Gas, electric, or induction: Which is the best kind of stove?

Gas or electric: the debate rages! But I’m not talking about cars. This is about stoves.

Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English lesson number 545. At Plain English, we help you upgrade your English skills with lessons about current events, trending topics, and English expressions. JR is the producer. He has made sure that the full lesson content is live and ready for you at PlainEnglish.com/545.

Coming up today: the debate between gas or electric stoves. Which is better? Which is better for you? And what about induction? I have a feeling I know what side the chefs will fall on, but I’ll let you decide which you like best after learning about all three.

Every week I analyze the transcript of the main lesson and I choose an English expression or phrasal verb to talk about in more detail. Which expression won out today? Usually I tell you, but today I’ll make you wait until the second half of the lesson to find out.

Let’s get going!

Gas, electric, or induction: the pros and cons of each

The very first gas stove was invented in England in 1802. But like many great inventions, the idea didn’t catch on right way. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that a natural gas stove found commercial success in England. It didn’t become popular in the U.S. until well into the twentieth century.

As recently as the 1930s and 1940s, many households in America still used wood- or coal-burning stoves in their kitchens. Those had to be replaced with newer gas or electric cook stoves for safety reasons. Something else important was happening at the same time: With the advent of the car, people started moving out of the cities and into new single-family homes in the suburbs. And that transition came with a choice. Should a new house have a gas stove or an electric stove?

The natural gas industry coined a phrase in its marketing: “Now you’re cooking with gas.” The slogan was meant to show that gas was superior to electric stoves in the all-important war in kitchen appliances. The marketing campaign was a huge success, and many people thought gas stoves were superior to electric. Even today, the phrase “cooking with gas” means to do something successfully or to achieve something great.

Still, electricity broadly won out . In the U.S., for example, about two thirds of households have an electric stove, compared with just one third with gas. I couldn’t find reliable statistics by country, but Britain seems to like its gas stoves, while electric stoves are the overwhelming preference in mainland Europe.

But now the stove wars are heating up again. The U.S. has an independent government agency called the Consumer Products Safety Commission, or the CPSC. One commissioner said in an interview that the CPSC would consider banning gas stoves, on safety grounds. And so that got me thinking: which really is the best kind of stove?

There are three kinds: natural gas, traditional electric, and induction. Let’s look at all three.

First, gas. A gas stove burns natural gas to generate heat. On the stovetop, you light a ring of gas with a match, a lighter, or a built-in starter. A gas stove has the advantage of being very precise. You control the gas with a knob and you can make very small adjustments to the heating element.

Since it’s a flame, it’s very responsive; you turn the knob up, the heat increases immediately. You can also use a gas stove directly to blister peppers or, as JR does, to warm tortillas. And if your electricity goes out, the gas stove still works—good for areas prone to storms that knock out the power.

There are a few disadvantages. First, you need a permanent gas line for a stove. If you don’t already have a gas hookup, it can be expensive to install one—if one is available at all. Second, a gas stove burns a greenhouse gas in your house—not much, but it does burn a fossil fuel in the interior of your home.

Gas stoves have been linked to asthma in young children and other conditions in adults. The safest way to operate a gas stove is with ventilation to the outside. That, however, is not always present: in fact, none of my kitchens has featured ventilation to the outside. And finally, it’s dangerous if a gas stove leaks.

All right, then, how about traditional electric? In a traditional electric stove, electricity heats a metal coil and you place your pots and your frying pans on top of the coil. The heat transfers from the coil to your pan. Older models have exposed coils, while the coils on newer stoves sit under a ceramic or glass surface.

Electric stoves take longer to heat up and longer to cool down. That means, you’ll wait longer to boil a pot of water. After you’re done cooking, the surface remains hot, which can be a burn risk. And while you’re cooking, if you adjust the heat settings, you may have to wait several seconds for the new settings to take effect . Since many cooktops come with settings from one to ten, it can be hard to find the sweet spot for what you need in the moment. If the coils are exposed, they’re very difficult to clean.

Why would anyone want this? Well, they are cheaper. They are safer: you can’t get carbon monoxide poisoning from an electric stove. They don’t directly burn greenhouse gases. And every home already has electricity, so you don’t need more infrastructure.

There is another option, and that is induction. In a traditional electric stove, there is a heat source, a surface, and then you place a metal pan onto the surface. The heat transfers from the source to the surface, to the pan, and then to your food.

With induction, the energy is generated from an electromagnetic field below a glass surface. When you place an induction-compatible pan on the glass surface, the heat goes directly to the pan; it doesn’t heat the surface first. In other words, it skips a step.

This means a few things. First, it’s more efficient. More of the heat-generating energy goes to the pan, so less is wasted. Second, the surface never heats up, so you can’t burn yourself by accidentally touching the surface, before, during, or after cooking.

However, it also means that you have to use a special type of cookware. Induction works with an electromagnetic field, so you need to use cookware that’s made from a magnetic material. That means you can use cast iron, steel, magnetic stainless steel, and ceramic with steel components. But you can’t use copper, aluminum, and some types of ceramic.

If the U.S. transitions away from gas stoves, it will be gradual. The most likely scenario is that new safety regulations will make new gas stoves too expensive compared with electric, and that new houses and apartments will increasingly come with electric or induction stoves. That is just my prediction. Commercial kitchens may be exempt , as most chefs prefer gas stoves and commercial kitchens can be ventilated. One chef taped himself to his gas stove to show that he’ll never switch to electric.

I just love my gas stove

My preference is for a gas stove. I actually thought gas was far more common than it is. I have only ever had a gas stove, in all the places I’ve lived. I did not realize that in every place I’ve lived, I’ve been in the minority in this respect. Even now in Mexico, I have a gas stove.

I spent a month at an apartment with an electric cooktop and I hated it. At the setting number 6, my rice was boiling over. At 5 it wasn’t even simmering. There was no 5.5! So I set it at 6 and then raised and lowered the pot to keep it from overflowing. And it took a half hour to boil a pot of water for pasta—if it even got to boiling. I hated it, I hated everything about that cooktop. I could never find the right setting for anything.

JR hates electric, too. His stove is electric and he has the exposed coils that heat up. But the coils can get uneven. So the stove can be level, but the coils can be askew. So when JR tries to cook his eggs, they slide to one side of the pan.

I like my gas stove, but they say you need a fan that vents to the outside. The fans above my stoves have never vented to the outside. They mostly just make noise—I don’t think these fans do anything other than make noise and give you the illusion of ventilation. Ugh. I don’t want to think about this, I love the gas stove too much!