How the Fossil Fuel Industry Convinced Americans to Love Gas Stoves
How the Fossil Fuel Industry Convinced Americans to Love Gas Stoves
Surveys showed that most people had no preference for gas water heaters and furnaces over electric ones. So the gas companies found a different appliance to focus on. For decades, sleek industry campaigns have portrayed gas stoves [...] as a coveted symbol of class and sophistication
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The sales pitches worked. The prevalence of gas stoves in new single-family American homes climbed from less than 30 percent during the 1970s to about 50 percent in 2019.
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Beginning in the 1990s, the industry faced a new challenge: mounting evidence that burning gas indoors can contribute to serious health problems. [...]
Cooking is the No. 1 way you’re polluting your home.
You have more control over temperature on an induction cooktop than you have with a gas cooktop, but there is a learning curve. Samsung induction cooktops show a blue "virtual flame", which can help a new user visualize the amount of heat going to the pan.
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Induction ranges are as good as gas, but they're also new and expensive. Coil element ranges are not as good as gas, because they are slow to respond to changes.
You absolutely can get used to a coil range and do good cooking on them, but it's disingenuous to say they're as good as gas, and it hurts our argument for phasing out gas ranges to say that they are.
Absolutely true. I have used gas, induction, electric coil, ceramic. In terms of utility for cooking, gas and induction are the top two, with induction being slightly better in my experience.
Electric coil is bad and the ceramic version isn’t much of an improvement. It’s possible to cook well, but the pulsed nature of the heat is not great for fine temp control with a reactive pan (e.g. steel and aluminium ply) but it’s still fine for something like cast iron which is non responsive anyway, it smooths the heat out just fine.
I'll give you induction is just as good but they're fucking expensive and it limits what cookware you can use if I understand correctly from when we were last looking.
We were stuck with a shitty old electric stove in our house and upgrading to a gas stove is a massive improvement. Idk what trying to say that electric is as good as gas does other than get anyone who cooks daily to disregard your opinion.
It's pretty nice ro be able to actually bring a full stock pot to a boil in less than 40 minutes.
I prefer a coil to induction if we're talking capabilities. You can work around slow responses on coil by using 2 burners or simply pulling the pan and allowing inertia to cook while a single burner cools.
You can't workaround an induction's inability to convect when convection is called for.
Water boils more slowly, sure, but it will boil eventually
I don't buy it that gas ranges are universally better than electric. I think they're just different and good at different things. Sure you can change the temperature faster on gas, but is that the end all and be all of cooking? Have you ever tried to cook something on a gas stove that requires low heat for a long time, like rice or a slow cooked sauce? It's extremely fucking annoying, gas can't maintain consistent low temperature like electric can. Call it a skill issue if you want but my mother who has been cooking her whole life still struggles with making rice on the gas stove since moving to her new house 4 years ago.