Gas Stoves Account For More Than Half of Some Americans’ Exposure to a Known Toxin, New Research Concludes
Gas Stoves Account For More Than Half of Some Americans’ Exposure to a Known Toxin, New Research Concludes - Inside Climate News
Technology Connections has a great video or three on the subject. People very much underestimate just how much "bad stuff" is given off from burning gas indoors.
And from an anecdotal perspective? I am of Chinese descent and cook with a wok probably 3-4 times a week. I grew up on a shitty resistive heat stove. I have stayed in apartments with gas and with modern resistive heat. I now have an induction stove.
Induction is, hands down, the fastest for boiling water by a very large margin. And I can cook in the summer with minimal worries about making the house way too hot. Don't get me wrong, gas is fun as hell and I actually ended up getting an outdoor propane burner for the big/fancy wok nights. But there is a lot to be said about people perceiving gas to be a lot more powerful than it is just because it looks powerful.
As for resistive? It is definitely a step down. But... not that much of a step down. Mostly it just maths out to when I turn on the stove. For gas or induction it is a minute or so before I plan to cook. For resistive? Usually when I have maybe one more bit of veg left to prep. As for stir fries? it just means I cook in smaller batches which you generally should be doing anyway unless you have a full industrial kitchen stove (or said outdoor burner). And... you probably still want to because most people (self included) just aren't coordinated enough to handle a full blown meal and all the positioning to avoid burning or overcooking stuff over the course of a minute or three of actual cook time.
But if you think that consumer grade gas stove is giving you "wok hei"?
actually just you overcrowding the pan and steaming things in soggy oil rather than rapidly pan frying it
Why do you have to call me out like that?! I thought we were friends!
The good news is that is super easy to remedy.
I will never understand why people will buy twenty tiny bowls so they can properly mise en place every single ingredient before they even look at the stove. But ask them to just get a big serving bowl and keep the components of a stir fry in there after you cook them but before you mix everything together with the sauce? It is like pulling teeth.
I have induction and strugle with this even when not overfilling the pan, as the sides don’t get warm compared to the bottom. I have to make really small portions to manage properly, and mixing together in the end like you mentioned.
Never ever had gas as it’s uncommon here, but I’ll take your word for it not fixing it. Any advice to share, or do I just keep doing it in rounds?
A wok? The raised sides of the wok are not supposed to get too warm. That is actually the "secret" of the pan. You have very centralized heat in the middle and you move things to the edges to just keep them warm while you cook the new ingredients through in the center/bottom.
How much of a gradient does indeed depend on your heat source. The propane tornado of horror in my backyard makes the center ridiculously hot but the edges are no slouch. A campfire is going to be a lesser and more controlled version of that. A smaller gas burner or an induction burner is mostly going to just heat up the center a lot.
But that is also why you let the wok come to temperature, same as any pan. ALL heat sources have hot spots. Some bits of wood burn hotter than other. The actual flame jets from your gas stove are hotter than the ceramic bit on top. Even the flamenado has hot and less hot spots. Hence why you always agitate food. Or, in the case of going for a sear and not understanding why restaraunt chefs insist you only flip once, you rotate/move the pan itself.
Speaking of "wok hei" and "white guys on YouTube", Alton Brown's "cooking over a chimney starter" technique sounded to me like the next best alternative to having a proper industrial stove or big outdoor propane burner. Can you confirm or refute?
"The woke mob is trying to take away our suburban gas stoves!"
How would you mitigate this exposure, by ventilating the room well when using the stove?
A proper range hood (so one that vents externally as opposed to in a cabinet...) is pretty much an essential. Both for cooking in general and for lighting gas on fire a few feet from your face for extended periods of time.
Been a minute but I want to say the Technology Connections video where he put an air quality sensor next to a gas stove also talked about opening a window?
But my not a doctor and not that kind of scientist statement: What you need is air circulation. So fans and open windows.
I bought a toaster oven and a $50 induction cooktop, and now I almost never have the need to use my gas range. I hate that thing.
I’d totally go induction if:
I didn’t need to another couple grand to run a new 240V line to my kitchen
I've already got a circuit run. A prior owner installed a gas stove at some point 20+ years ago. The issue is that I can't test the outlet without removing the current oven. Knowing a bit about the prior owners, it wouldn't surprise me if they went with gas due to an electrical failure. Hooray for question marks and cover ups.
Most ovens can pull out. Code says the outlet you have should be a dedicated circuit. If you can trace the wires to the panel, you can probably see what it is. It shouldn't go through a junction and be wired directly to the panel.
You can probably even see the wire gauge at the panel, if you're comfortable taking the cover off. From that determine if it can support 240v at the appropriate amperage. Then it's just replacing a breaker and receptacle.
And a big ass battery for when the power goes out, and I'd like to make a meal.
It goes out enough here for me to worry about that.
Get a camp stove and a normal battery.
They actually do have that, the copper Charlie and impulse labs are induction stoves/cooktops with batteries so you don’t need a 240V outlet in the US.
Induction stovetops and ranges are expensive, but induction cooktops are cheap. I've been using this one to avoid my gas range for years now. Heats up faster than gas and it plugs in to a normal 120v outlet. Haven't looked back, except when I absolutely need multiple burners. Maybe I'll buy a second, lol.
It's also great for camping.
Already got one but mine is a cheap piece of crap that burns anything I cook low and slow.
And they don’t put the pulse width modulation on any of the labels so I can’t tell if a replacement will have the same problem.
We put in a gas stove after dealing with an expensive shitty radiant electric stove top.
The duty cycle sucked for anything that didn't have high thermal mass. And I had a hell of a time keeping temperatures consistent when frying or doing anything that requires a consistent temperature.
If all I cared about was boiling water, that would have been fine. I probably would have been happy with actual induction. But radiant glass top stoves suck for a lot of what I was doing.
I'm house shopping currently and gas stove isng something I'm seeing often in my price point. Absolutely top five wants.
You'll have to pry my Wolf duel fuel range from my cold dead fingers...
With that said, if I had it to do over again I would definitely go with an induction stove. I have a high quality hood with a very strong fan and make sure it is running any time I use the cook top.
Wolf duel fuel range
It harnesses the powers of jealousy and ego to create nourishing meals!
The sad thing is a lot of Wolf products in the home are used as show pieces. I know one person that has the 60" duel fuel range, which is a $15,000 piece of equipment (mine is the DF304, which is 30" wide) and she buys packaged dinners from Trader Joes almost exclusively. She's been in her house for 10 years and the stove looks like it just came out of the show room. Absolutely insane, I'd love to have that much cooking area, unfortunately my kitchen isn't that large.
Not me, I use the ever living f#$k out of that stove. That's one of the reasons I bought it in the first place. I clapped out a Dacor in less than 5 years. Not that Dacor's are all that good (avoid at all costs). Wolf products are designed to live 20 years in a commercial kitchen. Mine gets used a lot, but there's no way I'm using as much as a commercial kitchen would.
Not doubting if this was bad, but wanted to see if they commented as to the scale of the problem sin e they just state "of some Americans" in headline (and they do!):
Kashtan and colleagues estimate that the average total residential long-term NO2 exposure across the U.S. is 24 percent lower for people with electric stoves, which do not emit NO2.
The average American’s exposure to NO2 exceeds the World Health Organization’s recommended levels. However, approximately 22 million Americans would fall below the WHO-recommended limit if they stopped cooking with gas or cut back their use of it, Kashtan said.
Ok, but you can take my gas stove away over my dead body, which apparently might be dead from an asthma attack.
Unlike gas furnaces or water heaters, stovetops lack direct ventilation.
You can definitely get unvented gas heaters in at least some states.
These things exist, but are quite uncommon compared with poorly vented stoves, or people who have a vent for their stove but don't run the fan at the necessary high power
quite uncommon
Thing is that they also are going to burn far more gas than is a stove unless you're in a really warm climate.
I don't think that they're permitted to be built into new-build stuff in California, but they're definitely grandfathered in in old buildings, and I've been in many that have them.
searches
https://starfiredirect.com/blogs/articles/why-do-some-states-ban-vent-free-gas-fireplaces
In fact, according to a paper from the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, nearly 23 million consumers use vent-free gas heating products.
I'd go with induction if my off-grid house produced enough power to run it but as it is I need propane to run my stove, dryer, hot water heater and the back-up furnace.
There are a few models of induction stove which include a large battery to run them by charging from 120v. Stoves are also kind of unique in that they have far less effective venting of exhaust than other appliances, so the health risk from them is much larger.
If youre able to get enough sunlight to charge the stove, its worth thinking about.
The paywall makes me want to guess carbon monoxide
There is no paywall. Just scroll down
The common kitchen appliance plays an outsized role in exposure to nitrogen dioxide, a toxic air pollutant.
Okay but can we please just eat safe food and drink safe water, and clean our bodies and homes without polluting every fucking thing? No wonder people don’t want kids, if you have an ounce of empathy you wouldn’t want to raise them in that shit.