Cooking with sunshine

“Now you’re cooking with gas!”

This well-known cliche was developed by the natural gas industry in the late 1930s, a time when many people were replacing their cast iron wood stoves with either gas or electric units. The slogan was worked into routines by Bob Hope and cartoons with Daffy Duck and eventually permeated the culture.

It turns out cooking with gas might not be so great after all.

A recent review of scientific literature by the Rocky Mountain Institute found decades of research pointing to dangerously high levels of indoor air pollutants produced by gas stoves. Burning gas produces nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and particle pollution, all of which are hazardous to human health.

One study showed children in homes with gas stoves are 42% more likely to exhibit asthma symptoms. Another indicated up to 12% of all asthma cases were caused by gas stoves.

Kitchens are often poorly ventilated, and as stoves get older the concentration of dangerous compounds increases.

Beyond the stove itself, cooking with gas requires a natural gas connection to your house and the danger of a catastrophic gas explosion is more than just a remote possibility.

A single event a few years ago in Massachusetts destroyed 40 homes, and closer to home, a tragic explosion in Summerland in 2002 killed a prominent doctor and his wife.

Many people will remember the 2018 Enbridge pipeline explosion, near Prince George, which caused a massive fireball, and the evacuation of 100 nearby homes.

This information hits close to home, because when we bought our house in 2004, it was the first time I had the chance to use a gas cooktop.

I have to say that for me, cooking with gas more than lived up to expectations.

Instant heat, instant off, I could even roast peppers right over the flame.

At the same time, my efforts to decarbonize our household could not ignore the gas stove.

Even though natural gas is billed as “clean burning,” it’s only clean in comparison with coal. The main by-product of burning natural gas is carbon dioxide and while it is not dangerous to breathe in low concentrations, it is the primary driver of climate change.

Natural gas extraction, either through fracking, or as a biproduct of pumping oil, causes environmental damage of many kinds, but most shockingly is responsible for 33% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This is before it is shipped, liquified, or burned. Those activities add a further 25% of global emissions.

So, as our gas stove came to the end of its life, we started to research alternatives. There are a number of electric options, from the classic coil type electric, to the cleaner ceramic tops.

But, what really stood out was induction. These stoves have been used in commercial kitchens for decades, and use magnetic forces to directly heat the pans used for cooking.

The cooktop does not get hot, just the pan, which makes them very safe, and easy to clean. So far, I’d say the experience is better than cooking with gas.

My stove is connected to our solar panels.

Now we’re cooking with sunshine!

Chris Allen is an architect and father of three teenagers. He lives in Penticton in a small house with a big yard. This column appears every second week in The Herald.