Gas stoves expose millions to unsafe indoor air pollution, Stanford study finds
Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution
A new Stanford-led study reveals that gas and propane stoves expose Americans to substantial nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant linked to asthma, lung cancer, and other health issues. For 22 million people, cooking with gas pushes indoor pollution past safety thresholds. Switching to electric stoves could cut exposure by over 50% for heavy users, offering a clear path to healthier homes.
We know that outdoor air pollution harms our health, but we assume our indoor air is safe. Our research shows that if you use a gas stove, you’re often breathing as much nitrogen dioxide pollution indoors from your stove as you are from all outdoor sources combined.
- minetest2048
My thoughts as several things can be true at once:
- This study is the source of LinkedIn ads from climate change where they try to convince people to move from gas to electric because of bad health effects
- But it doesn't invalidate the study, because of course burning something indoors creates some sort of emission, which may causes asthma
in kids
- But its not relevant for me because I'm a single adult not a child and I don't cook that much anyway
- And even when I used to have a gas stove, I used my induction burner more often as its more powerful and makes less waste heat compared to my gas stove
- and the reason I bought an induction wok burner from aliexpress, it can go much hotter than my gas stove
- But one thing that gas stoves excel is even the cheapest gas stoves have a smooth analog control, making it possible to gently heat things, which is important for cooking omelette. For the induction burners I have, it uses on off control, which will scorch the food if your setup (food + cookware) have low thermal mass to smooth it out. You think with the advancement of power electronics because of EV, ebikes, drones and AI data center power supplies someone is able to make a cheap induction burner with analog power control
- lkramer
I find it significantly harder to cook with electric than gas, and the first hurdle these days is always that for some reason all modern stoves use awful touch interfaces instead of just plain knobs. I don't understand how we got there. It should be obvious to anyone that it's a terrible interface when you are trying to multitask several pots and might also have greasy hands
- sm-silversight
I don't care. Quality-of-life. I cook in a pan every day. Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do. Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously. My life would be noticeably worse without my open-flame stove.
I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion. A gas stove is a tradesman's tool.
- comrade1234
We love our induction stove top. The "burners" go from 1 to 9 but also have an L and P setting.
4 is the same as gas low. 7 is the same as gas high. 8 is wok hot. 9 is too hot. P is power - for heating up water. It's amazing.
It can melt your pan but it has a sensor to not let that happen. It does sometimes give the metal that blue color you get when you heat metal with a blow torch.
The sensor is also used for pan frying. It has presets for light to heavy frying and keeps the pan at the temp the whole time.
- hellisothers
If you do the deep research on this there are many qualifiers to get the result they’re purporting. The main issue is you have to have little to no ventilation to make their numbers work. If you have a hood and or good indoor airflow to a window then this is all propaganda.
- syntaxing
I’ve been using induction since I have had kids and I enjoy it so much more than fire. That being said, I rent so I can only use 120V ones and the options are so limited here. Most of the small 120V ones make an obnoxious hum.
- stevenkkim
I feel like it should seem obvious gas stoves create unhealthy pollution in an indoor environment.
What is less obvious and what I would personally like to know is how much pollution remains if you have a hood above your gas stove that exhausts outdoors that is operating while cooking.
- xnx
Cooking itself pollutes the air (e.g. oil droplets) so external ventilation is still essential.