Many Americans love their gas stoves, and “cooking with gas” is a positive expression. However, gas stoves may represent a danger to everyone in your home.
When natural gas is burned, it produces nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. The World Health Organization has recommended safe levels for these byproducts, but cooking with natural gas often produces pollution levels far above WHO’s recommended levels even for outdoor air quality.
One of these pollutants, nitrogen dioxide, has been linked to asthma and many other diseases. Studies around the globe found that children in homes with gas stoves are 32% more likely to suffer from asthma.
Surprisingly, a recent Stanford University study indicates that methane, a potent greenhouse gas, leaks from gas stoves even when they are turned off. The study’s authors estimate that the total methane leaking from all gas stoves in the US equals the pollution from a half- million gasoline-powered cars.
In light of all these factors, New York City will soon ban gas stoves, water heaters and furnaces from most new buildings. Other cities in California and Washington have passed similar laws.
The state of California has not gone that far but now requires that all new homes have range hoods and exhaust fans in their kitchens. That makes good sense.
Most homes do have range hoods with exhaust fans to move polluted air out of the kitchen. Turning on the fan when using a gas stove will help protect your family’s health, if the system really pushes pollution out of the kitchen and is not one of those idiotic ones that just recycles the air back into your kitchen, slightly filtered.
Opening a kitchen window could also help reduce the buildup of pollutants from your gas stove, whether or not you have an exhaust fan.
It is true that many gourmet cooks and many ordinary Americans prefer gas stoves because they provide instant control of cooking temperatures. However, fast heating is now available with newer “induction” electric stoves. They require cookware that a magnet will stick to, which includes most metal pans except aluminum ones.
My son is a gourmet cook and loves his new induction stove, which heats his cuisine creations much faster and more efficiently than a gas stove could. Cooling, however, is slower than on a gas range.
But if you just have a regular electric stove and are satisfied with it, you can rest assured that it will produce none of the combustion pollutants in your house that a gas stove does.
And if someone says that most electricity for your stove is produced by burning coal, you can remind them that at least electric stoves produce far less pollution in your kitchen than gas ones do.
In any case, renewable sources of electricity are rapidly increasing while coal-fired power is decreasing. For instance, 40% of Provo’s electricity is now from renewables, and its City Council has decided that Provo’s electricity should be 60% renewable by 2030.
However, if you Google up “gas stoves and health,” the first ad that comes up is from the American Gas Association, which claims that “There are no documented risks related to natural gas cooking and health hazards. Global analysis found no link between indoor gas stoves and asthma symptoms.” hmm
In addition to all the findings listed above, the Massachusetts Medical Association has recently recognized the health risks from gas stoves and committed to educating the public about them.
The American Gas Association understandably sees negative publicity on gas stoves as an existential threat to its business. That reminds one of the tobacco industry’s solemn denials of any link between cancer and smoking in the mid-20th century.
Those denials did not stand the test of time, but you can understand why they were issued.
As Upton Sinclair famously noted, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
But those of us concerned about our family’s health should consider switching to an electric stove or at least turning on an exhaust fan when we cook with gas. And all new houses should have a 220-volt outlet in the kitchen for an electric stove.
Don Jarvis is a retired BYU professor and an environmental volunteer who lives in Provo.
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