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
[...]
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.
[...]
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.
You're viewing a single thread.
I love all the nerd ass comments telling me UMM ACTUALLY YOU ONLY LOVE GAS STOVE BECAUSE PROPAGANDA YOU'RE A MORON
Im a professional cook and I've cooked more in the last year alone than most of y'all will in your lives, I know what I'm about, thx
literal gaslighting btw "don't believe your lying eyes and years of experience cooking, you've just been lied to bro"
Im a professional cook and I've cooked more in the last year alone than most of y'all will in your lives
Okay, but have you done a similar amount of cooking on induction as you have on gas? Have you been in a professional kitchen where all of the appliances used electric? Have you actually ruled out that gas is better or is it just your totally unscientific preference?
I was a professional cook too before I left that toxic ass industry, btw.
it's not all propaganda, though a lot of it is. they have spent billions over the years to convince people that the existing way of doing things is far superior to an alternative technology they have limited experience with.
but yes, your affection for the gas range is not entirely propaganda. some of it is years and years of gas fumes.
The main difference between gas and induction for me were that you can't stir over heat (doing the shaking thing over flames, I don't know what the word is) because the pan needs to have direct contact with the induction stove and all the induction stoves I've used have been way worse when it comes to adjusting heat. Also pans develop curves with use, or at least in my experience they do. As soon as they curve they suck on induction
The pan doesn't instantly get cold when you pick it up for two seconds to shake your stir fry around. And if it's really such a problem then leave the pan on the stove top and stir with a wooden spoon or something.
Thank you for explaining to me how my stovetop works, I really hadn't considered leaving it on the top and stirring it with a spoon so this is really eyeopening for me. Likewise I appreciate you explaining how heat functions as I really did not consider the fact that pots stay hot, so once again thank you.
10000% but these nerds want to cooksplain to me like I don't know what I'm doing
Thank you, the other comment replying to me explains how heat works and that I can just stir with a wooden spoon 🙄
I made pasta last night and mixed some pesto gravy into some pasta sauce and tossed it together and I literally counted like 15-20 times where, if it were induction, it would have stopped heating it due to me lifting and shaking the pan
"It doesn't cool down immediately" BUT IT DOES. IT STOPS HEATING. it starts cooling down at that moment! I don't want the temperature to start dropping every time i move a damn pan
Have you actually ruled out that gas is better or is it just your totally unscientific preference
The nerdiest debate broiest response i could imagine
What the fuck is "better" here? Literally what does that mean? Because unless you're making a direct comparison between like energy efficiency or whatever it literally is down to preference. Is induction more energy efficient and "faster" heat? Sure, but like other people have said, it requires the pan to make direct contact. It stops heating as soon as it's lifted. It is less responsive and I have greater fine control over how I am applying heat with gas. To me that's "better," ahh but woops, that's NoT sCiEnTiFiC. I also prefer a stove that works when the power is out (ffucking nerds in the comments acting like that neeeever happens, or "just buy a portable stove" (you gonna fucking buy one for me? no? huh)) because I like to eat and not starve
Have you been in a professional kitchen where all of the appliances used electric
Yknow it's weird but every professional kitchen I've ever been in is all gas everything, huh
The nerdiest debate broiest response i could imagine
tbf your opener kinda provoked such a response lol walked in like
oi fight me!It's partially because I'm pretty sure this entire thread is a callout response to comments I made yesterday (i was complaining that every house I see has electric or induction, even if it has gas already)
Sorry I seem to be not online enough. I'll be better.
NEver log off
Brudda my very simple point is that if you haven't spent a significant amount of time working with electric/induction - as you have with gas - then you can't confidently make the assertion that you're making. Every single thing you mentioned except for the burners working during a power outage is an issue that you might not have if you spent the time getting used to it, and in this case the effort required to get used to it will literally add years onto your life because you'll be huffing fewer toxic fumes.
Seriously on the one hand we have arguments like "skill issue", "just overthrow your government and make your electric grid immune to weather" and "white people can't cook so their opinion doesn't matter"
And then on the other we have every single commercial kitchen everywhere in the entire world.
Guess who I'm gonna side with between "every professional cook on earth" and "edgy internet contrarians"
I mean two things can be true... The gas industry wants more homes to have gas stoves while in fact they are useless and wasteful for most people. And gas can be a preference for certain people in certain circumstances.
I'm willing to concede that for what most people cook in the US or parts of Europe, the way most people cook in those places, gas or induction have a negligible difference. That's because most people in the global North can't cook for shit, and at best do some glorified reheating or some basic-ass
techniques. Have them change their ranges to induction, whatever.But for professional kitchens or other kinds of cooking that billions of people use open flames for? Get outta here. You're going to tell the south American grandma who hasn't left her town and has cooked with gas her whole life that she's been brainwashed by the American oil and gas industry?
Nah, there are a lot of people in the global north who can cook their asses off. Sure, a lot can't, but cooking is a fundamental life skill and even colonists have culinary traditions.
No matter what, somebody must cook. More people in the global north are eating out, sure, but there are people cooking for them like AmericaDelendaEst, and those numbers add up. Increasingly, fewer can afford to eat out anyhow, and learning to cook at home has become an outright necessity for most.
Prepackaged ready-to-eat meals aren't as cheap as they used to be, and you can get tired of them very quickly too
But for professional kitchens or other kinds of cooking that billions of people use open flames for? Get outta here. You're going to tell the south American grandma who hasn't left her town and has cooked with gas her whole life that she's been brainwashed by the American oil and gas industry?
You know, a pretty decent cause of mortality in poor countries is women cooking over wood fires in confined spaces. Combustion is just not good for you, there's really no way around it.
Also the idea that most people in the north can't cook well enough for their tools to matter is laughable. That's just your vulgar reaction to fetishism of high-class French cooking. What evidence could possibly support it? We can joke about the Brits eating like the Blitz is still going on but you can't set up an objective ranking of cuisines.
My wife is a professional cook too and she love our induction and use almost exclusively the inductions on her job. The fact that they can be timed to be turned off automatically was a game changer for her.