A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
The home appliance industry would like you to believe that gas-burning stoves are not a risk to your health -- and several companies that make the devices are scrambling to erase their prior acknowledgements that they are.
and several companies that make the devices are scrambling to erase their prior acknowledgements that they are.
To me that is the type of action that should land the entire management of those companies in jail
As if upper management would ever face justice in the American legal system
My maga family who live in CA hate regulation and we're surprised when I told them where I live our house didn't have exhaust for our gas stove because it's not regulated. I hate this world
Every glass top I've ever used heated unevenly... so I agree with you, any decent heat source works, but modern stoves are not decent.
Induction stoves are the new hotness (literally and figuratively). Is that what you've used, or did you have the older (and much worse) type with glowing heating coils?
I thought electric stoves were all bullshit until I learned that "induction stove" was not just another term for what I was used to. But I've never seen one outside of fairly recent, relatively expensive renovations.
Yeah induction is a totally different and in my opinion superior technology. Unfortunately, some electric stoves can look quite similar but perform very differently, which leads to confusion.
My parents are snooty foodies who badmouthed electric stoves for decades even when I explained that gas was bad for the environment. But once I showed them my induction stove they were sold and never looked back.
The only downside is they can be a bit expensive, might require electrical work, and you may need to change out some pots and pans. But for me I found it very worth it. Cooking with gas annoys me now whenever I’m forced to.
Price is coming down a lot. A cheap induction one is well within the price range of a regular one. Sometimes even cheaper.
True. For me the main cost was the electrical wiring to bring the needed voltage to the kitchen. Which no one told me I needed until after I made the purchase. Oops.
You definitely want to look at the reviews though. When I started looking a couple years ago, the few less expensive models had really bad reviews from too small coils cooking slowly and unevenly
My parents are snooty foodies who badmouthed electric stoves for decades even when I explained that gas was bad for the environment. But once I showed them my induction stove they were sold and never looked back.
This is/was me, and you've given me hope I will beable to adapt to induction, whenever that day comes.
I’m just trying to learn now from a recent conversion and I’m amazed at how quickly pans heat up compared to gas. I have this one pasta meal down to a science, knowing exactly what I could do while waiting for the water to boil and the skillet to heat up, but now my process is out of wack because it was so quick.
Induction stoves are really common in the UK I first got one ~10 years ago, a quick Google shows a 4 zone induction hob in B&Q (Home Depot in the US) can be had for £89, single zone portable worktop ones are around £30. The current one in my kitchen cost £479 recon (normally ~£720) super fancy
It's different to gas, I prefer it now. Having used the other terrible types of electric hobs/stoves and gas
Use a better search like Bing or duckduckgo next time. googol sucks and was never any good. Quit using ignorant garbage.
I'm from a time before internet search engines, and seeing bing described as better looks odd to me, i still remember it as the best porn search engine.
Induction is objectively better than every other option for anyone connected to the grid looking to buy a new kitchen stove.
Unfortunately it's one of these things that takes five minutes to explain because everyone has tried the Slumlord Special resistive stove and the general public can't tell the difference. Those five minutes are why induction uptake is pathetically low compared to how superior it is in literally every way.
Same deal with people who would still buy incandescent lightbulbs if they could just because they don't understand that technology has moved on from CFLs and to them it's all "newfangled economic bulbs that can't light for shit".
Non-induction yes. Induction no.
Non-induction ones don't count as modern stoves, they are last century's tech.
But if you know what you are doing, the uneven heating can even be an advantage. You basically get different heat zones for free, so you can use part of the pan to brown stuff and the other side to keep things warm without burning them.
But yeah, get induction. It's the perfect technology.
Except it doesn’t work with every pan. I love induction but some pans I love don’t work with it.
True, but there's a simple fix: replace that one or two ancient pans that you still have hanging around.
I'm curious how cast iron pans work with induction. I feel like I'd be constantly afraid of scratching/breaking the glass on top.
Cooks great. I just started so don’t have scratches yet but I’m sure they’re coming.
Someone online recommended parchment paper Nader the pan to keep it from scratching, but that seems like a pain
But now I’m worried just as much about my few remaining non-stick pans I just tried one for the first time on my new induction stove and it wouldn’t stay 8n place. Between the lightweight aluminum and the smooth glass stove top, every time I tried to flip an egg the pan moved
It's not really an issue if you are somewhat careful. Don't slam the pan onto the glass, don't scratch it across and don't instant-heat the pan on full power (it can damage the pan).
If you want to be extra careful you can even put a thin piece of heat-proof fabric between the induction stove and the pan. Since induction heats the pan and not the stove top, that won't hurt the heat transmission.
Makes sense, but also no
(we have a standard flat top and a separate induction hahaha)
The fact that you call it glass top without specifying what you’re actually using tells me that you don’t know the difference between traditional electric and induction.
The fact that literally everyone else in society refers to an electric glass top as "glass top" and induction as "induction" tells me you're being needlessly pedantic in order to feel superior to others.
Get a good cast iron pan! I've used multiple glass tools and never had an issue :)
I use the Lodge pans, but you can pick up a used cast iron pan from a secondhand store and skip the breaking in process.
I am a gas girl.. forced to use shitty coil electric stoves for too many years, I was stoked when I moved to a place with a gas stove. Its old as hell, but my workhorse.
I can smell the gas when I preheat the oven. The exhaust vent works, but I wish it worked better. Summa isn't so bad, because I have windows open and fans going, but it's only been in the last month or so, I've been reading all this stuff about gas stoves and the dangers for health. I cook everyday.
It definitely freaks me out. We can't afford to replace a working appliance, or to switch off gas (we already have an indentured servitude relationship with the electric company). So, I'm thinking of getting a small air purifier to run on the counter by the stove before winter hits this year.
It does suck when you learn something you love is bad for your health.
You're probably on that puny ~110-120 volt supply.
Electric isn't bad when there's enough of it.
I'm currently looking directly at a ~400 volt stove. (My sauna stove, not mainly for cooking, although grilling sausages in a sauna is not unheard of.) I think my cooking stove is on the same sort of high power supply though. And even the regular outlets are 240v.
Apologize for ruining the humor with pedantry but …
You’re probably on that puny ~110-120 volt supply.
Assuming this is a dig at the US, major appliances like stoves use 240v circuits. I think there are a couple possible but my new stove circuit is 50a 240v, the same as my car charger.
Induction stoves are something where you can still make fun of us though. They are rare and most are expensive. I just converted from gas to induction and none of the three places I went to even had a display model so I Could see what an induction stove looked like
Well, yeah, because we've got twice that on stoves and 240 on regular outlets? So it's still just half of what most of Europe is using. Which would very well explain the difference in experiences.
You're right, they do have a rating.
I have empty space right by the stove, figure I can run it when the ovens on. We have a large one in another part of the house already, too big for the counter.
Brought to you by the same people behind all those #cookingwithgas social trends.
Oh god, that phrase really is propaganda. I'll erase it from my vocabulary.
The only drawback for induction is for wok tossing. Western cooking prefers to have heat evenly distributed across a flat bottomed pan where Asian wok cooking prefers a concentrated heat source at the bottom of a round wok to have a gradient of heat. There are curved induction surfaces designed for wok cooking but they are very niche and not widely available, even in Asia.
I have no experience to inform this guess, but I wouldn't think even properly-shaped induction would work all that well anyway, considering how often the wok is getting picked up off the burner to flip and stir the food in the wok cooking videos I've seen.
Simple, just route the exhaust thru a catalytic converter and then thru the chimney.