https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/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.
https://archive.ph/Aiyd2
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 not what most people think of have when they say “electric stoves.”
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.
some of these stove preference comments are pretty heated 🥁
I prefer gas, apparently that choice wasn't as independent as I thought
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.
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 found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
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 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.
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.
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
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"
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)
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
10000% but these nerds want to cooksplain to me like I don't know what I'm doing
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I kinda assumed most people here rented and thus it was their landlords choice if they used gas or not
When I bought my home, I chose a gas stove because that’s what the builder installed, and I continue to use it because I don’t want to spend $2-5000 for a stove replacement and remodel to power it
Where I'm from people rent empty apartments - there's no furniture, rarely a kitchen, and sometimes not even flooring. Most buildings are older than 100 years and have options for both gas and electric stoves. People can rent and still decide how they want to live.
Yeah, I rent and way prefer gas stoves to any electric ones I've ever had available to me. I don't have any real experience with induction stoves, but I know if I moved into a place with one, I'd have to buy all new pans.
One of the most frustrating things about induction for me is that if a pan develops any sort of curve, it's as good as a paperweight. It will heat only on that tiny point of contact.
Great for the electricity bill tho
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 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.
anytime somebody claims it is impossible to cook without natural gas I just say "skill issue" and it is a hard counter, they cannot possibly respond to it without sound like they are very mad
Def a skill issue. But I must say, I hate electric glass top, way too much heat retention in the glass. I love the quick control I get with my gas burners, but if I had the money it'd be induction all day for me. There's literally no downside.
Absolutely. For cooking gas is ok but induction is purely better if you can swing it. I'm thinking of upgrading my electric stove because like the only thing bidens climate bill has done is like give $800 rebate for em.
I mean if my state ever bothers to implement it .
100% skill issue though. I cook better shit on my electric stove than anyone with a gas stove I know
I suppose purely better is hyperbole as I can't account for taste. But some objective metrics... induction releases far less pollution than burning gas does. It also removes various risks with gas stoves in a home. Additionally it is more energy efficient when measuring the required energy to say boil water.
As far as personal preference goes I can barely speak to it. Unfortunately my houses have had shitty electric for the last decade or so. Had gas before that at home and admittedly enjoyed cooking on it generally. Also used gas when I worked in a kitchen long ago. I've loved Everytime I've had a chance to use an induction stove though. The response and speed is incredible with the right pan. As is the cleanliness.
I do fucking hate that they often have touch screens style controls
Looks like my state hasn't implemented it either... When it comes to electric though, I would prefer to cook on those cheap coil ranges, but prefer to clean up the glass top.
Weirdly ya I think the direct coils can potentially cook a little better than glass electric. Induction smokes em both. And gas is also better for cooking if worse in other ways than the electric
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
