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There's a reason there's an expression "Now we're cooking with gas heat" for something working quickly and well, and it's an old, old saying. Gas just is wildl

There's a reason there's an expression "Now we're cooking with gas heat" for something working quickly and well, and it's an old, old saying. Gas just is wildly faster and more controllable than electric. One of the best quality of life investments I've ever made was when my fiance bought a Viking gas stove.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Only for people who have inferior electrics. People not suffering from that problem are happy with induction heating, and deem that superior in every aspect. (Given appropriate cooking ware)
- fy20 5y ago
  Be careful. After vaccines, politics and working from home vs the office, this is probably the next most controversial topic on HN.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Be that as it may, I'm prepared to deflect any flame with my antistick pans and lashing out with my silicone cookware, whipping any opponent hard! Yah! I do! :-)
- mikewarot 5y ago
  My gas stove and my 100 amp 240 volt service are about matched in terms of power capability. To switch, I'd have to spend thousands of dollars on an electrician to upgrade to 200 amp service, and wire a new outlet. Then buy a new electric appliance, dispose of the gas stove. In the end it would cost more per BTU, and nothing would have changed to help mother earth. Or, I could stick with my used $100 gas stove. This puts less carbon into the atmosphere then burning fuel in a power plant and losing a bunch of energy heating the grid, and doesn't create any new landfill.
  - matthewdgreen 5y ago
    On an individual basis that may be true. But the real issue here is whether to maintain and continue to build new (potentially leaky) gas networks to housing. By replacing your stove with an electric one (only after it wears out) you’d be slightly reducing the pressure and incentive the pressure on municipalities and utilities.
    - mikewarot 5y ago
      I still need gas for the water heater, the furnace and the clothes dryer. Otherwise we're back to looking at 200 Amp service again, and if everyone did it, doubling the size of the grid, and building even more fossil fueled generating stations to make up for the new electric load.
      - josephcsible 5y ago
        So what? Aren't electric heat pumps powered by natural gas power plants better for the environment than natural gas furnaces?
        mikewarot 5y ago
        Not in the Midwest, when it often goes well below freezing, and usually as low as -40 degrees at least once per winter.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    I'm not denying that. I've just been irritated by the OP saying sensationalist things which are simply untrue. Like being faster, more powerful, more precisely controllable, big improvement in quality of life, and so on. Maybe it was for him, coming from where he was, but not as an absolute. Probably even the most simple thing like https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/tillreda-induktionskochfeld-tragbar-1-zone-weiss-10486794/ https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/tillreda-induktionskochfeld-tra... would be an improvement.
    - 5y ago
- washadjeffmad 5y ago
  Nah, I use both. They're good for different things. With induction, I can't put a controlled char on something, get anything like wok hei, grill a yakimochi, or even cook using the sides of any cookware. I can't even use it to set a pasta noodle on fire to light a candle with or to quickly sterilize glassware. I like induction for its efficiency, but it's only marginally superior for a narrow range of applications.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Oh my gawd! Open fire! Ze particular matter! Ze dust! Lol, lighting a noodle to lighten a candle. I haven't thought of that. Stunning.
eesmith 5y ago
The "old, old saying" is a marketing slogan from the 1930s. From the article: > It was also during the 1930s that the industry first adopted the slogan “cooking with gas”; a gas executive saw to it that the phrase worked its way into Bob Hope bits and Disney cartoons. An english.stackexchange discussion on it is at https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25897/origin-of-the-phrase-now-were-cooking-with https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25897/origin-of-... commenting "the actual phrase was used by Hollywood radio comedians around December 1939, and then appropriated by gas companies to promote gas cooking from around 1941 onwards ... The phrase has been attributed to Deke Houlgate, who after working in the gas industry, wrote the line for Bob Hope." We can see evidence of that in a Google Ngram view for "cooking with gas", showing the spike in the late 1930s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22+cooking+with+gas+%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=1&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%22%20cooking%20with%20gas%20%22%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22+cooking+wi... . For some reason the URL doesn't work directly; you'll need to re-search. I use smoothing=1 to make the 1939 ramp-up more clear. The thing is, I also like cooking with natural gas. But the pollution and other negative effects described in the article, and the willingness of gas company PR to use astroturfing to fight any attempt to regulate, make me wary. I currently have a glass-ceramic cooktop. I want to switch to induction, which is "much faster and more controllable" in my limited experience cooking with them when visiting friends.
- thrower123 5y ago
  In the 1930s, you'd be comparing with cooking on a wood or coal heated stove in most cases.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    Electric stoves starting being common in the 1920s. - "by the late 1920s, these stoves began to compete with their gas counterparts." - https://nationalmaglab.org/education/magnet-academy/history-of-electricity-magnetism/museum/electric-range https://nationalmaglab.org/education/magnet-academy/history-... - "electric appliance manufacturers made their own leap into the cooker market with electric ranges. What started as a glorified electric hot plate around 1917 had gained new ground by 1930 as the electric ranges, looking much like the products of their gas competitors, fed the appetite of a nation pushing to wire for power." - https://www.oldhouseonline.com/kitchens-and-baths-articles/kitchen-appliances/history-of-the-kitchen-stove/ https://www.oldhouseonline.com/kitchens-and-baths-articles/k... Town gas was also available. "Natural" gas replaced town gas.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

Only for people who have inferior electrics. People not suffering from that problem are happy with induction heating, and deem that superior in every aspect. (Given appropriate cooking ware)

fy20 5y ago
Be careful. After vaccines, politics and working from home vs the office, this is probably the next most controversial topic on HN.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Be that as it may, I'm prepared to deflect any flame with my antistick pans and lashing out with my silicone cookware, whipping any opponent hard! Yah! I do! :-)
mikewarot 5y ago
My gas stove and my 100 amp 240 volt service are about matched in terms of power capability. To switch, I'd have to spend thousands of dollars on an electrician to upgrade to 200 amp service, and wire a new outlet. Then buy a new electric appliance, dispose of the gas stove. In the end it would cost more per BTU, and nothing would have changed to help mother earth. Or, I could stick with my used $100 gas stove. This puts less carbon into the atmosphere then burning fuel in a power plant and losing a bunch of energy heating the grid, and doesn't create any new landfill.
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  On an individual basis that may be true. But the real issue here is whether to maintain and continue to build new (potentially leaky) gas networks to housing. By replacing your stove with an electric one (only after it wears out) you’d be slightly reducing the pressure and incentive the pressure on municipalities and utilities.
  - mikewarot 5y ago
    I still need gas for the water heater, the furnace and the clothes dryer. Otherwise we're back to looking at 200 Amp service again, and if everyone did it, doubling the size of the grid, and building even more fossil fueled generating stations to make up for the new electric load.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      So what? Aren't electric heat pumps powered by natural gas power plants better for the environment than natural gas furnaces?
      - mikewarot 5y ago
        Not in the Midwest, when it often goes well below freezing, and usually as low as -40 degrees at least once per winter.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  I'm not denying that. I've just been irritated by the OP saying sensationalist things which are simply untrue. Like being faster, more powerful, more precisely controllable, big improvement in quality of life, and so on. Maybe it was for him, coming from where he was, but not as an absolute. Probably even the most simple thing like https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/tillreda-induktionskochfeld-tragbar-1-zone-weiss-10486794/ https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/tillreda-induktionskochfeld-tra... would be an improvement.
  - 5y ago
washadjeffmad 5y ago
Nah, I use both. They're good for different things. With induction, I can't put a controlled char on something, get anything like wok hei, grill a yakimochi, or even cook using the sides of any cookware. I can't even use it to set a pasta noodle on fire to light a candle with or to quickly sterilize glassware. I like induction for its efficiency, but it's only marginally superior for a narrow range of applications.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Oh my gawd! Open fire! Ze particular matter! Ze dust! Lol, lighting a noodle to lighten a candle. I haven't thought of that. Stunning.

eesmith 5y ago

The "old, old saying" is a marketing slogan from the 1930s. From the article: > It was also during the 1930s that the industry first adopted the slogan “cooking with gas”; a gas executive saw to it that the phrase worked its way into Bob Hope bits and Disney cartoons. An english.stackexchange discussion on it is at https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25897/origin-of-the-phrase-now-were-cooking-with https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25897/origin-of-... commenting "the actual phrase was used by Hollywood radio comedians around December 1939, and then appropriated by gas companies to promote gas cooking from around 1941 onwards ... The phrase has been attributed to Deke Houlgate, who after working in the gas industry, wrote the line for Bob Hope." We can see evidence of that in a Google Ngram view for "cooking with gas", showing the spike in the late 1930s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22+cooking+with+gas+%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=1&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%22%20cooking%20with%20gas%20%22%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22+cooking+wi... . For some reason the URL doesn't work directly; you'll need to re-search. I use smoothing=1 to make the 1939 ramp-up more clear. The thing is, I also like cooking with natural gas. But the pollution and other negative effects described in the article, and the willingness of gas company PR to use astroturfing to fight any attempt to regulate, make me wary. I currently have a glass-ceramic cooktop. I want to switch to induction, which is "much faster and more controllable" in my limited experience cooking with them when visiting friends.

thrower123 5y ago
In the 1930s, you'd be comparing with cooking on a wood or coal heated stove in most cases.
- eesmith 5y ago
  Electric stoves starting being common in the 1920s. - "by the late 1920s, these stoves began to compete with their gas counterparts." - https://nationalmaglab.org/education/magnet-academy/history-of-electricity-magnetism/museum/electric-range https://nationalmaglab.org/education/magnet-academy/history-... - "electric appliance manufacturers made their own leap into the cooker market with electric ranges. What started as a glorified electric hot plate around 1917 had gained new ground by 1930 as the electric ranges, looking much like the products of their gas competitors, fed the appetite of a nation pushing to wire for power." - https://www.oldhouseonline.com/kitchens-and-baths-articles/kitchen-appliances/history-of-the-kitchen-stove/ https://www.oldhouseonline.com/kitchens-and-baths-articles/k... Town gas was also available. "Natural" gas replaced town gas.