The common kitchen appliance plays an outsized role in exposure to nitrogen dioxide, a toxic air pollutant.
Pollution from gas stoves accounts for more than half of some [US] Americans’ total exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a toxin linked to asthma, a study in the academic journal PNAS Nexus concludes. The findings, published this month, provide the first nationwide, community-level estimates of residential NO2 exposure.
Gas and induction stoves produce a consistent level of heat, unlike glass/coil stoves that turn off and on during cooking. That won’t matter for something like a cast iron pan that’s heavy enough to stay hot, but cheap cookware can be light enough that it cools significantly when the cooktop switches off. I actually had a pot that couldn’t keep water boiling when the cooktop switched off. That wasn’t an issue when using that pot with a gas cooktop. Admittedly it also wasn’t an issue with cookware that didn’t bend during washing (yes it was that bad) but it is still something people might run into.