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So many studies about gas stoves, ignoring the possibility that there’s adequate ventilation (tbf there usually isn’t) or the possibility that a lot of emissions are still there when cooking with electricity.
Biggest problem overall is the shitty standard that is accepted for range hoods.
Not to detract from the possibility that gas stoves are an unreasonable risk, but let’s collect all the data.
The emissions talked about with gas stoves come from the gas being burned.
Electric stoves, like induction stoves, don't have emissions.
If your food emits benzene, something is wrong with your food
Not true. No matter what stove you cook with, cooking can produce large amounts of oil fumes (vaporized oil particles), smoke, and other VOCs from your food. All of this stuff is bad for your lungs.
Unless all you cook is boiled pasta, rice, veggies, gently simmered sauces, and sous vide (but not seared) proteins, you’re going to need a good quality range hood that (ideally) vents cooking emissions outside.
And if you use the "self-clean" feature on your oven (you shouldn't regardless), it's going to spew out some nasty shit.
The emissions from the act of cooking itself are not negligible and are never considered in these studies. Or perhaps I haven’t seen one that does; I don’t keep that close an eye on it.
This article reports on a study that measured benzene emissions in some scenarios and then leaps to conclusions based on those measurements. There’s no control.
But your food doesn't emit benzene.
It emits high levels of pm2.5 which cause cancer
What does? Your food? Or your stove?
If it's your food, you might want to change your diet, because that's not healthy.
Tbh, I'm always smoking the house up to get the right crisp on my chicken. I might be using the wrong oil, and I know I'm probably not the only one lol
Sorry to but into this convo but cooking at around 300 degrees f starts creating advanced glycation end products (age) which is a driver of inflammation. It's always better to make stews or soups rather than fry in oil or air bake fat, carbs, and protein together.
You’re throwing out entire continents worth of cuisine. You’re essentially saying “do not sauté or stir fry anything.”
But here’s the sad reality: you could live your whole life eating nothing but bland, boiled food and still get lung cancer from VOCs and PM2.5 particles in the air due to the pollution of city life.
That's a great comment. So we shouldn't fry foods which combine fat carbs and protein. Those are mostly the invention of modern industrial processes beginning in the 1800s. Most cultures had fairly healthy ways of cooking foods prior to the 1800s. And soups and stews are universal dishes native to all cultures going back into antiquity and probably the invention of pottery.
I have a funny story. Ghengis khan, as he got older, began to think about improving his health. He sent for a man ( daoist) rumored to be an immortal. The man admitted he was not an immortal but he was very old. At least 70. The great khan said that he would like to live longer.
The Daoist replied:
"For starters you could eat less fried meat and boil it instead."
The Khan's response seemed plagiarized from a patient in a doctor's office today and the world's greatest conqueror, a bloodied steppe warrior, probably made the pinched face of a baby rejecting vegetables.
For some reason lightly burning food makes it incredibly delicious but it also releases dangerous compounds which oddly broadly increase cancer rates. I think even lung cancer risk increases. But we've known about it since antiquity and so few cultures ate them in large quantities until the modern era.
“For some reason”
You seem like a curious person. You should do some more research into cooking and why the Maillard and caramelization reactions produce such delicious food. It isn’t the carcinogenic byproducts that taste good (those tend to be quite bitter), it’s all the other complicated compounds produced from those reactions of proteins and sugars. By the way, these reactions can be achieved without burning the food at all, just not with most traditional cooking techniques.
Even still, you can get cancer from cooking without burning food at all. Heat up a bunch of oil to its smoke point and throw some water in there. In addition to creating a huge oily mess, you’ll fill the air with countless tiny droplets of oil and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are a known carcinogen. However, you can reduce the risks by not reheating used cooking oil, instead using only fresh oil every time.
You can also greatly reduce the risks by not heating the oil to its smoke point. It’s actually not necessary to heat oils to their smoke point in order to achieve the desirable browning flavour reactions.
As for life time of only eating bland boiled food: I would trade away a couple extra years of lifespan for avoiding that. Keep in mind that many of the most delicious soups and stews feature lots of seared, roasted, or fried ingredients anyway. Plus as I said, you can still get cancer even if you never eat or drink anything unhealthy. The air, the soil, and the water are all polluted with carcinogens. Even switching to electric cars will not help: the road, brake, and tire damage creates loads of PM2.5 particles which will destroy your lungs. This damage increases with the 4th power of vehicle mass, which means electric vehicles (that are far heavier) are actually far worse at producing this pollution!
I mean, surely switching to EVs will help since then you’d only be dealing with road, brake, and tire particulate rather than those things in addition to emissions.
Great comment. So that is true but also a common misconception about the older soups or stews. It is common in modernity to braise or fry meat before adding it to a stew but that is because the complex flavors obtained through all day or multi day simmering are more labor intensive and therefore do not fit into modern industrial processes.
The Maillard reaction cannot be achieved through simmering alone. The temperature is too low. Simmering meat over a long period of time is useful for breaking down collagen and making a rich broth but you will not have the same deep, browned flavour as a broth made from roasted meat.
Any time the temperature goes above 160-180 is my understanding, and usually more so with frying
Are you using Celsius? Fahrenheit that's near a sous vide temperature range and totally safe.
Regarding carcinogens, burning or browning anything is bad. But advanced glycation end products form when tou have the combination of carbs, fats, and protein plus dry heat.
Yes I am using standard units
If you reread my comment i noted that it was 300 f and you said no it was much lower.
I think you gotta reread, I didn't reply to that comment
The pilot lights always seemed like a wasteful idea to me, never even considering they would be releasing combustion byproducts into the air all the time.
I'm not aware of any modern residential gas stoves which use a pilot, they use a spark to ignite on demand. Commercial ranges sometimes have a pilot though.
It's still relatively common to have a pilot in a gas water heater or furnace though.
Anything that uses a standing pilot light these days is vented to ensure CO2 exposure is minimal. Pilots kick off enough heat to warm the vent itself and cause a stack effect, pulling the exhaust out. My fireplaces use pilot lights and you can use incense smoke to see the updraft (although that incense smoke is of course carcinogenic).
Don't have kids, problem solved.
Childhood cancer and child hunger reduced with this one easy trick(?)
I can remember a time in this country when men were proud to get cancer, God dammit! When it was a sign of manhood! John Wayne had cancer twice. Second time, they took out one of his lungs. He said, "Take 'em both! Cuz I don't fuckin' need 'em! I'll grow gills and breathe like a fish!"
Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type
He was super-duper.
They aren't measuring actual cancer rates, just the exposure to benzene and using that to estimate cancer risk. But compared to what? No cooking at all!
The real world is more complex. What's the health exposure of eating out all the time or grilling (charcoal or propane)? How healthy are cooked foods vs. microwaved foods?
At best, this study suggests you should have good home ventilation.
Good point actually about the air ventilation. I was pretty meh about it unless something started to burn, but I recently bought a cheap air quality meter and measure spikes 2 rooms away. And just from normal cooking. Stoves, air fryer, ovens... Just a good habit to get into.
If you have an external venting range hood, use it all the time even if it's just on low.
Recently installed a top-tier range hood and the company owner came out to meet me in their showroom. He pointed out stoves have gotten hotter over the past years, especially with wok cooking, so running the hood is essential when the stove is on if just to keep the electronics cool. This significantly extends the devices life.
Last decent study I saw (I'm too lazy to go find it) showed that grilling or smoking meat seems to increase health risks including cancer by a noticeable amount. Higher than I was comfortable with seeing, considering how often I grill or smoke meat. But, I still do it plenty. I didn't see the data crossed out by the amount of meat intake, which is generally higher for people who grill at all. And could honestly account for some added health risks.
Roughly 40% of U.S. households — and more than 70% of California households — use a natural gas cooking appliance, according to a 2023 estimate from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Growing concern over health and environmental impacts has prompted action in several states. In California, lawmakers passed AB2513 last year, which would have required warning labels on gas stoves sold in stores starting in 2026. Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, vetoed the bill.
California's electricity rates are about twice those of most other US states.
I think that California would have more luck getting people to use electricity instead of natural gas if they'd work on getting California electricity prices down to something comparable to most of the other 48 states.
Probably also have more luck getting people to use electric vehicles instead of ICE vehicles.
Gas is expensive in California too though.
I installed solar panels on my house. Given how expensive electricity is in California, I estimated it'd only take me around 5-6 years to break even, and that number keeps going down as they increase electricity prices higher and higher. Electricity prices doubled from 2022 to 2024.
Electricity is significantly cheaper in areas that have municipal electricity, ran by the city itself. In PG&E's area, it's 62 cents per kWh during summer peak. On the other hand, I used to live in Palo Alto where electricity is around 18 cents per kWh, flat rate (no peak and off-peak rates).
Gas is expensive in California too though.
I'm not sure if natural gas in California is expensive compared to other areas, but I have natural gas in my heater, water heater, laundry, stove, and oven and I pay less than $30/month. My electricity bill is an order of magnitude higher each month and there's only two people in my household and we don't even have an AC or electric vehicle.
That's why I only use locally sourced all-natural charcoal in my kitchen stove.
It turns out that burning carcinogens in your living area isn't the greatest idea. Who would have thought??
Dang, another thing I'll have to change in the kitchen now (-_- )
Although switching from Teflon and other non-stick pans and skillets has been nice.
That's kinda the point of these articles. California is on a campaign to vilify gas and convert everything to electric. Not saying that's entirely bad, but there are pros and cons.
The cancer risk is what, 0.9% greater over the lifespan? Or 30-60 folks in the entire USA?
We have gone so overboard with this prop 65 stuff we have warnings on coffee shops and everything. It's lost all meaning. But someone's resume is well padded.
These fucks and their prop 65 bull shit. Everything causes cancer. But it's okay for my kids' clothes and bedding to be filed with flame retardant? Why? There's a higher risk of them spontaneously combusting rather than getting cancer?
Wtf doesn't cause cancer
There are so many studies that stare things “may” or “could” cause cancer but it’s not proven. My wife saw an article that said eating chicken could cause cancer.
Like, how much more natural can you get?
There's chicken and there's chicken.
There's chicken, and then there's the weird, chlorine-cleaned, antibiotic-pumped meat that the US calls 'chicken'.
Like, how much more natural can you get?
If you're purchasing chicken from the grocery store, there's a lot about it that is unnatural. Modern animal ag is very unnatural.
I do not know specifically what would cause cancer, but bioaccumulation of environmental toxins (e.g. pesticides) seems a likely culprit. But this is only speculation on my part.
California is known to the state of California to cause cancer.