For many restaurant chefs and enthusiastic amateur cooks, gas has long been the fuel of choice for stove-top cooking. Preparing food over a naked flame is a quicker, more responsive experience than relying on electric or induction heaters, so the thinking goes. But this love affair with gas could be coming to an end in the face of growing evidence of the public health and climate threat it poses.
A commissioner for the US Consumer Product Safety Commission hinted that the agency is considering a ban on new gas stoves for public health reasons this week.
Gas stoves produce nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter 鈥� pollutants also found in traffic fumes 鈥� which can irritate lungs and increase the risk of heart disease and cancer.
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Children and the elderly are most vulnerable. About one in eight cases of childhood asthma in the US is due to the use of gas cooking stoves, .
That figure comes from聽 at RMI, a non-profit organisation promoting clean energy based in Boulder, Colorado, and his colleagues, who carried out a meta-analysis of studies assessing the link between gas cooking stoves and childhood incidence of asthma across North America and Europe.
Based on these findings and survey data on gas stove use, they estimated the fraction of current childhood asthma cases attributable to gas stove use in nine US states.
The study method of scaling up findings from previous research to population-wide outcomes means the one-in-eight headline figure is 鈥渧ery uncertain鈥�, says at Imperial College London, who wasn鈥檛 involved in the work.
But it is clear that gas stoves are a 鈥渕ajor source of indoor air pollution鈥�, he says, which can exacerbate or even cause health conditions like asthma. 鈥淚f the household has got an asthmatic child, they will have more symptoms [with a gas stove] than if they didn鈥檛 have a gas stove,鈥� he says.
Research into indoor air pollution is only just starting to catch up with outdoor pollution studies, having been held back for years by challenges in shrinking measuring equipment to a size suitable for a standard home.
But now the studies are coming thick and fast, showing that gas stoves cause spikes in indoor air pollution many times the levels . Kelly points to , where children were sent to school wearing backpacks kitted out with air pollution monitors. 鈥淢any of the children were actually exposed to more pollution at home in the evenings, when one of the parents was cooking, than what they actually were seeing on the way to school,鈥� he says.
found that residents of southern California using gas stove tops are routinely exposed to nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde levels that exceed safety thresholds for outdoor pollution set by US authorities. The problem is worse in smaller homes without adequate ventilation. 鈥淥ne could argue that the risk associated with a gas stove is likely to be larger than living in a polluted city,鈥� says at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Carbon emissions
The impact on climate change is another issue, and it isn鈥檛 just the carbon emitted from the gas flame that鈥檚 a problem. found that methane leaking from gas-burning cookers in US homes has a climate impact comparable with the carbon dioxide emissions from about 500,000 petrol cars.
More research is needed. In the US, there are no guidelines for safe levels of indoor air pollution. 快猫短视频s are also , in part to establish whether indoor air pollution is more or less harmful to human health than pollutants outside. And studies are under way to find out whether the warnings of methane leakage hold true for European households.
But the seemingly vast public health risk posed by gas stoves means authorities are starting to take notice. In the European Union, cooking on gas may be exposing over 100 million people to levels of indoor air pollution that would violate EU outdoor air pollution regulations, . It is calling for all gas stoves to come with health warning labels.
Climate change policies may force the issue first. By 2025, no new homes in the UK will be built with fossil fuel heating, a move that will almost certainly also mean those homes are kitted out with induction stoves rather than gas ones. In the US, President Joe Biden鈥檚 Inflation Reduction Act will offer households hefty subsidies of up to $1340 for switching from a gas to induction stove.
Researchers agree that if people have the opportunity, they should switch from cooking on gas to electric. Switching is a 鈥渞elatively easy way of reducing your particulate matter and nitrogen oxide exposure鈥�, says at York University, UK.
In the meantime, opening a window and using an extractor fan can also make an immediate difference to indoor air quality, she says 鈥� effective cooker hoods that vent to the outside studies suggest.
Changing cooking habits can also make a difference. 鈥淔rying is a really efficient way of making particles,鈥� says Carslaw. 鈥淥ne thing you can do is steam your food or boil your food instead.鈥�
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