Electric Stoves Are Really Good

On Monday , Bloomberg reported that the Consumer Product Safety Commission will consider a ban on gas stoves , causing everyone from Republican politicians who cook on Twitter to quickly go insane and insult electric stoves. If you were among them, don’t panic: A gas stove ban is unlikely, especially any time soon.

But here’s the thing: maybe we should ban gas stoves. A growing body of research shows that gas stoves can be life-and-breath-hazardous, but electric stoves are not. Also, electric stoves are actually pretty good and don’t deserve their lousy reputation at all. Here are four reasons why.

Electric stoves keep methane or nitrogen dioxide out of your home

A huge advantage of electric stoves is that they do not use gas and therefore cannot seep into your home. More and more research shows that gas stoves do just that: in 2022, researchers at Stanford University found that gas stoves emit methane gas as a result of “post-meter leaks and incomplete combustion.” They also found that gas stoves emit nitrogen oxides, especially nitrogen dioxide or NO 2 , during use. It’s a small study – the researchers tested methane emissions in 53 homes and nitrogen oxide emissions in 32 homes, all in California – but the results are worth looking into.

Methane isn’t just highly flammable; it’s an incredibly powerful greenhouse gas. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) estimates that methane has caused about 30% of global warming since the pre-industrial era and is now “spreading faster than at any time since records began in the 1980s.” This is terrible because methane acts quickly . It doesn’t linger in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, but in the short term – about 20 years – it retains heat about 80 times better. Another disturbing fact from the Stanford study: while the highest levels were measured immediately after ignition, more than 75% of total emissions were measured when the stoves were off . Even when the gas stove is just standing still, methane can leak from it.

The other emissions measured in the study, nitrogen oxides, pose a more immediate health risk to your family. The EPA warns that inhaling nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) can irritate the airways, causing coughing, wheezing and/or difficulty breathing; long-term exposure to NO 2 “may contribute to the development of asthma and potentially increase susceptibility to respiratory infections.” These effects are worse for young children and the elderly, who happen to be the demographic most likely to be at home a lot. The results of the Stanford study show that just a few minutes of cooking without an extractor produces enough NO 2 in excess of 100 parts per billion, a concentration that the EPA considers “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”

Good ventilation should eliminate most of the risk of NO 2 inhalation, but too many gas stoves are installed in small, poorly ventilated spaces, and not enough people use a range hood when cooking. Ventilation also does not solve the methane problem. On top of the potential fire risk, if we’re trying to stop global warming, we shouldn’t be spreading the single biggest immediate driver of global temperature increases at all, let alone the highest rates since the 1980s – not when electric alternatives exist.

Electric stoves heat food faster

One of the strangest criticisms of electric stoves I’ve seen in the last week is that they “don’t work”. It’s just a confusing, wrong thing to say. If the function of the stove is to heat food – and I would say that this is its function – electric stoves are clearly better than gas ones. They heat up very quickly and heat the pans through direct contact; as long as there is a pan on the burner, all that heat goes straight to your food. In general, this is a faster and more efficient way of cooking than gas burners.

Of course, this can be a double-edged sword: electric burners can get too hot in a hurry, and since many electric stoves also take a long time to cool down, they can be quite annoying in the summer. But once you understand how to control the heat , you’ll appreciate how quickly you can boil a huge pot of pasta water or heat a cast iron skillet to the perfect seasoning temperature.

Electric stoves are easy to clean

I currently cook on an electric heat exchanger stove and what I love most about it is how easy it is to clean. When I had a gas stove, I let things get SCARY before consuming them and spending 45 minutes or more deep cleaning the cooktop, burners, and grates. I still admit that things are pretty awful with my current stove, but I can undo weeks of neglect in literally 5 minutes or less; if I had a fancy flat top or induction cooker I think it would take even less time. Tip: When cleaning an electric stove, you can and should use the burners to your advantage. Turning them on high and turning them off quickly heats up the surface just enough to make your cleaning solution even more effective. (Be sure to use heat-resistant cleaners.)

Rules for induction cookers

If you mostly associate electric stoves with crappy spiral burners from past rentals, it’s time to rethink this. Electric cooktops have come a long way in the last decade or so, and even further in the 30 or 40 years since every homeowner in the country has bought the same spiral cooker for every one of their apartments. One of the biggest positive changes has been the increased availability of induction cookers in the home, which are incredibly efficient and damn convenient to use. If you’re curious about induction and on a budget, I can recommend this $49.99 portable induction cooktop from Monoprice . It’s fun to play with and if you live alone and/or don’t do much cooking, it can easily become your main source of heat for cooking.

There is exactly one drawback to replacing a gas stove with an electric one: if you lose electricity, you will also lose the ability to cook food. Personally, I think the benefits far outweigh this one downside, especially since you can keep a small camping stove on hand for emergencies. The federal government agrees and actively encourages Americans to replace their gas stoves through the Inflation Reduction Act. Depending on your income and the type of electric stove you are looking for, you can get up to $840 towards a new stove. With so many benefits, there’s no reason to perpetuate the myth that electric stoves suck – they’re actually pretty good.