Gas stoves fill the air in your home with particulate matter (pm), which has been found to increase cancer risk in the long term.
So next time you buy a stove, consider choosing an induction stove.
Btw, gas stoves being better or faster than induction is a myth. They have certain specific advantages, but they are actually slower.
Obligatory Technology Connections video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUywI8YGy0Y
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The studies I read, there was no ventilation / exhaust fan. The point was that low income households using these stoves often don’t have proper ventilation and it makes them dangerous. I didn’t find much evidence that using them with proper ventilation is actually a serious problem.
Further, cooking releases all sorts of chemicals from incomplete combustion in the air if something is burning, as well as the toxic chemicals release from nonstick cookware at very high temperatures, so cooking without ventilation is bad for your health would be the message I’d take away. I find most people are completely unaware of the hazard.
Thanks for the clarification.
Again… You can and should swap in hot sunny areas specially California. I’m from California originally. You gotta be retarded not to have solar panels now. But over in places where shit freezes like here near Seattle, the entire north, and or maybe also texas, thar doesn’t work. Here in the PNW, we have all electric kitchen, but also a wood burning chimney and a gas burning central heater. If the power is out you get no heating and die…or you keep warm with a chimney fire. Well heat pumps also work using propane or natural gas. There are also gas powered heaters that don’t need electricity.
We swapped out a gas for induction, it’s amazing to be able to put the temp down below very hot. Also very responsive to power changes, and can wipe clean.
I love my induction hob for all the reasons you mention. It is by far the best hob I’ve used - much better than gas - and I cook a lot. The only slight downside is ensuring you have the right pans, but they’re widely available. My enamelled cast iron casserole pot works a treat.
the maillard reaction causes cancer. I’m still not boiling my beef.
Photons cause cancer so I guess I may as well do nothing at all.
The few times I have prepared meat while trying to minimize the maillard reaction, it was still quite tasty.
That said, I agree that cancer risk is relative, and you can’t avoid all risk, even if you are happy to try.
I hear sous vide steak can be quite tasty.
I hear sous vide steak can be quite tasty.
It is the best way to prepare steak, but you still need to sear it afterwards. The steak can be cooked to a perfect medium-rare all the way through… But you still need to throw it on an ultra hot skillet with some butter and rosemary afterwards, to add the crust to the outside.
Also, gas stoves increase the risk of asthma.
I’ve always cooked on radiant electric (not induction) stoves, but gas stoves are amazing. Literal fire just works like nothing else. Faster cooking != Better cooking, why are you conflating them?
I’ve never lived in a closed up efficient new house either, those seem like anything you cook would be problematic. All cooking releases something.
Will almost certainly stick with electric personally (whole house is electric only) but if I had an unlimited budget it would be gas stove, big whomping vent fan, and ovens with both steam and fan.
Induction worries me because we had an induction plate and it made a terrifying shrill noise, I worry that the high end ones do the same but we can’t hear it. Which seems awful for the dogs and cats.
I’ve got a gas stove and a highly inefficient house. I recently got an air quality detector and yeah, it goes off every time I cook anything on the stove. Not so much if I use the oven.
I’m pretty sure the premise is correct… though unsure as to the degree. I would get an induction stove in a heart beat. Just… you know… cost and all. (Buy the stove, update my wiring to not suck where the stove would go, things like that)
Your data is only half the story though. What would your air quality meter be reading if you were cooking with an electric stove?
Does this apply if you use extraction?
I’ve had induction for many years, but I really want a combo with both. Making wok on induction is crap as the sides don’t get hot at all. I also have a hot spot in the center of all frying pans which is annoying when frying bigger things or several things at once.
My dream is a Gaggenau or Bora top with one side induction and one side gas. I already have the mid extractor with outside piping, so no recirculation.
I just cannot justify the $10k price tag and nobody else makes it with a fan in the middle.Our new-build house came with a gas stove+oven. Our overhead microwave does vent to the outside of the house so hopefully it helps a bit. The worst part is the oven’s vents face the front, so the fumes literally go up to your face if you’re standing in front of it. So when we use the oven, we try to keep distance and hope the the microwave vent sucks up as much fumes as possible.
Overhead microwaves are terrible at venting. Lots of places don’t allow over the range microwaves over gas stoves in their building code. If you can afford to do so, consider getting a proper hood fan installed
Yup, I’m definitely looking into upgrading to a proper hood fan in the near future.
Next time you buy a stove, consider a scheffler dish
We really shouldn’t be using electricity for applications like that
Huh TIL. Thats cool
https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Scheffler_Community_Kitchen
Apologies for the fandom link
Nah, fandom is one of the best links on this subject
I’m sure this wiki page is fine and very useful, but fandom itself is not a very good place to host it. Thats all I meant by that.
It’s completely baffling that there are people unironically still defending gas stoves in 2025. There’s no discussion to be had on the subject any more, induction is superior and that’s final.
In places where natural gas is cheap and electricity is expensive cost is a factor
I would agree in places with good infrastructure. I lived somewhere with rampant power outages, sometimes for 5 days at a time.
Gas was sure nice then.
I think the people who claim gas stoves are best likely grew up either not cooking much, or had a decent gas stove, so their first exposure to an electric stove was super cheap, crappy electric coil stoves in student housing, or wherever they first lived as a young adult. Then when they were able to afford better, they got a better gas stove.
I have a really crappy gas stove, and it makes me yearn for the cheap electric coil stoves of my youth.
People say that gas stoves are more powerful and responsive, when the truth is that more powerful stoves are more powerful, and “responsiveness” is a fake concern. My crappy gas stove takes forever to get a pot of water boiling, especially compared to coil stoves. Yeah, you can turn a gas stove to 100% quickly, but that’s only better if it can put out more power. It won’t heat up any faster than an electric stove if the electric stove takes double the time, but also has double the power. There’s also not many cases where “time to maximum heat” is what you care about, I can’t think of any.
Responsiveness the other way (hot to cool) doesn’t matter when you have a high thermal mass in the pan (or the pan itself has high mass), it only matters when the pan and contents are light, in which case, you just take the pan off the heat.
The way coil stoves cycle their power on and off is incredibly dumb IMO.
Induction cooktops don’t do that, but it blows my mind that it took as long as it did to get a duty cycle frequency somewhere above ‘once every 30 seconds’.
When the power goes out in sub zero temperatures, and your heating does too, it helps to be able to make hot water on the stove to warm up.
Otherwise, yeah induction is better.
A $50 dual burner camp stove solves that (or even cheaper, a $12 single burner backpacking stove if you have less space).
While you’re correct in general, in places where the power is out for a week, a camping/backpacking stove would be ill-suited to the task of keeping multiple people warm and fed. Especially in a house and not an apartment.
A gas furnace won’t keep you warm when the power is out, either. I will say a camp stove feeds just as well as a regular stove, after all, how often are you using more than 2 burners simultaneously?
A gas (or wood) stove will, which is why they’re still common in rural areas that face power outages more frequently. Your comment is the first mention of furnaces.
Personally, I use more than 2 burners pretty often. Honestly, it’s a bit of a waste of everyone’s time to debate whether or not a camping stove is a universal replacement for a gas stove since everyone has different needs. For the scenario I described, a gas stove is the better option.
I would be pretty pissed if I had to use a camping stove instead of a gas stove during an outage just because. They’re totally different tools suited for different use cases and environments.
idk - there should be some very clear cancer statistics to back up such a claim between countries like Sweden (<1% gas stoves, all are electric) vs other countries then.
One cause of cancer like this probably won’t be visible on a national scale, too many other factors come into play that will muddy the data
However, it’s not “idk”, the current science on gas stoves being bad for your health is quite clear. Not just cancer, but also for other lung-related issues like asthma: https://www.cancercenter.com/community/blog/2024/09/are-gas-stoves-bad-for-your-health
You’re right - the report they link to here (Table 2 is good) makes that quite clear.
I read that running an extractor hood mitigates the risk a fair amount. Not completely, but enough that you shouldn’t worry if gas is your only option
Since this article is specifically about pm 2.5, I’m going to chime in and say I have a gas range with no extractor, and the only time my pm2.5 sensor picks anything up is when frying generates smoke and oil aerosols. That’s more a function of cooking temperature than fuel, and my induction hotplate will generate just as much.
CO2? Definitely more with gas. Trace chemicals? Probably more with gas, but all the studies I’ve seen are just about running the cooktop, with no food, in a sealed room. Run the extraction hood or open a window when you cook - it’s not just heat source.
Many people don’t turn the hood on until food itself is creating a lot of vapor because they are usually so noisy. Meaning the hood often helps very little in practice, although in theory you are right.
Or they have a fan that just redirects the exhaust into the house
My stove has a “hood”/fan that runs through the microwave and into a cabinet and that’s it. What can I do? After reading all this I intend to keep the window open nearby when cooking, and I always have two large air purifiers running in the living room attached to the kitchen.
For a lot of these large scale, epidemiological findings, it’s important to remember that the effects are small enough that you pick them up on a population level over a lifetime. I’d say that if you can, find a way to properly vent your stove outside if you are doing some home improvement. If you are replacing your stove, consider induction instead, and in the meantime, having an air purifier is good. Opening a window is probably also good. Other than that, I wouldn’t be super alarmed. Obviously, if you have little kids or something, you might have a lower tolerance for potential pollution, but it’s good to think about these things in context. Alcohol causes cancer, but everyone still drinks.
Thank you, that is a great answer that helps me both feel better and take steps if necessary. 10/10 would ask again.
Edit: sorry I know this sounds sarcastic but I really am grateful.
The only thing I know gas stoves to be better at than other methods is traditional wok. But that’s hardly a reason to jeopardize your health for.
I’ve been looking into a Wok-Pan for my glass top stove or my induction heater. I wonder how well those work.
You can actually get induction wok thingys.
The induction magnet is bowl shaped, so that when placed in it, the wok is heated all over.
They work, but apparently the really good ones are priced for business kitchens.
Cool, had no idea this existed.
I’ve got one, just a 120V, home-use thing, but it gets far hotter, faster than on my stove. Tends to have a cool spot in the very center, maybe 3" diameter, unless you circulate the wok, and you can’t flame food by tossing it in the fire (which you can’t really do on a residential stove, either). It’s a decent approximation of a wok jet for home cooks.
If you really want to
burn your house downflame your home wok, you can always get a handheld blow torch to do the finishing ignition. Could probably flame 1000 wok dishes for a single torch canister.
Only if you have the proper high btu burner
Exactly this. I went from a cheap gas stove to a nicer induction and my work cooking has improved greatly.
Which most people don’t. Also I could buy a portable gas burner suitable for a wok and gas canister for less than the standing charge of gas for a year. Unless you are using a wok extremely often its not worth it.
I don’t have a wok, high temperature cooking would be nice for a few things like searing steak though. But that can be done over a BBQ. Kinda want to try heating a cast iron griddle when the coals are still orange hot and searing steak on that. Although steak isn’t something I cook very often partly because its really expensive. Presumably a fair bit less cooking time than the packaging recommends. I guess get the iron hot enough for the leidenfrost effect to start and then cook until nicely brown on each side and then take off the heat? With hot charcoal that would probably be something like 30-60 seconds each side.
Yes, a little bit… Burning any kind of fuel in your home is going to produce carcinogens.
But it’s really nothing to get too excited about, and cooking on electric is bullshit
As other people have said, induction is alright. Way better than traditional electric anyway.
More than alright, it’s amazing
I remember reading a study on this where all the scientists replaced their home ranges because the results were so bad.
Yeah, I prefer my gas stovetop than any crappy induction.
Have they reinvented buttons yet or do you spend your time long-clicking and watching out not to short the touch-screen-top with 1 drop of water?
Jesting aside, induction is probably good but the bullshit that gas stoves causes cancer is just an unfounded lie. It’s like being scared of the microwave owen or “3G mobile”.
I think you’ve confused coil for induction, and gas stoves definitely cause cancer. So do cars.
Show me some propf of that, a scientific study. Make me change my views.
Cooking in electric is fine, just different. I had an exposed coil stove for a while which was passable, but my glass top coil range is rather good. I grew up on gas and honestly my only complaint about electric is a bit slower heating time and it doesn’t react as fast as I’d like, but it’s not nearly as bad as people like to claim.
we have a decent quality induction range and electric stove and we’d never bother considering to go back to gas
I think that’s the thing though… You need to invest in a really good quality electric cooker to get something decent… Whereas any old?Cheap gas appliance will get the job done.
Plus every electric hob I’ve ever used has got bullshit touch sensitive buttons that don’t like wet fingers.
yes…why cant dials
There are two kinds of electric. Induction, and coil. Are you talking about induction or coil?
I used to be 100% for gas ranges. Except for a couple of specific usecases, my 200v induction stove is great. I have a separate cannister gas stove if I want to really go to town on a wok or something. I’ve been converted.
It depends. A really good induction stove is fine. The cheap ones they put in rentals are all really annoying though. Bad UI is my main gripe with them honestly.
I think they are more than fine but bad UI is real
