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 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?
All electric are fine. There is no discernible difference by the time it gets to the food. Like I had to be academically informed that this on/off even happened, I had no idea. This is such a ridiculous fake concern that's been created.
It might come from those cheap portable models. I tried one my mom had and the cycles were very obvious. It was difficult to do anything where I had to hold a temp, even doing a simple simmer was hard because it would go from boiling to nothing repeatedly. Things constantly burned on it due to poor temp regulation. I know it was a shitty model and I expect full size models to be much better, but it was a concern of mine as well.
I do hope to pick up an induction within a year or two. Can't really afford it at the moment though.