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.
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.
Phasing out gas cooking should always be a health and safety issue, I see people talk about the effects on children, but never about cooks who work in kitchens with a dozen burners running all day
One thing that really bugs me is we use gas to create steam to generate electricity to boil an electric kettle to boil water, really a minor pet peve here
another thing on cooking. so many home cooking appliances are dogshit, unsafe, too loud, and emit fumes with poor ventilation, and my new conspiracy is the modern nuclear family thing takes away power from unionised workplaces
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"
My partner insisted on a gas stove despite my protests in our last two places because of the "control". The few times we used electric or induction cookers on vacation she would get really frustrated.
Cut to our current place that just came with an electric cooker with no option for gas. A few months in and she's got no complaints and even comments on how it's not that different once you get used to it.
The learning curve is real, and some people will push back at first, but if forced to, I'm pretty sure every single person can figure out cooking just as well with electric.
I have a CO2 monitor (which is probably picking up NOx too, it's not expensive enough to be selective) and can literally watch the air quality get worse as I use the gas stove or range. I've never lived in an apartment with a functioning range hood. I'd like to try induction. I watched a Technology Connections video saying that raw power delivery, e.g. boiling water, is faster.
Also, a quirk of how gas works in Chicago is that you pay a flat hookup fee of ~$30 a month, and a fee per therm for consumption. Cooking uses so little gas that the consumption part of my bill is pennies. If I had an induction stove, and if I had an inefficient electric furnace instead of gas, I'd probably still save $25 a month.
I just gotta say, all the induction stoves I've tried have been completely useles on ranges 1-5, had a mild effect on 6 almost medium heat on 7, more than medium heat on 8 and then 9 is just more 8 and 10 is a way to boil water faster than my electric water boiler.
Also whoever it is that designs stovetops with touchscreen needs to go to the gulag I fucking hate them. And whoever decided to add a feature to the last induction stove I had where it would beep when it was turned on and nothing was on it... straight to jail.The gas stove thing is so wild to me. I grew up using them exclusively, but the first time I cooked on an electric stove it was exactly the same except ten thousand times faster and easier to clean. I can't imagine ever going back, I might as well get a wood burning stove and live in a log cabin or some shit if I'm gonna use gas again.
And it's not that I don't appreciate other cooking methods - I grill with lump charcoal whenever I get the chance - but damn for daily cooking glass is class.
so there's a chef...
named "Chamussy"...
talking about flexibility...
It depends on your method of cooking. Different stoves offer different advantages. I've owned all 3 and actively enjoy cooking, so they've all gotten plenty of use for different purposes. My favorite method of cooking though is stir-fry, so I'll talk about that more.
Quality/Price matters here. There's a reason most restaurants use gas still, and it's because your high-end gas hob can do things no other stove can do. You're not going to find a better way to stir-fry indoors than this (A grill can do a good job outdoors).
Most people are not getting anywhere close to the sort of output -- or proper venting -- that a restaurant has.
As a stir-fry fan, the best stove I've ever had at home for this was a cheap coil electric. They get stupidly hot, and that is the baseline fir stir-fry. You want an old-ass one that doesn't have temperature safeguards. This is likely what a cheap landlord will provide you in an old building.
Glasstop electric looks nice, but I don't get the point. I guess you can't have food fall under the burner? Not a fan.
Induction is terrible for stir-fry. I've read about some specialized curved wok burners, and those might be good, but I absolutely cannot manage a decent stir-fry on these godforsaken things. I've got a mid-range Induction cooktop that does everthing surprisingly well EXCEPT stir-fry. The heat doesn't recover quickly enough when you add new ingredients, there is close to zero heat on the side of the pan, so it's hard to manage temperatures across elements, and you straight up can't season a new wok on them (my wok has a non-removable wooden handle, so seasoning it in the oven is going to require creative solutions too).
Anybody that tells you that an induction can do everything that a gas can is full of shit. This isn't a "skill issue." The technology just isn't optimized for this. I will be buying a single-pan side-burner (probably coil electric, but I hear butane can be pretty good) for my wok unless somebody has direct experience with a specialized induction wok burner and can vouch for it.
I rly wanna get an induction hob but costs money :(
Also wanna get rid of my gas boiler but also costs money :(
UK homes suck gas everything. I love needing to have a carbon monoxide alarm in my home for pointless fossil fuel shit
Excellent long-ish video: https://youtu.be/eUywI8YGy0Y
He has a follow up about induction woks. The short: Induction is just as good as if not better then gas for actually moving heat from the stovetop to your food.
they won me over 🥹
It was impossible to sear on my old electric stove. If there was a way to have controllable fire heat without gas, I'd use it.
Gas stoves never really got popular where I live. Been cooking on a electric stove all my life, not induction. Have had to use a gas stove in cabin conditions and the chance of accidentally leaving the gas on and such always freaks me out. Also I dislike having to fiddle with the flame, electric is far more predictable.
Have raised a family aka cooked a lot for a few decades with an old school electric stove just fine, have also worked in kitchens and bakeries that had similar stoves. Very much a cooking person myself.
I think it's just what you get used to.
Induction ranges are not what most people think of have when they say “electric stoves.”
I've had both over the last few years, and while the cooking experience is not all that different tbh, the one thing that bugs me about my current glass-top electric stove is that the surface is so flat that my ever-so-slightly warped carbon steel pan doesn't sit flat and rocks all over the place and doesn't heat evenly. I've basically been unable to use it since moving here, and it's my favorite pan. :(
But if I had my choice, I'd ofc go induction, but between the other two I'd still go electric, just for the fumes alone. But I'll probably be way less hot on the idea of glass-tops in the future, that's for sure.
I cook on a slab of enriched uranium-235 and I'm faster than all of you losers
I for one, refuse to ignite my flambe with a torch like a peasant! My gas range does it for me and I get to feel like mother fucking Gordon Ramsay!
I cook on a slab of enriched uranium-235 and I'm faster than all of you losers
Excellent long-ish video: https://youtu.be/eUywI8YGy0Y
He has a follow up about induction woks. The short: Induction is just as good as if not better then gas for actually moving heat from the stovetop to your food.
I open with a "who need they Chamussy ate" joke and y'all turn it into a struggle session, shaking my smdh.
It's a tiny bit treat-brained to want a methane pipe going into each individual housing unit for greater ease in small-batch cooking. But if a gas stove is really what you want, I don't see why that can't be solved with
methane and methane accessories.
I've had both over the last few years, and while the cooking experience is not all that different tbh, the one thing that bugs me about my current glass-top electric stove is that the surface is so flat that my ever-so-slightly warped carbon steel pan doesn't sit flat and rocks all over the place and doesn't heat evenly. I've basically been unable to use it since moving here, and it's my favorite pan. :(
But if I had my choice, I'd ofc go induction, but between the other two I'd still go electric, just for the fumes alone. But I'll probably be way less hot on the idea of glass-tops in the future, that's for sure.
Where I live electricity is rationed, gass is not. I can afford to cook with gas. If I were to use electricity I would exceed the allowed usage and they would charge insane fees.
I for one, refuse to ignite my flambe with a torch like a peasant! My gas range does it for me and I get to feel like mother fucking Gordon Ramsay!
The gas stove thing is so wild to me. I grew up using them exclusively, but the first time I cooked on an electric stove it was exactly the same except ten thousand times faster and easier to clean. I can't imagine ever going back, I might as well get a wood burning stove and live in a log cabin or some shit if I'm gonna use gas again.
And it's not that I don't appreciate other cooking methods - I grill with lump charcoal whenever I get the chance - but damn for daily cooking glass is class.
It depends on your method of cooking. Different stoves offer different advantages. I've owned all 3 and actively enjoy cooking, so they've all gotten plenty of use for different purposes. My favorite method of cooking though is stir-fry, so I'll talk about that more.
Quality/Price matters here. There's a reason most restaurants use gas still, and it's because your high-end gas hob can do things no other stove can do. You're not going to find a better way to stir-fry indoors than this (A grill can do a good job outdoors).
Most people are not getting anywhere close to the sort of output -- or proper venting -- that a restaurant has.
As a stir-fry fan, the best stove I've ever had at home for this was a cheap coil electric. They get stupidly hot, and that is the baseline fir stir-fry. You want an old-ass one that doesn't have temperature safeguards. This is likely what a cheap landlord will provide you in an old building.
Glasstop electric looks nice, but I don't get the point. I guess you can't have food fall under the burner? Not a fan.
Induction is terrible for stir-fry. I've read about some specialized curved wok burners, and those might be good, but I absolutely cannot manage a decent stir-fry on these godforsaken things. I've got a mid-range Induction cooktop that does everthing surprisingly well EXCEPT stir-fry. The heat doesn't recover quickly enough when you add new ingredients, there is close to zero heat on the side of the pan, so it's hard to manage temperatures across elements, and you straight up can't season a new wok on them (my wok has a non-removable wooden handle, so seasoning it in the oven is going to require creative solutions too).
Anybody that tells you that an induction can do everything that a gas can is full of shit. This isn't a "skill issue." The technology just isn't optimized for this. I will be buying a single-pan side-burner (probably coil electric, but I hear butane can be pretty good) for my wok unless somebody has direct experience with a specialized induction wok burner and can vouch for it.
It depends on your method of cooking. Different stoves offer different advantages. I've owned all 3 and actively enjoy cooking, so they've all gotten plenty of use for different purposes. My favorite method of cooking though is stir-fry, so I'll talk about that more.
Quality/Price matters here. There's a reason most restaurants use gas still, and it's because your high-end gas hob can do things no other stove can do. You're not going to find a better way to stir-fry indoors than this (A grill can do a good job outdoors).
Most people are not getting anywhere close to the sort of output -- or proper venting -- that a restaurant has.
As a stir-fry fan, the best stove I've ever had at home for this was a cheap coil electric. They get stupidly hot, and that is the baseline fir stir-fry. You want an old-ass one that doesn't have temperature safeguards. This is likely what a cheap landlord will provide you in an old building.
Glasstop electric looks nice, but I don't get the point. I guess you can't have food fall under the burner? Not a fan.
Induction is terrible for stir-fry. I've read about some specialized curved wok burners, and those might be good, but I absolutely cannot manage a decent stir-fry on these godforsaken things. I've got a mid-range Induction cooktop that does everthing surprisingly well EXCEPT stir-fry. The heat doesn't recover quickly enough when you add new ingredients, there is close to zero heat on the side of the pan, so it's hard to manage temperatures across elements, and you straight up can't season a new wok on them (my wok has a non-removable wooden handle, so seasoning it in the oven is going to require creative solutions too).
Anybody that tells you that an induction can do everything that a gas can is full of shit. This isn't a "skill issue." The technology just isn't optimized for this. I will be buying a single-pan side-burner (probably coil electric, but I hear butane can be pretty good) for my wok unless somebody has direct experience with a specialized induction wok burner and can vouch for it.
