Two things here. I was forced to go induction when I moved house about fifteen years ago, and I love it. It’s just better than gas. I’m terrible at many things, but I’m a good cook, and I can say, there’s nothing I can do - nothing - that isn’t better on induction. Admittedly, not crazy about the waste of new things, but even so, worth it.
Also, turns out, Big Natural Gas lied to you. It’s dangerous (which the article states). This is a carrot and stick. I’m all electric, and working on solar soon.
Agreee, and a third thing. Gas usage for cooking is so small, it’s really a non-issue.
Gas usage for heating is the big one we need to curtail. Having a culture war on cooking ranges is a distraction.
It’s not a distraction so much as it’s the bait. Gas cooking gets the utility serviced to the building, which enables the gas furnace vs electric heat pump conversation. Gas furnace is cheaper up front, so that’s what goes into suburbia.
Builders and developers will always do the absolutely cheapest thing possible to stay competitive, and will only do better when they’re either legislated to or consumers demand it. Home builders associations lobby to keep minimum requirements … minimal, and most consumers just see pretty showers and big kitchen islands, so this is why we still build houses like it’s 1980.
Always amuses me how many people care about gas mileage on a $50k car but couldn’t give two shits if their $2m home is efficient.
Source: I’m a home designer who frequently has this conversation and that’s usually how it goes down.
Then you are living in an area that is running a bit behind.
Once you electrify heating, no one is going to pay for a gas line in new construction.
We (Netherlands) had these conversations go down like this 5 years ago. Now, no new home construction is running a gas line.
Canada, and yeah when it comes to how we build we are definitely behind. Oil and gas is so entrenched in the economy, especially western provinces, that any going against that is blasphemy to a significant chunk of the population. It will get better though. We can already do better, the incentive just isn’t there.
I’m a certified passive house designer and I’m always jealous of all the products and materials available in Europe!
However, gas stoves will still kill you. They won’t kill the environment as bad as they kill you, true, but you’re still dead.
the issue about it being literally poisonous for humans is kind of a big deal, regardless of how much gas you use. Domestic range hoods do FA.
If you want to keep your gas stove despite the very real health implications, that is a poor choice.
Agreed on both points. As a trial we got a cheap induction hot plate and really like it. We also learned that we want a range that doesn’t have a noisy fan and has a continuous very low setting.
Those Ikea induction hot plates are really nice and a great way to try induction cooking.
I strongly recommend getting one that’s just a touch fancier, and which has a thermostat in it. This lets you set the temperature of the pot so that you can fry without making the oil smoke.
Weirdly, I’m in the opposite boat. I have solar, I grew up with an electric oven/stovetop and my previous house had an induction stovetop. I hate, and I mean hate induction and electric for stovetops.
My new house has gas and it is just the best. I love cooking on my wok, my pans heat up in no time, and I feel like I can gauge and control the heat better.
Yes, air flow, exhaust, and air purifying is taken into account to use it safely too in my home.
If your pans are taking time to heat up, you probably had resistive plates, not induction. Induction is FAST - fast to heat up, but also fast to cool down. It’s very similar to cooking on gas.
They probably had glass-ceramic. A lot of people confuse those for induction, since they basically look the same when it’s off: a black glass plate.
When it’s on, the glass-ceramic lights up and becomes red or purple, while induction stays black.
Induction is faster than gas. I have never met anyone who prefers gas to induction after using induction for a while.
Buying an induction cooker has made cooking in apartments with shitty coils so much better, I don’t even want gas in the future anymore. We’re considering getting a cover for the range and just buying 2 more induction tops
Try curved induction plate. Wok doesn’t work with flat induction plates because the moment you start moving it, you’re not heating it anymore.
Induction is objectively superior in heating speed and heat control. But if your cooking technique doesn’t work with it, the previous statement is meaningless.
If your cooking technique involves flipping rice past the flame so oil catches fire a little, then gas is the only option.
Well, firewood too :)
Now I want to try smoky fried rice.
When people think of electric stoves, they think of resistance not induction. If people had more experience with induction, I’m sure they’d be less resistant to the change.
I tried induction using a plugin electric one burner mini appliance. Its not even the whole real thing and its a great experience.
Just picked new appliances for our house. I wanted to look at induction but the ones that were within budget had some questionable reliability in the reviews. However we made sure we have the beefy outlet so we can upgrade as the price comes down. I miss cooking with gas but new electric stoves and some good pans are not that bad. It’ll hold us over until upgrade time… I hope.
In my experience both have their upside and downside. I only ever use my resistance stove to braising or stewing, anything that require simmering for long hour, as it provide a consistent heat throughout the cooking process.
Are you saying induction doesn’t provide consistent heat for long periods? Because resistance is the one that doesn’t (at high temp anyway) with the element being turned on and off again and again…
Induction directly heat the cookware so the heat really only coming from the cookware itself, if the cookware isn’t thick enough it will conduct the heat away quickly, or if i turn it on high it will quickly burn the bottom of whatever i’m cooking. It still have to cycle on and off to control the heat though.
Electric stove on the other hand heat the metal coil/ceramic surface so the heat can conduct into the cookware. This way i can have a surface that is consistenly around that temperature, making it easier to control the heat if i want it low enough to simmer but not boil.
In my experience, it’s easier to get my food burn with induction because of the direct heating of the cookware. Maybe yours have those fancy-mancy setting to prevent that, but i don’t have that sort of setting unfortunately.
I think it’s more about experience with it, you can’t cook like you would with a resistance stove… We just made 10L of spaghetti sauce and it was on our induction stove for 6 hours without burning… You just have to get used to adjustments being pretty much instantaneous.
Honestly, maybe it’s my stove. Its a cheaper one as budget is tight. Ohh well, at least i found a balance with it.
This should be required watching for every moron who claims gas is better.
If you need that instant temperature drop, remove it from the heat??
Also, induction is even better. Hopefully they become affordable and not priced like fancy appliances in the next decade.
The main advantage for gas isn’t speed, it’s control. I have both gas and electric, standard halogen etc type stoves are junk compared to the fine (also instant, consistent, and reliably easy to gauge) control that gas hobs provide. Not to mention a very even heat . But I agree modern induction finally provide that similar level of control (though the one induction hob I’ve used, while excellent granular control, did seem to heat unevenly requiring the pan to be regularly turned to avoid one-sided burning).
did seem to heat unevenly requiring the pan to be regularly turned to avoid one-sided burning).
That’s due to the heating area being incredibly tiny on various crappy induction stoves.
I’ve had a different experience with gas stoves… many of the standard ones can’t be turned down low enough. Simmering something or just keeping it warm is a challenge because there’s too much flame. Really easy to burn sauces or hard to keep them from boiling after they’re done and you just want them to stay warm.
When shopping for appliances for a new house a few years ago I had to pay quite a bit extra to get a higher-end gas stove that had a dual ring of burners that could be turned down lower. In retrospect I wish I’d simply went electric.
Induction is better in every way, like power output, heating speed, and control, except being able to lift the pan freely wok style. Cooking with gas indoors is totally stupid.
Better in every way is nonsense. Cooking indoors is only stupid for morons that don’t know how to safely use a gas stove top. There’s a reason most professional kitchens still use gas and haven’t all rushed to replace with induction - the benefits don’t outweigh the investment.
@glencairn84 @jol safely as in…? Properly ventilating the kitchen in the middle of a cold winter?
It’s cheaper to operate and repair gas stoves. That’s why professional kitchens still use them. But you don’t operate a professional kitchen. You cook twice a day at most.
IKEA has induction cooktops for like $600 or 700 bucks. They’re made by Frigidaire and are backed by a 5-year warranty… If you buy from home Depot that same Frigidaire cooked up, you could only get a 1-year warranty. Otherwise it’s the same exact product.
Okay, the price went up a little bit:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/saerklassig-induction-cooktop-black-20462066/
Are induction stove tops still expensive where you live? I just bought one used from a colleague at work and will wire it up today. I haven’t really tried to get a good overview of the market since I didn’t buy a new one, but I got the feeling that it doesn’t exactly come with a hefty price tag nowadays.
I’ve been using a standalone portable induction system whenever I didn’t need 2 or more pots/pans at the same time, so I have some experience how neat the technology is. The fact that it wastes no energy going past the pot (like gas), doesn’t require a perfectly sized pot to maximize efficiency and reacts instantly to changes when I turn the knobs made it a very desirable purchase for me. And the fact that it’s a fast way to heat your food. I doubt that I’ll be using my water kettle to pre-heat my pasta water anymore.
Heat storage effect -as soon as you put anything in cold in the pan the whole element goes cold and it takes ages to reheat. Unlike a gas flame.
And “induction” heating is 90% conduction - only a tiny part of the pan is inducted and then the heat has to conduct to the rest of the pan. So in some ways its worse than a conventional electric hob because the heating is so uneven, and you still get the heat storage effect.
No it’s not. Buy a decent one and they work really well. I’ve never had any issues with hotspots.
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Induction is great, switch 1 yr ago. Most cookware works, not just cast iron.
Pro tip: if want to know if your pan works with induction, take a magnet and see if it sticks to the pan. If it sticks, it will heat!
Some non-magnetic cookware can still be used on induction heaters
Spent the first 1/3 of adult life with gas and the latter 2/3 with electric. It’s not hard to adapt cooking methods. Food still comes out just fine. It also makes one more adept at cooking when say, traveling and having to use who knows what terrible stove/cooking object.
I’d much rather figure out how to adapt to an electric cooking device that I could 100% self-power if need be, than continue to use an explosive cooking device pumping chemicals I don’t want into my home because the natural gas companies don’t processed the gas to remove them.
Gas had a place in homes in the 19th and early 20th century when we didn’t know better, not anymore.
What do you mean by self power? Cause you’re not using an exercise bike to power it. You wouldn’t even get close.
How many tons of co2/methane are emitted annually from residential ovens and ranges?
I feel like this number is small and am curious if anyone has chased this rabbit.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c00437
Electrifying everything but the gas stove means keeping the entire gas distribution system, which leaks like a sieve.
Well why are they building them out of sieves?
Propane tanks too? Or so you mean the methane pipes?
The article I linked is about methane but, as someone who is on propane, I can pretty much guarantee it’s not much better. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around a propane fill-up, but the connection/disconnect process breaks of the odorant - it definitely has a loss on every transfer.
The only good news is the emissions factor for propane is much lower than methane
I have a propane tank for my range. I’ve only had it for 3 years and haven’t needed to fill it yet.
I cut our gas line 2 years ago from our house! Feels good. Also didn’t want to have to invest in a seismic shut off gas valve.
And the heat pump gives us air conditioning, which is a win-win.
I love induction, myself, but if you need a flame, there’s countertop burners to help with the transition. No need to pipe gas through the whole city. There was just a gas explosion in an empty house (two days after closing!) down the road from us.
There is a lot of tall about everyone replacing their stoves but it’s expensive and really not needed. You can do 90% of your meals with counter top appliances and be good to go.
We have the following: portable induction cooktop top, 6 and 3 qt instapot, 5qt air fryer, and electric hot water kettle. These devices are used nearly everyday and if we need to use the gas stove we do, but it’s pretty rare.
When the kitchen is renovated, an induction stove will be purchased, but for the last 5 years our counter top chefs have been great.
I bought a replacement induction cooktop last year and it’s an absolute game changer, but we went from an old crappy electric cooktop that was just awful.
Demand the best cooking experience, get a propane tank installed, and use that to cook. Heating with natural gas is the big pollution source, and heat pumps (even if the electricity is generated from natural gas) beat it for total system efficiency.
If you want the best cooking experience you should ditch the gas all together. It’s way, way worse at cooking.
If you want to keep gas there is only 1 acceptable use case: A torch burner for a wok.
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I don’t get it either. I always had standard electric in places where I lived until now. My first gas stove: 1. Often smells of gas which implies a slow leak which is scary 2. Isn’t vented at all, so it’s spewing who the fuck knows what, even when it’s working properly. Give me an induction surface and a big air fryer and I’m happy.
And instant pot style automatic pressure cookers are amazing. I can prepare dry beans to perfection in under an hour using a quarter the energy of even an induction stove, and using less water too (because the heat and steam are mostly retained)
I have two!
“Took 3x as long and burnt my food” I honestly don’t see how these things can both be true. You either cooked it too long or too hot.
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I’m an indifferent cook, so I don’t really have a dog in this hunt. But I’d like to continue to have natural gas to run my whole-home generator in emergencies.
For an individual today? Fine. Long-term at scale? It seems silly and prohibitively expensive to maintain a bunch of leaky natural gas infrastructure just for a handful of seldom operated generators.
Very true. If solar ever settles into a truly functional technology, we won’t need generators
If solar ever settles into a truly functional technology,
If solar what???
Solar beats the everloving shit out of any other power generation source. Not only that but batteries for solar backup are dropping in price right off a cliff.
If you haven’t looked in the past couple years you really should: If you can afford the initial capital expenditure it’s more than worth it in savings.
I look into it every few years. It doesn’t yet pay for itself, at least for me, and I haven’t yet found a company that I think will be around in 20 years to honor its warranties. I live in an area with hurricanes, so I need to know my equipment can be repaired or replaced in a timely manner. I would dearly love to find a system that lets me kick the power company to the curb, but it’s not quite there yet.
Ah yeah hurricanes definitely become a limiting factor there.
You do get a 30% tax credit though right now if that wasn’t part of your calculus
Yeah. For now I can choose the wind and/or solar option with my power company which I do. Theoretically my power comes 100% from wind at the moment.
Induction only drawback is the need for more expensive cookware.
For me, induction and cast iron is a match made in heaven.
For me pretty much everything but the china special supports induction. The only stuff I have that I can’t use with it is either old (20+ years) or was the cheapest option in the store and it’s generally not too good (a student needs to start somewhere)
Aluminum is stupid popular in my country, being cheap, affordable and pretty resistant. Most people resist moving to induction as it will require purchasing new pots and pans.
A stainless steel 25cm frying pan, of good make can cost anywhere from €35 to €70. If not more. I’m keeping on the affordable range, not crazy designer stuff.
The equivalent aluminum can cost between €10 and €20.
I mean you can get a good lodge cast iron pan for like $25, so it’s not really even that expensive. Sure the fancy ones are $100-200, but (don’t tell the cast iron fanatics) they’re only marginally better than lodge, and mostly because of things like aesthetics, ergonomics & weight than cooking performance.
Cast iron is expensive. Between the material itself and the late hype for this particular type of kitchenware, price are high.
I bought my first cast iron pot for €45. It’s a 4 litre, so not that big.
I recently bought in a promotion a skillet and grill for €40, as a promotion, but each piece should have cost of around €40/piece. Most won’t fork that much.
Right now, I’m thinking about a nice paella or mushroom ragu to really break in the skillet.
I’d love to electrify my stove (and don’t get me wrong I’m not trying to be whiny about it, I really do want to) but it has to be capable of getting a pan wok burner hot. I also cannot stand glass tops. Is there anything for me? I tried 2kw induction burner once with a heavy cast iron pan, and it was glacial compared to gas. I know people say they work great but how much do you have to pay to get one without glass that can get a pan literally smoking hot in under 2 minutes like gas can?
It’s the oven, not the stovetops, where gas is most useful.
Gas ovens give moist heat which is good for baking moist foods like cakes. Electric ovens give dry heat which is good for foods that should be crispy (pizza crust). Ideally an oven would offer both kinds of fuels. Europe lacks in this regard (no thermostatic gas ovens anymore!).
Energy efficiency aside, the stovetop debate is somewhat silly in comparison because you can cook anything on either stove and adapt to the control.
I started baking bread during the pandemic and bought a spray bottle and filled it water.
Does the trick for me.
My electric oven has some sort of steam-bake option.
Seems like you could just add some water to the oven and get the best of both worlds from an electric oven in that case.
Wouldn’t it be far more ideal for the electric oven to have a way of introducing moisture instead of requiring all the components for a separate fuel source?
It does. Stick a pan with water in it in the oven with your baked item. This is necessary even for gas ovens, if you require a moist cooking chamber.
The air inside a gas oven isn’t especially wet at 400°F, because of the inverse relationship of temperature and relative humidity.
A simpler design is an advantage in itself but it doesn’t cover all factors (e.g. pricing).
If your closest power plant burns fossil fuels, then there’s a big inefficiency at the power plant which still has the emissions followed by a considerable inefficiency in the transmission of electricity and still some heat loss from the wall to the food in converting electric back to heat. Electric heat is more efficient if you only measure from the wall to the food. It’s overall less efficient because you have fuel → heat → steam → turbine → electricity → transmission → heat conversion (lossy at every step), when you could simply have fuel → transmission → heat. And as a consequence electric is usually more costly. Exceptionally, some regions manipulate the energy pricing in order to make electric nearly as economical as gas.
So whether gas makes economical sense depends on where you are. The prices can also swing especially in Europe due to the Russian war. Thus having both options is ideal once you consider pricing (esp. fluctuating pricing). Having both options hedges against price swings and at the same time gives you the option to choose the kind of heat you need for what you’re preparing.
power outages
Some folks live out in the sticks and have frequent power losses. Every storm is likely to cause a power outage in some remote areas where the power lines are near trees. And because those communities are small, response time is slow. So the power can be out for days. Several times this happened to someone in my family when they had a cake in their electric oven. The cake would have been ruined had they not had the option to transfer the cake to a propane gas grill.
