It really depends on the quality of the appliance; something like the Breville Control Freak can give you induction cooking with temperature control down to the degree, whereas my cheap countertop Tefal induction hob just gives a few settings with broad power ranges and you have to figure out what works best for you.
Even for something as simple as pasta, having boiling water in 2 minutes instead of 7 or 8 minutes is huge. I can wait for the former, but with the latter I usually end up doing something else for a bit, and then suddenly 7 or 8 rounds up to 10 or 15 minutes.
I haven't found it to be rough on pans, but I only use thick stainless steel pans with aluminium/copper core.
PS: yes, gas is enjoyable as it gives you this primal heat feeling:)
I haven’t had a pan warp on me for years just being mindful of letting it heat and cool at a reasonable paces rather than blasting them with the ”power” mode. And this is in Europe with our 400v kitchen outlets.
The only thing I don't like about induction are those cooktops where they put the controls as touch buttons on the surface. I'm glad we rented a place in the past with that to learn how stupid it is so as to get one with proper knobs that don't you can't accidentally get hot.
> easier to clean
I haven't found this to be the case, they both require effort to clean.
> not having to deal or worry about gas
Maybe its local specific, what do you worry about ? Whats the hassle in dealing ? The biggest worry I have with gas is remembering to pay the bill.
Electrics are (generally) a smooth flat surface. Of course you're not getting out of it entirely, but it's still a question of night and day compared to the mess of a gas stove.
I'd kill to have a gas stove and be able to do serious stovetop cooking.
[0]: https://www.electrolux.se/services/eml/asset/782bdf32-f709-4...
[1]: https://www.electrolux.se/services/eml/asset/fe80a43d-0b1c-4...
>flat surface with a cast iron disk protruding for each hot surface.
Never seen a design like that.
Given those URLs maybe it's a country thing? Are you in the USA?
Sweden.
We don't get gas pipeline connections here, we get bottles that a company comes and replaces.
Compared to gas, I find induction just as responsive, more powerful on the highest setting. A nice feature is the auto heat which gives it more power until the pan is at the target level then reduces. I also think (but not sure) that the lowest level is far cooler than the lowest gas setting was, making it easier to use for baking - melting butter, chocolate, things that require gentle warming.
So, as I say, other than the specific flames around a wok, it's better overall. I do have an induction wok, it's not as good. It's fine though, I wouldn't trade or bother with a separate gas cooktop just for that.
Unless you start cooking with dirty induction cooktop, they are much easier to clean simply because the temperature is much lower, the surface is flat and easy to clean
"Yes, this is bad for kids with asthma who have the misfortune of living in my neighborhood, but it's great for quesadillas! So you have to look at both sides."
This comment and the other reply are just jaw-droppingly naive and ignorant. The indoor air quality while using a gas stove jumps to wildly unhealthy levels. But those pollutants do not just disappear! Much of it is deposited on indoor walls or residents' lungs, but much of it also leaks out of the building. Yes it is true that one teeny widdle stove won't hurt anyone except yourself, but that's why this is a tragedy of the commons that requires government regulation.
A simile to this is saying electric bikes are dangerous and should be banned because they are motorized transports, and as my neighbor died in a frontal collision between his car and 18 wheeler it's highly irresponsible to let a teenager ride on e-bikes.
Magnitude soup.
The only fix is proper ventilation. Which is unfortunate, because as you note many apartments and homes are not built for it... even in new construction.
Which might be a useful action point for regulatory intervention, rather than something which is much more performative than useful.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2024/6355613
Simply running a gas burner generates about twice as much PM2.5 emissions as pan-frying a chicken breast on an induction stove. And of course gas generates pollution when you're boiling or steaming things, quickly reheating, or anything that doesn't involve burning / Malliard reactions / etc. Using gas means you are at the very least doubling the amount of pollution, and in most cases it's much worse than that.
On top of all that, ventilation does nothing for the environmental impact: https://concernedhealthny.org/2022/10/burning-fossil-fuel-in...
The cited study performed no measurement of gas cooking.
> On top of all that, ventilation does nothing for the environmental impact:
Gas used for cooking is not a meaningful contributor to our overall gas usage.
There's also no worrying about combustion gases in the house.
But I don’t get it otherwise. I’m rarely moving the pan so much that induction wouldn’t be usable.
I've seen it first-hand, too. Pastry chefs in particular seem to appreciate the stability and evenness of low heat that high-end induction brings to the table. You can often see Cedric Grolet use an induction burner on his channel, for example: https://www.instagram.com/cedricgrolet/
I haven't been in a commercial kitchen in years, at that time everything was gas. It was obvious that chefs preferred gas over electric, but at that time induction was still too new for commercial use.
Individuals excel when there's absolutely no rule stopping them, but enough to not make others a threat, and groups excel when there's rules to prevent individuals from taking an advantage over the rest, be it not paying their fair share on maintaining society, ignoring costs that society pays as a whole.
Here the idea is that natural gas is a greenwashed technology and that society would be better off moving away from it, so through this ban you'll start the migration away from natural gas. The individual standpoint is that natural gas is probably cheaper, so fuck the planet if that gets you a better price.
Are there other things to change if you care about the planet? Sure, but that's not the point and doing only one of them isn't going to make a dent on the upcoming climate catastrophes.
Liberalism used to be about the individual and individual rights/freedoms. The term has been redefined (at least in the US) to focus on social and collective issues. When you focus on collective issues you inevitably ban things deemed worse for the collective and enforce those bans on anyone who doesn't conform.
It's really interesting to me that this argument comes up often in environmental issues but is treated like the plague in other areas.
There was a thread a few days ago about the potential defunding of federal weather reporting services. I raised this same basic point, that we must do something about our deficit and even small cuts will help relative to doing nothing.
That landed like a lead balloon, the pain caused by any spending cuts just aren't acceptable to most people, unlike the pains caused by any regulations intended to help the environment.
I used to live in an area with regular tornadoes, having public weather data is life saving. People shouldn't have to die from tornadoes because they're poor.
Most even small towns in my area, the kind with one stop light at best, have community storm shelters. Granted those ultimately are partly subsidized by the federal government, but that is still different than a federal agency program.
To that end, if the concern is tornado safety why doesn't the government give communities or individuals storm shelters for free rather than partially subsidizing them for those who are at least well enough off to throw a few thousand at a small unit?
We absolutely do need to address the deficit as well as our debt. Expenses just to service the debt are a large chunk of our annual budget now. Do you know of any example of a country that ran up a debt to GDP (or similar) ratio this high and didn't have meaningful economic issues? Similarly, do you know of any country that debased its own currency through aggressive money printing and didn't end up collapsing, hyper-inflating, or both?
Interest accrued on debt must be added to the deficit as well, unless you are including that in the budget? I'm not sure how defaulting on debt payments would play out though.
The Republicans went nuts when Bill Clinton started reducing debt with a surplus. They thought debt reduction was a really really bad thing. American is actually pretty average in debt/gdp ratio for developed countries, however. Nowhere near as crazy as Japan.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I'm talking only about reducing the deficit, any debt already owed would still be there and interest on it would still be owed. Cutting spending to reduce deficit would just slow down how quickly the debt grows.
> American is actually pretty average in debt/gdp ratio for developed countries, however. Nowhere near as crazy as Japan.
Oh sure, though in my opinion that's a sign of how many countries are in similar debt trouble rather than it being okay.
The US debt to GDP is currently around 124%. Until very recently it was broadly agreed in economics that over 100% was a huge risk and over 120% was effectively a point of no return before you follow in Japan's footsteps.
Those warning sign levels only got moved once the US passed them. Maybe they're right and it isn't actually a problem, but I can say those original levels came with specific historical examples of countries that failed after those levels and today's understanding of what ratios are okay seem to come with vague explanations and hand waving.
Plus a whole bunch of cookware doesn't work with induction (clay pots, non ferromagnetic bases, etc). I do wonder if any of these "environmental" estimates factor in the environmental cost of replacing a bunch of cookware just to satisfy induction requirements.
South Asian flatbreads like naans, rotis, dosas and parathas can definitely be made well with induction. Plus the precision control of heating opens up new possibilities with all cuisine types.
As for embodied replacement costs - that talking point has been used or rather misused to dismiss everything from solar panels to EVs to wind turbines. Just because there is a payback period doesn't mean that it's insurmountable. What's the payback period on fast fashion and other consumerist nonsense? Infinity right?
Maybe they are better now but it is certainly not the case that all induction cooktops have these magical properties; many are cheap and skimp on something. While in the 5+ apartments I have been in gas has always delivered the same heating experience that I can rely on.
And to your point about rotis, no - it can not be done unless you get a different, heavier bottomed pan suitable for induction. Exactly what I was saying regarding the replacement costs.
As for environmental costs - the thing that surprises me is that induction easily warps even higher end pans. But yes you’re right, you can’t use many different materials.
Natural gas emits particles we would rather not breath in…