to fill in my kitchen.
Do you know of a better one that doesn't completely break the bank but works well? I was looking at the ones that the whole cook surface is inductive and it adapts to exactly where the pots and pans are, but they seem to cost an arm and a leg, especially in that form factor.
rsynnott 1 hours ago [-]
My general impression of those big wide single-unit range things is that unless you're paying _silly_ money, you're getting a far worse product for the same money than normal separate cooktops and ovens. No idea _why_ this is, but it seems to be a universal.
(Part of the problem may be that BSH, which kinds of sets the standard in the industry, doesn't really make them, so the competition dynamic is different.)
beached_whale 22 hours ago [-]
I've seen induction with dials for the stove. Ovens have had electronic buttons for decades though.
Zanfa 22 hours ago [-]
This! The only electric (induction or otherwise) stovetops are either bottom of the barrel portable or top of the line commercial models. Everything in between is capacitive touch garbage.
tass 22 hours ago [-]
I bought a relatively inexpensive induction range from LG specifically because it has knobs - a lot of the more expensive ones from other brands were capacitive touch.
kevincox 14 hours ago [-]
I usually hate touch controls. But for the stove I actually like them. I always hated cleaning in and around the knobs. When cooking on the stove you almost always get some sort of splatter so it is nice to clean them every time (something I often put off with knobs. So for something that so regularly gets dirty a flat surface can be very welcome.
So it is definitely a tradeoff, but I am happy I picked a stove with touch controls. Although I did pay attention that they were good touch controls (touch anywhere on the arc to set that temperature directly for example). Although there is a small annoying delay after turning on before you can set the temperature. Almost perfect.
Hikikomori 22 hours ago [-]
Still easy to manage, quick wipe with a paper towel, but rarely need to do even that.
gpm 22 hours ago [-]
Yeah, so my (electric) stove has knobs, but my oven and microwave are both touch buttons and this has literally never been an issue.
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.
mort96 22 hours ago [-]
I hate it but I think the reason might be regulations? I have family who recently had to replace their stove setup, they used to have a combined oven + stovetop thing where dials on the front of the oven controlled the stovetop. They wanted the replacement to work the same way but there were no options, and when they asked, they were told it's no longer legal for the stovetop and the oven to be electrically connected in that way (or something along those lines).
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.
Zanfa 21 hours ago [-]
I’m skeptical about the reasoning being regulations. There are still a few Italian manufacturers who have a combined oven & stovetop models (“range” in US terms) including induction, but they’re really expensive and with questionable reliability / warranty support. I think all manufacturers just care about cutting costs and putting out a “sleak” design.
I can’t wait for knobs to make a comeback.
rsynnott 1 hours ago [-]
One thing I'd wonder about; my impression is that to some extent in the US, at least in some places, cooker extractor fans are treated as an optional extra, and that even where they exist recirculating (vs vented) ones are more common. You'd definitely expect that to have an impact.
bob1029 4 hours ago [-]
Even if you are cooking with electric, you should have some kind of extraction setup.
Most of the problems I see with gas cooking is when it's done in a poorly ventilated space.
Deep frying is like a chemical vapor deposition machine. It doesn't matter how the oil got hot. The fumes need to be removed regardless. If you are cooking with gas, this extraction process will also handle the side effects of combustion quite well.
hellisothers 18 hours ago [-]
If you do the deep research on this there are many qualifiers to get the result they’re purporting. The main issue is you have to have little to no ventilation to make their numbers work. If you have a hood and or good indoor airflow to a window then this is all propaganda.
acdha 10 hours ago [-]
> If you have a hood and or good indoor airflow to a window then this is all propaganda.
In other words, it’s not propaganda. Since the researchers specifically called for prioritizing ventilation improvements in smaller / worse ventilated units, it seems like an odd line of criticism: they’re not saying it can never be safe for anyone ever but that in practice it isn’t safe for tens of millions of people.
btreecat 4 hours ago [-]
Most hoods in apartments (and many houses) are not vented to the outdoors. They just move the air inside around.
You're not helping the air quality if all you do is move it around inside.
It was done on people suffering from asthma - with all the reason in the world to improve air quality. Replacing gas stoves with electric stoves a huge effect, on the other hand "installation of a ventilation hood over an existing gas stove in 15 other homes did not significantly change NO2 levels".
comrade1234 21 hours ago [-]
We love our induction stove top. The "burners" go from 1 to 9 but also have an L and P setting.
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.
xnx 21 hours ago [-]
Cooking itself pollutes the air (e.g. oil droplets) so external ventilation is still essential.
minetest2048 11 hours ago [-]
My thoughts as several things can be true at once:
- This study is the source of LinkedIn ads from climate change where they try to convince people to move from gas to electric because of bad health effects
- But it doesn't invalidate the study, because of course burning something indoors creates some sort of emission, which may causes asthma
in kids
- But its not relevant for me because I'm a single adult not a child and I don't cook that much anyway
- And even when I used to have a gas stove, I used my induction burner more often as its more powerful and makes less waste heat compared to my gas stove
- and the reason I bought an induction wok burner from aliexpress, it can go much hotter than my gas stove
- But one thing that gas stoves excel is even the cheapest gas stoves have a smooth analog control, making it possible to gently heat things, which is important for cooking omelette. For the induction burners I have, it uses on off control, which will scorch the food if your setup (food + cookware) have low thermal mass to smooth it out. You think with the advancement of power electronics because of EV, ebikes, drones and AI data center power supplies someone is able to make a cheap induction burner with analog power control
sm-silversight 22 hours ago [-]
I don't care. Quality-of-life. I cook in a pan every day. Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do. Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously. My life would be noticeably worse without my open-flame stove.
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.
syntaxing 22 hours ago [-]
No way. I cook everyday and induction is vastly superior than gas. The only time fire is vastly superior is when I use a wok which I have a stove I use outdoors. Most induction stoves have temperature maintained too. So it can keep your oil at a specific temperature let it be frying or confit or roasting spices.
chomp 22 hours ago [-]
Can’t (properly) cook a tortilla on an electric burner, though you can get subpar results in a pan
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.
pkulak 21 hours ago [-]
Does the list _really_ go on though? I think we basically exhausted it (and one on that list is solved with a $10 torch, one with a cast iron pan, the other with an induction-friendly nabe). You can make lists for induction too:
- 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.
hellisothers 18 hours ago [-]
Let’s assume we both have nice ranges.
- I can temper on my 7k BTU burner
- I can boil water quick AF on my 18k BTU burner
- setting pan temp isn’t a thing, there are no recipes that call for a pan temp. Oil temp? Sure and that is why you have a thermometer, very solved problem. For browning etc you do it by time and feel, even if you could set a pan temp you wouldn’t just leave your meat on it for some temp x time amount.
pkulak 17 hours ago [-]
I'll take your word on those first two. I've used gas ranges, and the smallest burner has never been small enough to avoid putting itself out. And the largest one has always taken ages to boil water. Especially since the largest one usually pops the damn flame beyond the edges of the pot. But it's possible I've never used a really nice gas range. Though, FWIW, my current induction range is the cheapest model they had on sale 10 years ago, and it handles both perfectly.
For the last one, just because you're an elite chef and can cook a steak perfectly every time on feel, doesn't mean I am. :D I can buy a $40 steak and know I'm not going to ruin it because I can maintain my pan at 350f, which will brown it and not burn it. I can make pancakes without constantly adjusting the cook time and heat every single batch as the pan continually absorbs more and more heat throughout the cook. I can put a chili on, set it to 204 degrees, then just leave and come back in a few hours without babying the power knob for the first hour trying to get it to a stable, gentle simmer. I can braise meats without using my oven, because I can keep a liquid at 180 degrees. I can make a soup at 3pm, then put in on at 145 degrees for a few hours until dinner. It's not about having a "recipe", you learn 4-5 important temperatures after a couple weeks of using it.
btreecat 4 hours ago [-]
It's not just how much water can you boil and how fast, it's the excess heat and significant hit to indoor air quality, and CO2 concentration
ryan_lane 8 hours ago [-]
> Can't set the temperature of the pan
My gas stovetop in japan has a temperature sensor, and can detect excess temperature (food or oil burning), maintain a temperature, etc. It's possible with gas.
That said, I miss my induction stovetop, and I'm building a house, and it'll have induction, rather than gas.
chomp 19 hours ago [-]
I mean really, all of my examples involve on-demand flame at a BTU higher than a torch, so I suppose the list doesn’t go on if you exclude things like charring eggplant for baba ganoush.
Induction is super awesome for maintaining temp. But one isn’t superior over the other in all cases. My point was purely, people need high BTU fire sometimes based off how they cook. I mean, you won’t see me cooking tagine, but surely someone in the world cooks tagine?
pkulak 17 hours ago [-]
Fair enough. I do actually have a camping stove that I've used a couple times when I needed a flame.
Hikikomori 16 hours ago [-]
I get good tortillas on induction.
Can char pepper in the oven.
Can also get a portable gas stove.
shimman 21 hours ago [-]
Can literally do all these (except nabe, don't understand what's happening there) with a basic cast iron pan + induction stove top.
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?
chomp 19 hours ago [-]
You absolutely cannot do the same thing with a cast iron, I promise.
shimman 13 hours ago [-]
Char food? I do that several times a week. You realize things get hot and you can cook right? Gas stove tops aren't the only thing capable of generating heat. Induction is simply better. Way safer too.
hellisothers 18 hours ago [-]
Maybe it’s because my wife is literally a chef but you’ll have to pull her gas range/oven out of her dead hands. She’s worked with induction before for years, it is not the same league. For instance, you can’t tilt the pan.
cmclaughlin 8 hours ago [-]
I have a Bosch induction range and it doesn't immediately turn off the "burner" or beep when the pan is lifted up, so yeah I can tilt the pan.
PhotonHunter 16 hours ago [-]
Except that on all but the most expensive hobs, "simmer" is on-off and scorches the sauce. And on all but the most expensive hobs, the coil is much smaller than the pan you'd want to use (and many times much smaller than advertised). And the sides don't heat up like gas. And you can't use copper or clay pots like gas. And like many electronic things but unlike gas or the old resistive coil tops, induction seems to have longevity problems (perhaps that gets better as the technology matures, or perhaps it runs into the same electronic parts availability issues that plague modern appliances, I tend to think the latter).
Induction is fantastic for boiling water, and good for many things, but there's too many shortcomings to declare "superior than gas".
acdha 10 hours ago [-]
Those are either artifacts of a bad stove or using extremely thin pans. We have a fairly low-mid range model and the low mode doesn’t burn anything and the coils match the sizes of the pans we use.
I agree it’s not great to get rid of a pure copper pot but those (and even many of the Korean dolsot pots) seem to be easily available with induction bases now. The flip side was that our cheap $5 IKEA cast iron works even better so we use it more, and this was also true of some Costco ceramic skillets which weren’t trying to be so light that they didn’t have a hefty iron slug.
Between air quality and child safety, my general decision tree is simple: “are you a chef doing things like wok cooking?” Induction is probably better if you don’t have a specific technique requiring unusually high BTU output. I have had to learn to stop saying “come on” when we visit relatives with gas stoves, though.
Forgeties79 22 hours ago [-]
Yeah I was going to say, induction is the shit. Normal electric stove tops are a far cry from them and people should not assume they’re anything alike other than a non-flame process.
jedberg 22 hours ago [-]
They have wok adaptors for induction now, FYI.
kibwen 19 hours ago [-]
They've had wok-compatible induction burners since the very beginning. Induction is huge in China.
analog31 21 hours ago [-]
I've cooked every day for 40 years. Before that, I learned to cook at home on an old fashioned electric stove with the coil elements.
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.
jghn 22 hours ago [-]
> Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do
Please explain how an induction cooktop doesn't give you the control and precision you need as compared to gas flame.
Zanfa 21 hours ago [-]
To be fair, induction doesn’t heat the sides of the pan at all. So carbon steel pans are more annoying to use and keep uniformly seasoned. Woks don’t really work by default either. It’s also more susceptible to slightly warped pans exacerbating uneven heating.
pkulak 21 hours ago [-]
Heating the absolute hell out of the sides of the pan used to be a disadvantage. That's why everyone moved to crazy-expensive, fully-clad cookware. I like how well cheap, disk-bottomed pans work on induction.
But yes, I've also basically given up on carbon steel with induction. Cast iron seasons really well though.
Hikikomori 12 hours ago [-]
Did you try form black rust/magnetite rather than doing typical cast iron seasoning?
kevincox 14 hours ago [-]
I consider this a downside. Now whenever I am cooking on a gas stove I keep burning myself because everything in the vicinity of the stove is so hot. I love with induction that I can always grab the handles of the cookware and don't have to worry about stuff nearby on the stove getting hot (example my bowl of pancake batter next to the pan doesn't cook on the near side.
You are right about the wok, it isn't quite the same on the induction stove (at least the flat ones, there are wok-shaped ones but these are generally only found in professional units). If you cook most of your meals in it then you are probably right to go gas (or get a gas burner).
jedberg 22 hours ago [-]
Many professional cooks who are building new kitchens are doing it with induction. Induction gives you even more precise control, especially since they can put more sensors on the cook surface since it doesn't get as hot.
p_j_w 21 hours ago [-]
Some people are just resistant to change and will bitch and moan even if it’s better. Professionals can’t afford to do so.
21 hours ago [-]
cosmic_cheese 22 hours ago [-]
Maybe it’s just because the gas stoves I’ve worked with are cheap, but I find them frustrating because their temperature ramps aren’t remotely linear, which can make finding exactly the right setting a pain.
foco_tubi 22 hours ago [-]
Tradesmen typically are paid to offset the health effects of their profession, but you get benzene for free.
expedition32 21 hours ago [-]
Professional kitchens have way better exhaust than your typical modern apartment.
If your kitchen is in your living room (and nowadays they all are) I would definitely switch to induction.
pkulak 21 hours ago [-]
And professional kitchens turn them on! I've literally never seen anyone turn on their range hood while cooking, unless they burn something and are trying to get the smoke alarm to turn off.
ryan_lane 8 hours ago [-]
A lot of range hoods in the US vent back into the house, surprisingly, especially if it's an apartment. IMO it should be code to have them vent outside.
beej71 21 hours ago [-]
I'm a pretty bad cook which probably explains why I never had a problem cooking on any kind of surface.
Ekaros 21 hours ago [-]
I don't remember even cast iron electric causing any big issues. Maybe I just don't have skills either...
adrian_b 19 hours ago [-]
You may like more food that is cooked on an open flame, if you like frying or if you like burned crusts, but precision is not the reason.
I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients and I have switched years ago from cooking on an open flame to cooking with a microwave oven.
Regarding precision, a microwave oven does not have competition. Once I have established a sequence of powers and durations for each power that is appropriate for a certain recipe, the food will always be cooked identically, while freeing me to do other activities instead of handling the food.
I still have a gas stove with oven, but I have not opened it again for about 7 years.
christoph 21 hours ago [-]
Same. I feel I can give a very honest opinion on this as I insisted on a dual fuel hob when we refitted our kitchen 5 years or so ago.
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.
lokar 22 hours ago [-]
Induction is more precise with better control
atrettel 22 hours ago [-]
And induction gets hot immediately. And it is easier to clean. And it is less likely to cause fires. It's just a better technology all around when compared to gas stoves. The only issue I personally have with it is that it is not compatible with all cookware.
kibwen 19 hours ago [-]
Induction also dumps way less waste heat into your house, making it tolerable to exist in a kitchen even with four burners going at once. It also barely heats the cooking surface at all (just whatever heat flows back from the pan), so it's dramatically safer for households with children and the elderly.
sieabahlpark 16 hours ago [-]
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tencentshill 11 hours ago [-]
There are imprecise gas ranges, usually cheap units found in apartments. They go from "nothing" to "max" far too quickly. Gas regulators are tricky to do right. Proper ventilation is essential either way.
btreecat 4 hours ago [-]
And you'd lose that wager multiple times over
lightedman 21 hours ago [-]
"I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion."
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.
DANmode 22 hours ago [-]
It’s not the flame/carcinogens that I’m most worried about personally, but instead the gas.
Oh, and I disagree with the fire being more precise than induction etc.
It’s just what you’re used to.
Hikikomori 22 hours ago [-]
Induction is as good or better for everything except a wok.
jedberg 22 hours ago [-]
They have wok adaptors for induction now.
Hikikomori 19 hours ago [-]
Yeah those exist, meant regular induction cooktop. Still ok for most wok dishes if you cook on batches. Regular gas stoves aren't really powerful enough for proper woking anyway, so an induction wok shaped one might actually be better for most home users.
lightedman 21 hours ago [-]
There are actual induction units for woks now. They're large but they really get almost the whole wok really hot really fast! I'm assuming there are multiple induction loops inside the unit to be able to make that happen given how deep the wok must sit inside the unit.
Hikikomori 12 hours ago [-]
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jeffrallen 22 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
mint5 22 hours ago [-]
“Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously”
Technically since it appears the effects are nebulous to you and if consciousness means informed then it seems a conscious decision is not possible
syntaxing 22 hours ago [-]
I’ve been using induction since I have had kids and I enjoy it so much more than fire. That being said, I rent so I can only use 120V ones and the options are so limited here. Most of the small 120V ones make an obnoxious hum.
amluto 22 hours ago [-]
The Impulse Labs stove has almost cartoonish levels of excessive power and uses 120V (and doesn’t even use particularly high current). The Breville Control Freak uses 120V and is a touch underpowered but is truly excellent. Both of these even have knobs (and both have very nifty temperature control capabilities).
pkulak 21 hours ago [-]
I love my Control Freak, but I did have to replace a couple pans. For some reason, on my dirt-cheap induction range, they didn't buzz; they do on the Control Freak.
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.
PeterWhittaker 22 hours ago [-]
That's why I love my induction range: all the benefits of gas (near instant heat control and response, even cooking, etc.), none of the asthma or benzene!
preg_match 6 hours ago [-]
I have a regular electric cooktop and it sucks, I wish I had induction. The heat control and response is unbelievably slow. It takes too long to heat up, but MUCH longer to cool down. If you overshoot, it's bad. Also, at least for mine, the range is not proportional. Medium heat to high heat is basically no difference.
Forgeties79 22 hours ago [-]
I’m lucky we have a proper range hood that vents outside so I feel better about gas. If this is the same paper I read a year or two ago, or related to it, apparently that reduces the “pollution” in the house by like 90% or more. Going off memory though so someone correct me if I’ve got it wrong.
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
stevenkkim 21 hours ago [-]
I feel like it should seem obvious gas stoves create unhealthy pollution in an indoor environment.
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.
micromacrofoot 21 hours ago [-]
some definitely does linger and most consumer kitchen hoods are not strong enough, you can get a pm2.5 meter and find out yourself... in my experience a couple hours
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
gpm 21 hours ago [-]
Along the same lines - replacing gas stoves with electric ones is effective for treating asthma:
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.
[...]
its-summertime 22 hours ago [-]
It seems they considered water boiling in their numbers, which makes this estimation very non-portable across countries (e.g. countries where gas hobs are used, but also electric kettles are used)
Spooky23 22 hours ago [-]
I’ll be frank - I don’t buy this stuff because there are well funded agendas behind it. We find ourselves in an era where electrical utilities have shifted from widow & orphan dividend stocks to growth companies… and shockingly the environmental people are fully mobilized with gas everywhere.
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.
rsynnott 11 minutes ago [-]
> I’ll be frank - I don’t buy this stuff because there are well funded agendas behind it.
... Hold on, you're worried about the vast economic/influence powers of the domestic appliance industry... but not the oil and gas industry?
foco_tubi 21 hours ago [-]
Observational evidence is confounded by numerous variables, to say that “urban centers have clusters of asthma and rural centers don’t” ignores all of the extant factors of the urban environment. Studies have found that gas stoves could play a role in development of childhood asthma. It may not scale to the magnitude of that seen in urban cores, with the addition of other sources of air pollution, but it’s weird to discount the studies entirely as a propaganda campaign by Con Ed.
20 hours ago [-]
Forgeties79 20 hours ago [-]
There are well funded agendas behind literally any study that makes it in front of you. An agenda is not inherently bad or corrupt. Even if it works to their advantage, if the health information is accurate, then you need to take it seriously. Your lungs do not care who funded it.
I have an agenda to better my life. It’s important context, but it doesn’t make me inherently corrupt or untrustworthy, let alone wrong.
To really drive this home: You have an agenda to advance your career and better your life. I would never dismiss you outright simply because of that.
TL;DR: “It’s funded by a GROUP with an AGENDA” is a lame, invalid, hand wavy excuse to ignore substance. Context matters, but the substance is ultimately what should be assessed.
Edit: I’d also be curious to see sources for “New York can build electric only” and all these bussing claims (mind you bussing protestors is not a bad thing, it depends if they are actually involved or paid actors, which oil and gas companies have no problem using - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/05/608785751...)
Spooky23 14 hours ago [-]
I don’t think that bussing protestors is a problem per se, but it’s useful as an assessment of how much cash is behind an issue. I used to be an officer of a union that did that regularly. It was very obvious what our agenda was and how it was paid for.
I don’t like environmental activists in general. They tend to attract well meaning people focused on a narrow aspect of an issue and pivot to a broader or specific policy goal.
I resent people in warm and cozy grandfathered in buildings in NYC making engineering decisions for me. Air side heat pumps are not ideal for upstate, and it’s making it impossible to build housing units.
Forgeties79 14 hours ago [-]
> but it’s useful as an assessment of how much cash is behind an issue
But is this inherently a problem?
You’re getting mad at a caricature. Unless you have some sources showing there is some larger issue with “bussing in protesters,” I’m sorry I just don’t think your argument holds any water. An organization mounting resources to organize people who are legitimately interested in their cause is not a bad thing, and as someone who’s worked with a union I’m a surprised at this take. I’m sure people said the same thing about MLK JR’s million man march. Do you think those people all just paid for a ticket and showed up?
Obama’s campaign did “souls to the polls,” which was so effective republicans banned voting on Sunday in several states lol. But ultimately, it was a completely fair play and helped people exercise their vote. People oppose these things because they don’t want certain people voting, plain and simple. Same goes for protesting. Somehow protestors are always “doing it wrong,” it just so happens critics also disagree with the causes by total coincidence.
6DM 21 hours ago [-]
I didn’t see it in the article, but I wonder if this is still the case if people who properly vent before turning on their gas stoves and continue to vent for a minute after cooking is finished.
Schiendelman 16 hours ago [-]
Almost no residential units have good venting. Even the better ones are good for the back burners, but the offgassing from the front ones is mostly uncaught.
warmedcookie 22 hours ago [-]
Interesting. I would like to know if central heating (gas) has similar effects.
alex43578 22 hours ago [-]
If it’s properly vented, no it wouldn’t. Huge difference between just running an open flame in the middle of your kitchen and HVAC applications.
fhdkweig 22 hours ago [-]
Technology Connections did a video (because of course he did) on how gas furnaces work. The short of it is that the flame is contained inside of metal tubes and never mixes with indoor air. No exhaust gases can leak into the breathable air.
Generally, a gas central heating boiler should never exhaust inside the home _at all_. If it's doing so, that's problem.
hagbard_c 13 hours ago [-]
I've used natural gas stoves, propane stoves, petrol stoves, kerosene stoves, naphta stoves, spirit-burning stoves, resistive electrical stoves, 'halogen' electric stoves, induction stoves, campfires and wood-burning stoves. I cook nearly every day for our family of 4 on... the wood-burning stove. It is the most powerful one of the lot, the most versatile and the most reliable. I can cook when the power has failed, I don't need infrastructure other than a way to gather wood of which we have plenty seeing how as we're living on a farm in the Swedish countryside, the thing heats the house while I'm cooking, in combination with a wok it is the clear winner to make anything stir-fried while it is just as useful to slow-cook rice pudding in winter time. The resistive electric stove next to the wood-burning one only sees use as a parking area for the stack of cast-iron pans I use. The induction plates sometimes see use when I'm cooking outside but otherwise I leave them be 'cause they're just not strong enough to my taste.
Wood. That's where it's at, at least for those living like we do. I understand that it won't work for those living in densely populated areas but for those who live in the sticks I'd say get yourself a wood-burning stove and learn how to use it. I suppose Stanford won't approve but that's their problem...
ascii0eks84 22 hours ago [-]
This should be clear as day to anyone - burning causes toxic fumes.
jMyles 22 hours ago [-]
I love my induction cooktop. I despise - in fact loathe - the touch interface, which becomes useless with the slightest spill of oil (and can thus be stuck on high until the interface is sufficiently wiped off and dried).
I have the Gasland IH77BFH. If someone has made a hack to modify this by adding physical dials, I'd be tickled.
Schiendelman 16 hours ago [-]
There are a ton with physical dials!
jMyles 15 hours ago [-]
Do you have one in particular you'd suggest? That matches the performance, cooling, and profile of mine?
19 hours ago [-]
vrajspandya1 22 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
tyjen 22 hours ago [-]
We do, it's called an outdoor BBQ. Meanwhile everything inside is electric, minimal toxic byproducts from cooking and zero chance of carbon monoxide poisoning.
arein3 22 hours ago [-]
Relax, its just a stove
stephbook 21 hours ago [-]
I don't get it. Did the US never get electric stoves? They're over 100 years old tech at this point.
It's weird that noone here mentions there are electric stoves between gas and induction.
rsynnott 14 minutes ago [-]
I think this is down to the American default of 120V power; 240V, while available, is more expensive to run there. A resistive/halogen stove running on 120V, assuming a non-absurdly-high-gauge cable, is going to be pretty terrible. In the US you can actually buy a 120V induction stove _with a built-in battery_ for this reason (eg https://copperhome.com/products/charlie).
This is also why the US doesn't have proper electric kettles (a US electric kettle is sometimes as little as 1kW and certainly no more than 1.5kW; a European one is typically 3kW) and why US dishwashers and washing machines usually have a hot water inlet. Generally, nearly anything weird/suboptimal about US home appliances to European eyes is down to this issue.
kibwen 19 hours ago [-]
The US's infrastructure was built out with gas in mind. Having a gas stove is a status symbol, where having a resistive electric stove was for the longest time considered the domain of the poor, hence why people are so romantically attached to gas despite the fact that it's worse in basically every way than a modern induction stove.
stephbook 5 hours ago [-]
That explains a lot, thank you. Still a weird quirk that the dirty gas is considered an elite symbol.
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.
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.
It's a Belling Cookcentre 100Ei [0].
[0] https://www.belling.co.uk/en-gb/cookcentre-100ei-range
Do you know of a better one that doesn't completely break the bank but works well? I was looking at the ones that the whole cook surface is inductive and it adapts to exactly where the pots and pans are, but they seem to cost an arm and a leg, especially in that form factor.
(Part of the problem may be that BSH, which kinds of sets the standard in the industry, doesn't really make them, so the competition dynamic is different.)
So it is definitely a tradeoff, but I am happy I picked a stove with touch controls. Although I did pay attention that they were good touch controls (touch anywhere on the arc to set that temperature directly for example). Although there is a small annoying delay after turning on before you can set the temperature. Almost perfect.
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.
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.
Most of the problems I see with gas cooking is when it's done in a poorly ventilated space.
Deep frying is like a chemical vapor deposition machine. It doesn't matter how the oil got hot. The fumes need to be removed regardless. If you are cooking with gas, this extraction process will also handle the side effects of combustion quite well.
In other words, it’s not propaganda. Since the researchers specifically called for prioritizing ventilation improvements in smaller / worse ventilated units, it seems like an odd line of criticism: they’re not saying it can never be safe for anyone ever but that in practice it isn’t safe for tens of millions of people.
You're not helping the air quality if all you do is move it around inside.
It was done on people suffering from asthma - with all the reason in the world to improve air quality. Replacing gas stoves with electric stoves a huge effect, on the other hand "installation of a ventilation hood over an existing gas stove in 15 other homes did not significantly change NO2 levels".
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.
- This study is the source of LinkedIn ads from climate change where they try to convince people to move from gas to electric because of bad health effects
- But it doesn't invalidate the study, because of course burning something indoors creates some sort of emission, which may causes asthma in kids
- But its not relevant for me because I'm a single adult not a child and I don't cook that much anyway
- And even when I used to have a gas stove, I used my induction burner more often as its more powerful and makes less waste heat compared to my gas stove
- and the reason I bought an induction wok burner from aliexpress, it can go much hotter than my gas stove
- But one thing that gas stoves excel is even the cheapest gas stoves have a smooth analog control, making it possible to gently heat things, which is important for cooking omelette. For the induction burners I have, it uses on off control, which will scorch the food if your setup (food + cookware) have low thermal mass to smooth it out. You think with the advancement of power electronics because of EV, ebikes, drones and AI data center power supplies someone is able to make a cheap induction burner with analog power control
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.
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.
- 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.
- I can temper on my 7k BTU burner
- I can boil water quick AF on my 18k BTU burner
- setting pan temp isn’t a thing, there are no recipes that call for a pan temp. Oil temp? Sure and that is why you have a thermometer, very solved problem. For browning etc you do it by time and feel, even if you could set a pan temp you wouldn’t just leave your meat on it for some temp x time amount.
For the last one, just because you're an elite chef and can cook a steak perfectly every time on feel, doesn't mean I am. :D I can buy a $40 steak and know I'm not going to ruin it because I can maintain my pan at 350f, which will brown it and not burn it. I can make pancakes without constantly adjusting the cook time and heat every single batch as the pan continually absorbs more and more heat throughout the cook. I can put a chili on, set it to 204 degrees, then just leave and come back in a few hours without babying the power knob for the first hour trying to get it to a stable, gentle simmer. I can braise meats without using my oven, because I can keep a liquid at 180 degrees. I can make a soup at 3pm, then put in on at 145 degrees for a few hours until dinner. It's not about having a "recipe", you learn 4-5 important temperatures after a couple weeks of using it.
My gas stovetop in japan has a temperature sensor, and can detect excess temperature (food or oil burning), maintain a temperature, etc. It's possible with gas.
That said, I miss my induction stovetop, and I'm building a house, and it'll have induction, rather than gas.
Induction is super awesome for maintaining temp. But one isn’t superior over the other in all cases. My point was purely, people need high BTU fire sometimes based off how they cook. I mean, you won’t see me cooking tagine, but surely someone in the world cooks tagine?
Can char pepper in the oven.
Can also get a portable gas stove.
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?
Induction is fantastic for boiling water, and good for many things, but there's too many shortcomings to declare "superior than gas".
I agree it’s not great to get rid of a pure copper pot but those (and even many of the Korean dolsot pots) seem to be easily available with induction bases now. The flip side was that our cheap $5 IKEA cast iron works even better so we use it more, and this was also true of some Costco ceramic skillets which weren’t trying to be so light that they didn’t have a hefty iron slug.
Between air quality and child safety, my general decision tree is simple: “are you a chef doing things like wok cooking?” Induction is probably better if you don’t have a specific technique requiring unusually high BTU output. I have had to learn to stop saying “come on” when we visit relatives with gas stoves, though.
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.
Please explain how an induction cooktop doesn't give you the control and precision you need as compared to gas flame.
But yes, I've also basically given up on carbon steel with induction. Cast iron seasons really well though.
You are right about the wok, it isn't quite the same on the induction stove (at least the flat ones, there are wok-shaped ones but these are generally only found in professional units). If you cook most of your meals in it then you are probably right to go gas (or get a gas burner).
If your kitchen is in your living room (and nowadays they all are) I would definitely switch to induction.
I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients and I have switched years ago from cooking on an open flame to cooking with a microwave oven.
Regarding precision, a microwave oven does not have competition. Once I have established a sequence of powers and durations for each power that is appropriate for a certain recipe, the food will always be cooked identically, while freeing me to do other activities instead of handling the food.
I still have a gas stove with oven, but I have not opened it again for about 7 years.
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.
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.
Technically since it appears the effects are nebulous to you and if consciousness means informed then it seems a conscious decision is not possible
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.
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
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.
[...]
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.
... Hold on, you're worried about the vast economic/influence powers of the domestic appliance industry... but not the oil and gas industry?
I have an agenda to better my life. It’s important context, but it doesn’t make me inherently corrupt or untrustworthy, let alone wrong.
To really drive this home: You have an agenda to advance your career and better your life. I would never dismiss you outright simply because of that.
TL;DR: “It’s funded by a GROUP with an AGENDA” is a lame, invalid, hand wavy excuse to ignore substance. Context matters, but the substance is ultimately what should be assessed.
Edit: I’d also be curious to see sources for “New York can build electric only” and all these bussing claims (mind you bussing protestors is not a bad thing, it depends if they are actually involved or paid actors, which oil and gas companies have no problem using - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/05/608785751...)
I don’t like environmental activists in general. They tend to attract well meaning people focused on a narrow aspect of an issue and pivot to a broader or specific policy goal.
I resent people in warm and cozy grandfathered in buildings in NYC making engineering decisions for me. Air side heat pumps are not ideal for upstate, and it’s making it impossible to build housing units.
But is this inherently a problem?
You’re getting mad at a caricature. Unless you have some sources showing there is some larger issue with “bussing in protesters,” I’m sorry I just don’t think your argument holds any water. An organization mounting resources to organize people who are legitimately interested in their cause is not a bad thing, and as someone who’s worked with a union I’m a surprised at this take. I’m sure people said the same thing about MLK JR’s million man march. Do you think those people all just paid for a ticket and showed up?
Obama’s campaign did “souls to the polls,” which was so effective republicans banned voting on Sunday in several states lol. But ultimately, it was a completely fair play and helped people exercise their vote. People oppose these things because they don’t want certain people voting, plain and simple. Same goes for protesting. Somehow protestors are always “doing it wrong,” it just so happens critics also disagree with the causes by total coincidence.
https://youtu.be/lBVvnDfW2Xo?t=266
Wood. That's where it's at, at least for those living like we do. I understand that it won't work for those living in densely populated areas but for those who live in the sticks I'd say get yourself a wood-burning stove and learn how to use it. I suppose Stanford won't approve but that's their problem...
I have the Gasland IH77BFH. If someone has made a hack to modify this by adding physical dials, I'd be tickled.
It's weird that noone here mentions there are electric stoves between gas and induction.
This is also why the US doesn't have proper electric kettles (a US electric kettle is sometimes as little as 1kW and certainly no more than 1.5kW; a European one is typically 3kW) and why US dishwashers and washing machines usually have a hot water inlet. Generally, nearly anything weird/suboptimal about US home appliances to European eyes is down to this issue.