Highlights: A study this summer found that using a single gas stove burner on high can raise levels of cancer-causing benzene above what’s been observed from secondhand smoke.
A new investigation by NPR and the Climate Investigations Center found that the gas industry tried to downplay the health risks of gas stoves for decades, turning to many of the same public-relations tactics the tobacco industry used to cover up the risks of smoking. Gas utilities even hired some of the same PR firms and scientists that Big Tobacco did.
Earlier this year, an investigation from DeSmog showed that the industry understood the hazards of gas appliances as far back as the 1970s and concealed what they knew from the public.
It’s a strategy that goes back as far back as 1972, according to the most recent investigation. That year, the gas industry got advice from Richard Darrow, who helped manufacture controversy around the health effects of smoking as the lead for tobacco accounts at the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton. At an American Gas Association conference, Darrow told utilities they needed to respond to claims that gas appliances were polluting homes and shape the narrative around the issue before critics got the chance. Scientists were starting to discover that exposure to nitrogen dioxide—a pollutant emitted by gas stoves—was linked to respiratory illnesses. So Darrow advised utilities to “mount the massive, consistent, long-range public relations programs necessary to cope with the problems.”
These studies didn’t just confuse the public, but also the federal government. When the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the health effects of nitrogen dioxide pollution in 1982, its review included five studies finding no evidence of problems—four of which were funded by the gas industry, the Climate Investigations Center recently uncovered.
Karen Harbert, the American Gas Association’s CEO, acknowledged that the gas industry has “collaborated” with researchers to “inform and educate regulators about the safety of gas cooking appliances.” Harbert claimed that the available science “does not provide sufficient or consistent evidence demonstrating chronic health hazards from natural gas ranges”—a line that should sound familiar by now.
It’s like everything is lies or something, that sure is surprising in a world where the only important thing is money. It’s like its an inevitable consequence or something. Like we shouldn’t have organized our society this way
fuckin shocking
I was told that the free market would naturally remove any bad actors… I guess we just have to deal with half a century of collateral damage before that happens.
that sure is not surprising
but yeah. I got your point
Ever heard of sarcasm?
Yeah, like anyone would have ever heard of sarcasm.
That’s because 20% of what you read on Reddit is bullshit and 99.9% of what’s on Lemmy is bullshit - this post included.
I hear a lot that gas is cheaper for heating and I took that as the truth for a long time. A while ago I did the math though, and for my house is would have been nearly the same annual power bill if I replaced my 90% gas furnace and water heater with electric units. Although the price of gas is far more economical for heating, there’s a monthly gas usage fee that’s a flat rate. If you go all electric, you don’t pay that, and over the course of a year, I didn’t heat enough for the lower gas price to offset the flat fees. If instead of a regular electric furnace and water heater, they were heat pumps, electric would have been much cheaper than gas.
This certainly would depend on your local prices and weather and how well your house is insulated, but if you need a new furnace, I’d do the math over a year to see if gas is still the most financially attractive option, especially if you can install an air or ground source heat pump.
Electric costs about 3x as much in my experience, and it is extremely dry and uncomfortable. Definitely need a humidifier if you’re using electric
???
What are you smoking? Energy is energy, it doesn’t matter where you get the heat from.
…i think he means heat from an inverter unit (heat pump) vs a hot water radiator.
I believe hydrocarbon fuels produce water (vapor) as a combustion byproduct, so LPG or natural gas could certainly contribute to humidity levels in some cases.
There may also be a separate effect by which the heat strips in an electric furnace dry out the air versus the heat exchanger in a gas furnace, but I don’t know about that.
Technology connections informed me of this long ago! And it makes perfect sense. But almost every house I go in has a gas stove because apparently people think it’s better or nicer or “more professional” or whatever.
I find this crazy. I live in SE USA and I’ve never even seen a gas stove outside of camping. When everyone was “freaking out” online about the gas stove ban, I was just confused.
Haha! I go in about three houses per day for work and the majority will have gas. Also SE US. Although I’ve never had one in the places I’ve lived so if not for work I’d never have seen them either.
I grew up in a rural area, hence the no gas. I now live in a metro area and maybe it’s just my friends, but I’ve really never seen one. They always sounded dangerous to me.
Outside of this (and the utility fucking up, sending too much pressure, and blowing up a bunch of houses) they’re perfectly safe. Millions of homes around the world have gas service and incidents are very rare.
But given the health implications of just normal operation, I’m still not going to get a gas stove in the future.
I’m just here to let you know that in some rural areas, bottled gas is/was the viable solution.
Are there any restaurants that use electric stoves?
I think this is mostly because it is what cooks are used to. The ones who go to culinary school learned on gas stoves, and the ones who learned on the job also mostly learned on gas stoves.
Gas stoves aren’t the best option anymore. Induction stoves heat up much quicker and offer much finer heat control, but they are a bit more expensive, and many of the cooks would have to relearn how to make some of the stuff they are used to cooking.
So not only is it what cooks are used to, but it would require an investment from the restaurant that most aren’t willing to look into. Gas stoves last for many many years, so it’s not like they break down and need replacing regularly, either.
I’ve never been in a restaurant kitchen. Can’t tell you.
It’s just nicer to cook on gas. Electric is a pain in the ass and generally less efficient time-wise. Induction apparently solves a lot of issues, though.
Induction solves all of the issues.
Even old school electric burners typically heat water to boiling faster than gas.
Gas is more responsive, but induction comes close. Some of the new induction burners have fake flames to indicate how high the output is visually.
Well it is “better”, but it isn’t (as this article highlights) better.
Acklutally, up until recently gas has been far cheaper than induction. It was leagues better than electric. Even today unless you are spending a lot more on a new stove and probably upping running costs; it’s expensive to move to conduction when gas stoves last for basically forever. It’s also quite regional to natural gas areas where it’s been cheaper than electricity.
If you want to sear meat at high temps, a powerful gas stove is still today going to outperform a induction.
I’ll gladly spend a little more time in front of a stove that isn’t actively killing me.
And that’s your choice. Just don’t pretend like there isn’t a valid reason so you can make fun of hillbillies.
What are you going on about? Who am I making fun of? There’s sound evidence that gas stoves emit harmful pollutants.
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I don’t think I said that at all.
👌
I was curious about temps, according to this induction gets much hotter than gas. Wouldn’t that be much better for searing?
I’ve lived in places with gas stoves and with electric stoves. I vastly prefer gas stoves. Just open a window or use the exhaust fan. I don’t see a problem. Gas is currently way cheaper than electricity where I live.
Did you not read the article…?
Ok I had a similar question, but DID read the article.
I was also wondering if using an external-exhaust hood vent helped, because it sounds like it would. You’d think it would pull the NO2 outside and reduce exposure.
I did read the article. What point are you trying to make? I concede that gas stoves do generate potentially harmful combustion byproducts but in my opinion, adequate ventilation minimizes the health risks.
Did you? They don’t mention whether or not ventilation mitigates the effects.
If you want to sear meat at high temps, a powerful gas stove is still today going to outperform a induction.
Nope, that is a myth.
I’ve done plenty of my own testing on several mid range from 200 up to 600 and even a few full units on 250/40/50 circuits. None of them were as hot, in even half the time to get up to 700f especially on a double burner range. The cheaper 1500w portables many times didn’t even make it to 700. Being more efficient is not my concern.
Beyond that, I’m still left with gas for using the oven vs electric, and is more efficient.
It’s been time to switch to induction stoves for a long time now, they are basically better in every way that matters.
How are they with temperature regulation? I think that’s a big holdback for a lot of people. A gas burner gives consistent heat output at the set level, while an electric burner cycles on and off, resulting in a wider temperature range.
ETA: Wow, WTF? Downvoted for asking a legit question. Are we Reddit now?
They’re probably more consistent than gas. Provided your cookware isn’t moved on the surface, they provide a constant energy output that is a simple linear equation of energy in - losses = energy out. Period. Induction elements “cycle” on and off – hundreds or thousands of times per second. They don’t work like a radiant electric stovetop at all. There is no human perceptible duty cycle.
Fancier models like Bosch and some of the new GE Profile/Cafe ones can even wirelessly communicate with special cookware that has a temperature sensor built in, and deliver you absolute parametrically controlled temperature output at a specific temperature down to the degree, with computer controlled precision. It doesn’t get any better than that.
They are perfect at temperature regulation. I have a little 120v unit that even has a hold @ temperature function. Goes as low as 180 and I think as high as 500°
Remember induction heats the pan directly via induction and thus requires cookware that a magnet can stick to. Otherwise faster, more efficient, easy to control
Induction has instant temperature control, combined with the possibility of having lower temperatures than gas allows for.
Additionally, there’s no temperature leakage into the room, nor any particles from combustion.
Are we Reddit now?
Always have been.
And as others may have said, induction stoves hold perfect temperature, but also require you to use more substantial steel pots and pans to begin with. As such, they won’t suffer from poor temperature modulation like older resistive electric stoves with cheap aluminum pans would.
How are they with temperature regulation? I think that’s a big holdback for a lot of people. A gas burner gives consistent heat output at the set level, while an electric burner cycles on and off, resulting in a wider temperature range.
That is not how induction works. The big holdback for people is ignorance about what induction even is. Temperature regulation is instant same way as it is with gas.
According to the American Lung Association, lung cancer diagnoses have risen a startling 84% among women over the past 42 years while dropping 36% among men over the same period. The overall number of cases remains fairly steady.
[…] Approximately 20% of women diagnosed with lung cancer today are lifelong non-smokers (by contrast, only 1 in 12 men with lung cancer have never smoked).
[…] These shocking statistics beg the question why?
“No one knows,” says John C. Kucharczuk, MD, Director of the Thoracic Oncology Network of the Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine. “It could be hormonal. It could be attributed to high degrees of exposure to secondhand smoke. Some data suggests that among non-smoking females who develop lung cancer, there are chances of a genetic mutation. At this point, there’s no conclusive data.”
From: Penn Medicine
So… is the mystery behind women’s lung cancer solved? Lovely if so (/s).
Tried to see if this data was backed up at the ALA website. Didn’t look like it.
Actually, if looking at it from the 80s it looks like that might be accurate. But this graph tells a different story.
Sounds like a pretty clean answer to it unfortunately
I wonder if the same levels of pollutants are found in restaurants. Most if not all restaurants use gas stoves. The ventilation systems are usually multiple orders of magnitude better than what a typical household would have available.
Having worked in a few restaurants, the vent systems are usually placed above the stoves but the vent itself is kind of high up. It’s definitely capturing the fumes from the cooking process itself, but not clear if it’s also capturing the pollutants from the stove while it’s on.
There definitely has to be some spillage into the kitchen. More than using a laboratory grade ventilation hood but less than the typical gas stove in a typical household.
Every kitchen I have worked in, those vents are so powerful the head chef could smoke while on the line, and the kitchen didn’t smell of smoke. I wouldn’t be surprised if those fans are fully circulating the entire volume of air in the kitchen a couple times a minute.
I think this assumes the restaurant is properly maintaining the ventilation system. I remember a couple of restaurants I worked at the grates were rarely changed out. The one time we did a proper cleaning the fucking things were caked with fat deposits and other crap. Took a power washer and some caustic industrial cleaner to get them to a decent state.
Usually there’s a make up air unit that keeps the pressure in the kitchen positive by pumping more air into the kitchen than what the exhaust fan is exhausting, so yeah the pollutants would have no way of spilling into the kitchen and missing the exhaust, as long as everything is set up properly, including having all fuel burning equipment below the hood.
Kitchens need to be kept under negative not positive pressure, typical make up air units supply 85% of the airflow of the exhaust. Source, I used to design HVAC systems and have done multiple McDonald’s restaurants.
Hmm. 4th year apprentice, and figured it would be the same as the rest of the building’s supply/exhaust balancing. Interesting, thanks
You might be surprised by how little airflow is actually required to displace some hazardous gasses.
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"Make no mistake, radical environmentalists want to stop Americans from using natural gas. The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s proposed ban on gas stoves is the latest egregious scaremongering by the Far Left and their Biden administration allies. I am pleased to partner with Senator Manchin in this bipartisan effort to stop the federal government from issuing regulations that put the interests of the Green New Deal before the well-being of American families,” said Senator Cruz.
We tried voting him out, we really did. Coincidentally, he beat Beto by a very small margin while there was a small percentage of voting machines that reportedly flipped votes for Beto (I think they would flip them to Cruz, and if you didn’t double check all your votes before casting them, then a Beto voter could have inadvertently voted Cruz)
If you take the larger words out of this comment it really reads like Trump wrote it.Supporting article below.
didn’t realize there were so many Ted Cruz fans on lemmy
Is there such a thing?
My comment was in reference to a lack of trust in voting machines, and it reminded me of someone else who thinks they “flip votes” while not providing evidence.
Yeah there was a whole thing about it at the time, it made news and was credible. The fix for it being of course to double check your ballot before you cast, which could easily be a miss by a first time voter or maybe an elderly one.
My comment was in reference to the fact that Ted Cruz is a moron, and that we came really close to getting him out, but I do think there were some shenanigans with voting. Just the other way.
Every accusation is an admission
Here’s an article about it, a quick Google returns a ton of results
Appreciate the response and apologize for casting aspersions. Seems like a legit issue, hope y’all get new hardware soon.
Aight. I must be missing something huge here.
Here’s the formula for burning methane:
CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O
Are there other chemicals in the gas that don’t combust? Or don’t combust completely?
EDIT: Jesus Christ I’m an idiot, and y’all upvoted this?! The end product is water and carbon dioxide. Better than straight methane in the atmosphere, at least in the long term, but damn I’m stupid sometimes.
It seems that the main problem is the existence of benzene in the natural gas. It’s not an additive; it exists in crude oil and comes through in the final product after cracking and refining. I haven’t been able to find anything showing the exact method for which benzene acts as a carcinogen, but there are several studies that show a strong correlation between benzene exposure and leukemia.
Benzene is also in gasoline, so it’s also recommended that you don’t spend a lot of time huffing gasoline.
Benzene is also in gasoline, so it’s also recommended that you don’t spend a lot of time huffing gasoline.
You’re not the boss of me.
Paint cans are still fine right?
I assume there are contaminants or products of incomplete combustion.
LOL, you’re killing me Smalls. That’s exactly what I was asking.
There is some nitrogen in the air. In any combustion in the air, there is gonna be a small part of the nitrogen in the air reacting with the fuel, instead of oxygen. Why this happens when there are oxygen present? Idk. Entropy or something.
I’m a complete novice when it comes to chemistry though. So I might be completely wrong.
Nitrogen is notoriously unreactive though? Must be contaminants.
Is this natural gas, or propane, or both? The article mostly uses just “gas” but does mention natural gas once.
Everything I researched was entirely focused on gas stoves being unhealthy, which seems to be the major issue.
Propane doesn’t seem to show up in a general search on this topic, and the carbon monoxide levels from mine didnt seem to go up while in use. So I believe it’s not as bad or even has the same problems.
That being said… I think we can also generalize that burning solid fuel in the open inside your house is probably a bad idea.
I also hate open flame stoves for cooking they suck and I’ll fight you on that. I’m extremely interested in getting this propane stove replaced with induction.
Laughs hysterically in South African… where we now have no choice but to use gas for almost everything because our electrical grid is collapsing due to IMF-approved neoliberal shitfuckery.
Don’t people blame it on
ANSANC short sightedness about banning new powerplants by Escom and failing to expand the grid and ANC’s corruption?ANC short sightedness
What ANC short-sightedness? They’re doing what all the rich people wanted them to do, aren’t they? Running everything “like a business?” I guess South Africans are now seeing for themselves how short-sighted running “everything like a business” was always going to be, huh?
In your opinion where did it go wrong? How should it have been prevented? What should the government/country do to get out the current crisis?
In your opinion where did it go wrong?
1985… when the National Party decided to commercialise and deregulate everything in the hopes of causing socio-economic chaos in the country - which it did. They, for instance, knew perfectly wll deregulating the taxi industry would cause chaos - they literally commissioned White Papers to research the outcomes - and they did it not in spite of the findings of that research, but because of it.
Same thing with Eskom - commercialised in 1985, and by 2002 Eskom was disconnecting more households than they were connecting - I literally have the UKZN research papers on my desktop to prove it - because Eskom was now being “run like a business.” The outcome we see today shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but because the media has been lying to us about the root cause of our problems we are all making surprise Pikachu faces while whining about “corruption” and “incompetence.”
The ANC took one look at this state of affairs and went, “Oh, we’re fine with this” and they’ve been doing the bog-standard “living it up while the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer” neoliberal shuffle ever since. Don’t get me wrong… the ANC is as corrupt as fuck - but that doesn’t make them unique here in South Africa or the rest of the world. But they are not the root cause… it’s the socio-economic system that enables this shitfuckery that is.
What should the government/country do to get out the current crisis?
We already know how… the same people that now applaud the DA or ActionSA every time their talking heads use the word “privatisation” are the very people who remember (or rather, selectively forgets) how well our public infrastructure worked when they were actually run as public infrastructure and not profit-making “businesses.” That’s what the country needs to do - reclaim our public infrastructure. But don’t expect the snivelling racketeers (whether they be ANC, DA, EFF or any of the parasites squatting in parliament) in our political establishment to push that idea any time soon…
can raise levels of cancer-causing benzene above what’s been observed from secondhand smoke.
Yeah this is fairly concerning, I usually think of benzene as super carcinogenic. They actually limit how much of it can be used in gasoline for that reason.
I’d probably want to compare benzene content from various sources and consult the OSHA guidelines before saying how bad this is, but there’s no doubt in my mind that this decidedly bad. You’re getting directly and consistently exposed to the benzene.
Since we got from gas to induction few years back we’re totally convinced: it’s much more efficient, in the summer the kitchen isn’t getting that hot, in the winter the air is better, and after we got the ideal pans and pots, we love to cook on induction. I can recommend cast iron ware like Le Creuset (buy one with metal grip, if you wanna put it in the oven), don’t go cheap there, you’ll use it often. If you like wok I’d recommend a cast iron one too. It’s a joy, we’ll never go back, and I was a hard gas advocate before. And yes, dishwasher isn’t friendly with cast iron, but it’s quickly clean again, much faster than stainless steel etc
Even better is to have your meals prepared by a professional in a separate kitchen outside you main house. If you can’t afford that just have them cook in the galley of your unused yacht.
Not sure why you’re implying induction is a rich people method. You can get a plug in induction cooktop for less than $100.
I was more taking issue with your Le Creux cookware than your induction hot plate.
We don’t have a stove, but we do have a gas furnace and water heater. When we were buying the home 2 years ago, the inspection turned up a gas leak in the attic and that almost halted the whole thing. That and the radon gear that was installed and never enabled.
We did get it resolved, but man, it was a super scary discovery.
Gas leak in the attic? Why would you have gas service in the attic?
That’s where the furnace is. ;)
Some houses have the furnace in the attic.
I’d still rather have a gas stove. IMO the improved experience of cooking with gas justifies the small increase in exposure to air pollution. My general principle is that I drive a car despite how dangerous that is, so I should be willing to take other risks as long as they’re lower than the risk from driving.
(Resistive electric stoves are terrible. Inductive ones are much better. I can see why someone might like them more than gas, but I don’t.)
Worse than secondhand smoke is not a small increase to air pollution
There’s nothing better about gas than inductive, anyone complaining about conductive either has the wrong cookware or a malfunctioning model
I do consider it a small increase, but I suppose that’s subjective and depends a lot on a person’s risk tolerance. Maybe mine is higher than yours.
As for induction stoves: they work quite well. If I was cooking simply because I needed cooked food and for no other reason, I would have no objection to them (and perhaps a preference for them). However, I feel that there’s something deeply satisfying about cooking over a fire and I want that satisfaction when I cook.
I agree. Gas is hands down a better heat source if your primary method of cooking is to sauté and toss or are cooking in a wok. The flame is a tool you can work with. But for most home cooks, it doesn’t make much difference. If you’re just scooting stuff around with a spatula, a hot pan is a hot pan no matter how it got hot.
‘gas stoves’ and frying bacon. I love the smell of benzene in the morning. It’s the smell of breakfast cooking on a gas stove.
I’ll never fry bacon again unless I don’t have an oven to bake it in. Baking it makes far better bacon and it smells great baking in my electric stove.
