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The case for induction cooking

nytimes.com

301–310 of 647 posts

Re: The case for induction cooking

#301
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty easily mitigated with a vent hood which all these tests don't have running. Almost nobody in New York City (where the NYT is based and focuses its coverage) has a vent hood that vents outside the apartment. Older buildings don't have a hood at all, and new buildings have hoods which circulate air within the apartment, which doesn't really address concerns about accumulation of environmental pollutants.

>Almost nobody in New York City (where the NYT is based and focuses its coverage) has a vent hood that vents outside the apartment. Thanks. If this bit of context was clear from the get go it would have been a lot easier for those from EUR where we would expect vents outside the apartment to be the norm. ( Not speaking for all EUR, so there may be places this is not the norm ) As a matter of fact this is the first ti…

They're supposed to be used with a charcoal filter as well as the usual metal filter. They're mostly to trap odors, doubt they do much for air quality.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#302

I have a pretty strong doubt that the emissions from gas + cooking are significantly worse than the fine particulate put off from cooking methods like pan frying or burning anything even slightly. There is also probably a statistics abuse here with the "emissions while not in use" is more likely large rare leakage incidents rather than median kinds of events. Keeping in mind that the amount of methane lost to the atm…

“Pretty strong doubt” “Probably” “Don’t know what they’re really talking about” Do you have evidence for these counter claims?

I could, it would be a lot of work.

There's plenty of evidence out there that fine particulate has a significant impact on long term health.

You can easily measure the impacts of cooking by buying a particle counter and making some stirfry or burning some cookies in the oven. I have, it's easy to measure PM2.5 air quality in your apartment worse than the worse city in the world after a bit of pan frying which if you don't actively do quite a bit will linger for hours.

You'd have to come up with a model of nitrogen oxides produced by gas stoves and their long term health effects and compare them to fine particles in poorly ventilated / filtered air in homes.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#303
post #10

I fitted an AEG induction hob in our kitchen about 3 years ago. It is absolutely amazing. It's so controllable - you can go from "barely hot enough to melt chocolate" to "so hot your pans start discolouring and everything burns" - and back again - in seconds (and everything in-between obviously). I always thought gas was the best for cooking. But I was wrong - induction is. Gas is great for medium-high power cooking,…

It's important to understand that on a gas range or regular electric range, the knob controls power , i.e. the amount of heat you're putting into your cookware per second. And if those two are your only options, then the gas range is much better than an electric range, because you can change the amount of power very quickly, there's no lag. But with an induction range, or a ceramic glass range, the knob controls temp…

Is that true of ceramic glass ranges? I had one once and I’m fairly sure whoever made that thing couldn’t even spell thermostat let alone add one. Pretty sure the knob was just a potentiometer.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#304
post #283
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> south, particularly in a Brahmin household, you will have one sambhar, one rasam, three vegetable currys This is not even remotely typical.

>> south, particularly in a Brahmin household, you will have one sambhar, one rasam, three vegetable currys > This is not even remotely typical. Digress! What is typical? It is always good to learn about people's lifestyles....

South India consists of fives states and one Union Territory, all with different languages, culture and culinary styles. A meal in a Brahmin household in Hyderabad will be very different to one in Chennai with probably only rice being the common feature. Curry is too generic to be a useful descriptor.

It's hard to make broad generalizations. But having been to all six divisions and having lived in three of them, I feel very confident in saying that a household that cooks three different curries, sambar and rasam for a single meal is very atypical. What GP described sounds closer to a restaurant set course meal and not something a household would cook on a day to day basis.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in the US, so my induction cooktop is an anemic 1800 watt one because it's 120V, instead of the beefier European/Asian models that are 3500W 220V versions. If you ever wish to 'upgrade', what you can do is change a plug in your kitchen from the typical NEMA 5-{15,20} to a NEMA 6-{15,20} and then wire it in the panel to 240V, as there are 'commercial' induction cookers available: * https://eurodib.com/products/c…

Those all have two issues: MUCH higher cost (I got mine for $50) and they still don't offer refined power/temp controls. It's just in large steps. I did find one that uses a reflective thermostat to set the EXACT temperature you want and they said it's accurate to within 1.8 degrees F, but it costs over $1,000 for one burner. My current setup is fine, but if I was going to spend that kind of money on a new stove, it…

A quick glance at amazon.co.uk shows high-wattage induction cooktops that are relatively cheap, e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/GIONIEN-Domino-Induction-Hob-Electr... is a dual-burner 3500W model that takes 220V-240V (unclear if it's ok on 208V?) for £109.99 (USD$143). 60 Hz would be a leap of faith, but is probably fine.

Not $50, but still.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#307
post #10

I fitted an AEG induction hob in our kitchen about 3 years ago. It is absolutely amazing. It's so controllable - you can go from "barely hot enough to melt chocolate" to "so hot your pans start discolouring and everything burns" - and back again - in seconds (and everything in-between obviously). I always thought gas was the best for cooking. But I was wrong - induction is. Gas is great for medium-high power cooking,…

> you can't really use woks on induction. I found a flat-bottomed induction compatible wok on Amazon when I got my induction cook top. I'm not a master stir fry cook, but it woks for me!

If a flat bottom wok works for you you’re not doing wok cooking right. But if you like the results then it’s just a funny shaped pan and nothing wrong with that.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty easily mitigated with a vent hood which all these tests don't have running.

> Pretty easily mitigated with a vent hood which all these tests don't have running. Almost nobody in New York City (where the NYT is based and focuses its coverage) has a vent hood that vents outside the apartment. Older buildings don't have a hood at all, and new buildings have hoods which circulate air within the apartment, which doesn't really address concerns about accumulation of environmental pollutants.

I've seen that noted on PSA posts on social media for immigrants - that you should make extra sure that vents lead to outside and not into cupboards when renting a room, because it's rather common where people don't do more than boiling water but hard to realize without prior knowledge.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#309
post #42

Let me know when you can buy one of decent quality in the US with actual physical controls instead of some insane touch system designed by somebody who has apparently never actually been in a kitchen and marketed to people who won't use it but just want a thing that looks cool.

Ugh, my parents have an oven like that. Press the "bake" button and it'll happily tell you you have to press the "on" button first. Infuriating design, and you have to mash your thumb for a good 1-2 seconds before it reads the press, too. Or our old Samsung washing machine, that wouldn't let you turn it off and on again without listening to the startup and shutdown songs first. (Our newer LG is much better in this re…

Sounds like a child safety feature since most slide-in ovens have controls on the front.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#310
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the vents in places I've rented have seemed hilariously ineffective even on the highest and super loud setting. Maybe good ones make a difference but how many people actually have good ones? And how many people actually use them every time the stove is on?

>All the vents in places I've rented have seemed hilariously ineffective even on the highest and super loud setting A consumer organisation here studied "rangehoods" and (if memory serves) they found them all to close to useless. consumer.org.nz - the reports are paywalled and I no longer subscribe, so mēh!

interesting... i wonder if it's because of the height constrained by aesthetic inputs.. i'm pretty sure if you stuck the vent like 50cm above the stove it surely can be a bit more than useless...
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