Is Cooking With Gas… Gaslighting You? Why Cooking With Gas Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

[Sarah] (0:00 - 0:05)
Is it true that gas stoves can produce pollutant levels similar to outdoor traffic pollution?

[Anthony] (0:06 - 0:10)
Yes, absolutely. In fact, the pollutant levels can exceed outdoor levels.

[Sarah] (0:14 - 1:41)
Welcome to the Good Energy Guide. No jargon, no guesswork, just better energy choices. Brought to you by Ausgrid, electricity distributor for Sydney, the Central Coast and Hunter region.

I'm your host, Sarah Aubrey. Today we're talking about the place gas shows up most often in Australian homes, the kitchen. Gas stoves have long been seen as the gold standard, but a lot of people don't realise how much they can affect the air you breathe, not just while you cook.

We're going to unpack what that blue flame actually releases, how quickly pollutants can build up in a kitchen, and why some households notice coughing, irritation or asthma flare-ups around mealtimes. For decades, cooking with gas, or now you're cooking with gas, has been shorthand for doing something well. The phrase came from a marketing push back in the 1930s, when gas replaced wood and coal as the modern, efficient option in kitchens.

But while cooking technology has moved on, the idea that gas is the gold standard has stuck around. To help us break it all down, we're joined by Dr Anthony Hull from Doctors for the Environment Australia. Welcome, Anthony.

[Anthony]
Thanks very much, Sarah. 

[Sarah]
Okay, let's talk about kitchens and gas stoves. What's actually happening in the air when someone turns on a gas burner?

[Anthony] (1:42 - 2:32)
So, the gas combusts. It's a flammable thing, which is one of the dangers of having gas in any home. It burns very easily, but it doesn't burn completely.

In the absence of complete combustion, which is what we call it, you get these by-products, including things like nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and you also get almost completely and completely combusted gas. Gas, so raw methane, with volatile organic compounds, such as benzene, can come out of that flame as well. Then benzene as well, which is a carcinogen, can come out from partially combusted gas.

The hotter it burns, though, the more nitrogen oxides you're going to get. If it burns a little bit cooler in some parts of the flame, then you'll get a little bit more carbon monoxide coming out of the flame. Both of them are very dangerous.

[Sarah] (2:32 - 2:39)
Wow. Why don't people connect gas cooking with breathing or lung irritation at the moment?

[Anthony] (2:40 - 2:57)
I think people just aren't aware of the problem. Also, the pollutants that emanate from a gas flame, you can't smell them, and you can't see them. They're invisible.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons why gas has been seen as a clean or healthy way to cook, because you actually can't see the pollutants that are affecting your health.

[Sarah] (2:57 - 3:01)
What are some of those symptoms that you might experience that you don't realize as your gas stove?

[Anthony] (3:01 - 3:47)
It could be coughing, including an acute onset of a productive cough where you feel like you're coughing up phlegm that could last for hours. It could be wheeziness or an asthma attack. It could be a little bit of dizziness or tiredness over time, or a headache because of carbon monoxide exposure.

All sorts of little things that people would think are normally run-of- the-mill feelings that they have, and they just dismiss it. I get them myself when I go into a cafe and sit near the kitchen where they have multiple gas burners. I develop a cough.

It's almost predictable exactly. It's only because I'm aware of it, though, that I realize that connection. I usually try to sit as far away from a kitchen in a commercial business as I can when I'm having lunch or something out.

[Sarah] (3:48 - 3:50)
Imagine how bad that is for people working all day in a kitchen.

[Anthony] (3:51 - 4:05)
Terrible. There are stories from my wife's medical practice, actually. She works as a cardiologist, and she sees occasionally chefs who have severe asthma.

They had no idea that cooking with gas can actually worsen their symptoms.

[Sarah] (4:06 - 4:12)
You said that burning as you turn on your gas stove, how quickly does that build up?

[Anthony] (4:13 - 5:05)
Very rapidly. You get a bit of a spike. At the time you're actually cooking, the pollutants are being generated very rapidly.

It's going to build up relating to the size of home that you're in. So, the levels of pollutants will be higher and quicker in a small apartment, for example, that's quite well sealed and we don't have windows open. Whereas if you're in a bigger house, then the pollution will spread out more and the levels will be lower.

They won't build up quite so fast. Unfortunately, often the division there between small and large residences is along a socioeconomic dividing line. It's often the people in the smaller premises who can't afford to electrify their home or get out of gas, or their tenants and they're unable to change their appliances to electric, so they suffer from the pollution potentially as time goes on more.

[Sarah] (5:05 - 5:48)
With the gas stove, and in particular the gas heater we had in our house, which was on flute, I experienced a whole bunch of those symptoms. Dizziness, sleepiness, headaches. I always had this runny nose, blocked nose.

When we actually electrified the house and removed gas, it was summer, so we weren't using the gas heater. The minute we took that stove out of the house, which was from the 1990s, so guaranteed it would have been leaking. As soon as that was disconnected and taken out of the house and we put the induction stove in, the air in the house completely changed.

I could breathe better, the blocked nose went, no more sleepiness, no more headaches, none of those symptoms, all gone. It absolutely was the gas.

[Anthony] (5:49 - 5:50)
Yeah, and that's not surprising.

[Sarah] (5:51 - 5:59)
What are some of the prevailing myths around a gas stove? We were talking earlier actually about not being able to cook with a wok, for example. Is that true?

[Anthony] (6:00 - 6:36)
They actually make induction stove compliant woks with a flat base. I know people who actually teach people, teach cooking classes with a wok on an induction stove. It's interesting that induction stoves have been used in commercial premises, restaurants, for many years.

It's only in recent times, relatively speaking, that they've become a domestic appliance. That's probably been just because of cost and technology barriers, but now they are widely available. I think it's like maybe in 2016, 52% or 53% of all stoves being bought in the EU were induction.

[Sarah] (6:36 - 6:43)
Why are children and people with asthma or older adults particularly sensitive to these pollutants?

[Anthony] (6:44 - 7:55)
Well, children have been shown to have a significantly increased risk of becoming asthmatic if they live in homes that have gas appliances. The figure is around 30% to 40% increased risk of a child being diagnosed asthmatic. Partly, children are affected more seriously than adults, although adults are also affected because they have bigger lungs relative to the size of their body and they breathe more.

They get more of the dose of those toxic pollutants into their lungs, which directly irritate their airways and the lung tissue inside their lungs, not to mention the pollutants that then go into their bloodstream to every other organ in their body. Then people with preexisting disease like emphysema, for example, they're more prone to respiratory tract infections in general or episodes of wheeziness or shortness of breath. So, if you add on top of that pollution that's emitted from a gas stove, then you're going to see more effects on them because they're already susceptible to the problem.

It can also worsen the progress of a disease like emphysema, being regularly exposed to nitrogen dioxide, which is one of the main pollutants that we talk about regarding cooking with gas.

[Sarah] (7:56 - 8:07)
If you were going to let people know, what symptoms around mealtimes might actually be related to cooking with gas, what would you like people to take note of, keep an eye on?

[Anthony] (8:08 - 9:04)
I think the most common thing, the thing that would be most obvious as well and easy to track would be things like feeling a bit wheezy, feeling a little bit short of breath, having a bit of a cough, even a productive cough where you have a bit of phlegm that comes up, which all represent inflammation inside your airways and in your lungs. Those things happen fairly quickly because it's immediately the toxic gases entering your lungs and they're having their effect there. Other effects are sometimes slower to onset because it's via your bloodstream affecting your organs and it could be over months and years and they could be more low-grade symptoms that are a little bit more vague, but still problematic.

But at mealtimes in particular, I think they're the ones that you might notice the most. In a normally functioning home with gas appliances that are normally functioning, you might be more affected by your appliance if it's not working quite right or if your ventilation is poor, you could be getting carbon monoxide poisoning as well.

[Sarah] (9:04 - 9:18)
Wow. Well, that's of course, a lot of homes don't have those rangehoods, do they? Or they're not working properly, they're ducted to the top of the cupboard or people just don't turn them on or they're not there full stop.

Lots of rentals I've lived in didn't even have them.

[Anthony] (9:18 - 9:39)
Exactly. And it's a major problem and some studies indicate that only around 35% of people actually use a rangehood. And then of those people, a lot of people won't be using it effectively.

So, it'll only be causing some reduction of the exposure to the pollutants. It's worth noting that you can never get 100% reduction of the pollution exposure just by using a rangehood or ventilating your home.

[Sarah] (9:39 - 9:44)
Is it true that gas stoves can produce pollutant levels similar to outdoor traffic pollution?

[Anthony] (9:44 - 9:49)
Yes, absolutely. In fact, the pollutant levels can exceed outdoor levels.

[Sarah] (9:50 - 9:53)
Exceed? So, it could be worse inside than outside?

[Anthony] (9:53 - 10:00)
It can be worse inside your home than outside beside a busy road. Not just any road, but worse than on a busy street.

[Sarah] (10:00 - 10:03)
Can your stove leak even when it's turned off?

[Anthony] (10:04 - 10:51)
Yeah, there's a body of work out of the United States that looked at this question because it makes sense that stoves could leak. Gas is a very small molecule, methane, and it's pumped under pressure into homes. Pipes are not ideal.

I think a plumber would tell you pipes leak all the time. Gas leaks even more easily than water. So, it makes good sense that it's leaking.

So, some researchers tried to look at it and quantify it. They found that about 1% of gas consumption in the homes that they checked was from leakage. And three quarters of that leakage was between uses of the gas stovetop or oven.

So, some of it's leaking while the oven's being used or the stovetop is being used. In this case, they're looking mainly at stovetops, but the predominant amount of it is being leaked between cooking episodes.

[Sarah] (10:52 - 10:56)
I mean, hand up if you've never walked past a house and smelt gas outside.

[Anthony] (10:56 - 10:58)
So common. So common.

[Sarah] (10:58 - 11:12)
Yeah. So, it stands to reason it would be leaking in homes. Another myth that I have actually seen quite commonly in my comments online is that you can't get an induction stove if you have a pacemaker.

Is that true?

[Anthony] (11:12 - 13:17)
That's not true. In fact, probably you could put that in the category of be aware but not alarmed. A cardiologist, a person's doctor might give them individual advice and I would definitely not discourage that they get advice if they're going to change their cooking to induction, for example, because induction stoves involve a magnetic current which can interfere with electronic equipment like pacemakers.

However, the recommendations even from producers vary fairly widely. So, one brand of pacemaker might say keep more than 60 centimetres away from the induction stove with your pacemaker placement in your chest. Another one would say 30 centimetres away.

And these same companies would recommend, for example, being careful around other appliances like mobile phones or even hair dryers. In some cases, 15 centimetres would be the quoted limit from a mobile phone. So, as you can see...

[Sarah]
Good luck.

[Anthony]
The recommendations vary a lot, right? And that indicates a certain degree of uncertainty around how harmful it is. One thing that can be said is that if you really get close to an induction stove with a pacemaker, it could impact the functioning of the pacemaker.

The response wouldn't be from the pacemaker that it stops. Generally, it would just pace at a fixed rate, which is what we call it. So, you're still being paced. Very, very uncommonly, there might be reports of a fast and abnormally fast heart rate from getting too close to an induction stove.

Now, in the event that that happens and you move away from the stove, that is immediately reversed. It's a temporary effect. And many pacemakers nowadays, for quite a few years now, are built to withstand magnetic fields, even as strong as an MRI imaging machine.

So many pacemakers nowadays wouldn't really be something you have to be overly concerned about. I think it's fairly clear that a lot of people with pacemakers around the world cook with induction stoves. Someone once said to me, if you're really worried though, get your partner to do the cooking.

So maybe that's another word.

[Sarah] (13:17 - 13:28)
That's a good excuse. Okay. So, we've talked about the problem.

Let's talk about solutions. What's the easiest way or ways to reduce exposure while cooking with gas?

[Anthony] (13:29 - 14:32)
So, if you're using gas in your home, the easiest way is to ventilate your house appropriately and ventilate the cooking area appropriately. So that's with a well-functioning, well-maintained range hood that vents to the outside of your home. That's turned up to maximum with your main cooking area focused on the back two gas jets so that most of the pollution goes into the rangehood and with good cross ventilation.

And that means come winter or summer that you have a window open, unfortunately, to allow the rangehood to suck as much air as possible up out of your kitchen. Even if you do that though, it only gives you a partial protection from the buildup of pollutants. Pollutants will still build up in your house.

And it's worth keeping in mind that if you're using a gas heater in winter while you're cooking and you don't have really good cross ventilation with windows open, then the rangehood can be sucking some of the pollutants from the gas heater that normally would have gone out the flue to the outside air back into the home. So, you're almost in a catch 22 sometimes.

[Sarah] (14:32 - 14:45)
And who wants to open a window in winter or the heat of summer? If someone can't change their appliance yet, maybe they're a renter, maybe they can't afford to do it, what are the best low-cost solutions?

[Anthony] (14:46 - 14:56)
So, the best way is to get some portable appliances that you can use instead of having them actually wired in. So that would be benchtop induction stoves. You can get single or dual hob stoves.

[Sarah] (14:56 - 14:58)
You can just plug that into a regular power point.

[Anthony] (14:58 - 15:31)
Plug it straight in. They're fantastic. I've used them before.

They look great as well. And they're getting better every time you look at them, for example, if you're shopping for them. And then instead of using a gas oven, you could use an air fryer.

Air fryers are getting better and better as well and larger. And they're an incredibly good way if you're not cooking vast amounts of food, for example, in an apartment with a small family, then you can probably get away with that. And that way you don't have to use your gas stove or your gas oven until such time as you can afford or arrange to have them swapped out at a later time.

[Sarah] (15:31 - 15:50)
And actually, a big positive with induction stoves is that they are just so much easier to clean. I don't know about you, but I used to hate cleaning around, just trying to get around a gas stove. There's such a pain to keep clean.

Induction, glass, get a bit of, you know, the cleaner, it looks brand new every time. It's gorgeous. And it's super, super easy.

[Anthony] (15:51 - 15:57)
Not to mention you can use it as a bench space in between times as well, really easily and effectively. Saves you a square metre of bench.

[Sarah] (15:57 - 16:45)
Yeah. They look nice. Clean. Minimalists. Rejoice.

 Actually, one more thing I want to point out that many people aren't aware of is the difference between an induction stove, so the new lovely induction stoves versus the old ceramic electric stoves.

I think people still think these induction stoves, they're just like those really old crap, ceramic electric, which would get very hot. They were hard to control. My mum still got one at her place.

It gets really, really hot. And an induction stove doesn't. You can touch around it.

It gets a little bit warm. So, for kids, safety-wise as well, the surface itself, the pot gets hot, but the surface around it doesn't get, it gets a little bit warm, right, to touch. So, I think there is confusion around that, around those two different technologies.

[Anthony] (16:46 - 16:59)
And the safety issue is important there too, because induction stoves not getting hot is really important. If you've got kids in the house too, take the pot off. And then it can be warm because the pot was there, but not like those old ones where they got really hot.

[Sarah] (16:59 - 17:14)
Yeah. I mean, you can touch it. It's warm, but you won't burn.

Let's talk about efficiency. Lots of people think gas is so efficient and so quick. Is that the case compared to induction?

Because I don't think it is.

[Anthony] (17:15 - 17:28)
No. Well, using gas for heating, for cooking is actually very inefficient because a lot of the energy is wasted. 50%, maybe 75% of the energy from the gas flame is actually wasted in heat that goes into your kitchen environment.

[Sarah] (17:28 - 17:29)
It's coming up around the pot.

[Anthony] (17:29 - 17:58)
It goes around. That's right. You can't control it.

It's not focused. And so, you're really paying a lot of money for that gas that's not actually heating your food and is contributing to the pollution inside your house. If you then take that into the commercial setting, like commercial kitchens, you can imagine how hot they get.

And in the increasingly hot summers and in our homes as well, that can be a bit of a problem. So, I think one thing that people notice with induction cooking is that in summer, the kitchens just don't get as hot anymore.

[Sarah] (17:59 - 19:02)
Actually, I noticed that I can now open my kitchen window and the flame doesn't blow out because there is no flame. It used to happen all the time. You'd have it at low heat.

You'd open the window and it would just blow out the flame. It was like, oh, every time. But now it doesn't happen.

And actually, people think that gas is quicker than induction. I conducted a little experiment where I put a litre of water on an induction stove and a litre of water on a gas stove. It took two minutes for the water to boil on the induction stove.

It took over four and a half minutes for the gas. I was still waiting at four and a half minutes. It still hadn't boiled.

So that's just more efficient as well, that it's just quicker. And it doesn't really send your bill through the roof. I was actually concerned because you see the watts on an induction stove and you think, oh, it's 2000 watts.

Is that going to use that much energy? But no, that's at its absolute maximum if you're using all four burners at once, which you never do. You might put one on a booster and then you'll have one on low.

It's not actually using that much energy when it's on. So, it won't send your bills through the roof either.

[Anthony] (19:03 - 19:07)
And it's cheaper than using gas. That's been fairly well documented across the country.

[Sarah] (19:07 - 19:28)
Well, you'll save a lot of money from not having a gas bill. And honestly, I could ruin cereal. Even I can use an induction stove.

So, you can too. I promise. It's very, very simple.

Do you have any either personal experience or do you know any people who've actually noticed an improvement in those symptoms that you described earlier once they removed gas from their home?

[Anthony] (19:28 - 20:26)
Yeah, I do. And interestingly, what I find in medicine, like in my practice, is that the only limit to the number of stories you hear is just how often you ask about it and actually define what people are experiencing in their own homes with gas. But literally two days ago, I had an elderly gentleman in a clinic who had a bit of a cough, and I asked him, does he use gas in his home?

And he said no, but he used to be a smoker. So, he's got a bit of disease from smoking in the past. But his daughter who was there helping him was very, very interested and said, oh, what do you mean?

Why is gas a problem? And I told her a bit more about it. And she said, well, that's it.

I'm swapping out all my gas appliances because my daughter has had asthma her whole life. I cook with gas at home. I always have.

And in the last few years, I've been cooking more because I've been at home a lot more. And my adult husband has been diagnosed with asthma in the last three years. 

That's just one example of many that I could offer you.

[Sarah] (20:28 - 20:35)
Stop it. Wow. And unless you ask people the question, we're just not going to know, are we?

[Anthony] (20:36 - 20:51)
No. Well, as a doctor, it's very frustrating to hear things like that because in aviation, as in medicine, you remove the cause. That's the only thing that'll stop it happening again.

So, unfortunately, it will happen again and again until we remove gas from homes.

[Sarah] (20:52 - 21:05)
Yeah. Wow. That is sobering, but also good to talk about solutions.

All right. Well, thank you very much, Anthony. And I learnt lots and I really appreciate your expertise in particular.

Thanks for sharing.

[Anthony] (21:05 - 21:07)
Thanks, Sarah. It's been really enjoyable. Thank you.

[Sarah] (21:08 - 21:46)
So, three things to remember. A gas flame releases pollutants that can build up fast in a kitchen. Symptoms like coughing or irritation around mealtimes aren't always random.
Better ventilation and moving towards electric or induction cooking can make a big difference. 

That's it for this episode of The Good Energy Guide brought to you by Ausgrid. You can find more episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. And head to our website at goodenergy.ausgrid.com.au for practical tools and resources to help you make smarter energy choices.