Induction in Action
10/6/26
Executive summary: There is enough evidence to show that gas ranges are detrimental to our health and to the environment that I have made the switch to a portable induction cooktop. So simple I should have done it years ago.
My husband doesn’t ask for too many things in life — he’s super easygoing by nature. But he does possess a few material desires, such as a shower head high enough to fit his 6’0” frame under (check), a Xmas tree (check as of last year), a shag rug (no go, I do not want the headache of cleaning it), and a wood-burning fireplace (also no go, not allowed in new construction in California). For the last item, he has agreed that much of the allure is the smell, so he would be willing to accept a fireplace-scented candle as a substitute (specifically the Diptyque Feu de Bois that he first sniffed years ago). But we also don’t use candles at home because of the concerns around indoor air quality, not to mention that our kids dislike strong smells, so we’d have to listen to them whine about it all day long. I tried to find out whether candles are truly unhealthy to burn indoors (and there are perhaps better options like using candle warmers instead of lighting a flame), and the answer is … maybe it’s ok if used “properly” in a well-ventilated space (someone define that for me, though). Now, the silly thing is, we also have a gas range. The pollution from a candle doesn’t hold a, well, candle to a gas stove. For some reason, Americans seem to assume that everyone wants a gas stove, because it’s seen as fancier or chef-ier or something?? We’ve had one in every of our 4 homes for the past 10 years. The first two homes were rentals, so we didn’t have an option of replacing our stoves with electric or induction versions, and the latter two are homes we technically own, but have to essentially treat like rentals through Stanford’s faculty housing program. And Stanford has made it clear that we are not to touch our gas ranges, claiming that “everyone prefers gas.” I’m pretty sure they based that assertion on zero input from faculty, many of whom are part of the newly established School of Sustainability on campus. How ironic. So after looking into a growing body of research (some coming out of said School) showing how gas stoves generate unhealthy levels of indoor air pollution, and how they are detrimental to the environment, I decided that I was no longer going to cook with gas at home. My super simple solution was to buy a portable induction cooktop for ~$100. I only have one pot cooking at a time anyway, so a single burner is enough for me. (And there are double burner induction cooktops too, if capacity were an issue.)
I just pop the induction cooktop on top of our gas range, then unplug it and put it away in a cupboard when I’m done.
I’ve only ever had electric and gas stoves in my homes before, but induction is quick and easy to use. I went for the popular Duxtop 9600LS series (the black version we have is 9610LS), and it took me just two tries to figure out which settings to put it on. For boiling water, I max the power out at level 10, then turn it down to level 7 once the boil is going and it’s time to add the food (e.g., pasta, eggs, frozen dumplings, whatever). For recipes calling for lower heat (e.g., my son’s special scallion sauce), I set it to level 4. I don’t play with the temperature setting at all — changing the power level seems sufficient for all my needs, and is what Duxtop recommends too. In terms of speed, I’d say it takes about the same amount of time to cook with this induction burner as with gas. I understand that there is a physical feedback with gas stoves (you can see the flames go up and down as you adjust the knob) that is missing with induction, where all the action is “invisible.” You have to check how the food is doing in the pot to decide if the power level should be adjusted. It feels less intuitive, but it gets the job done. And not only is my air cleaner, but my stove is cleaner too — it’s so much easier to quickly wipe the induction top than to get into the nooks and crannies of a gas range. That’s always been an annoyance to me.
The one negative of this particular cooktop (or maybe most induction burners?) is that it makes a high-pitched squealing noise, especially when the power level is set high. It sounded really piercing to me at first, but I’ve gotten used to it and mostly don’t think about it anymore. Plus, I always turn on the range hood when I cook (habit from my gas burning days), and I’ve continued to do that to pull out any strong smells from cooking, so the drone of the ventilation hood helps to drown out the whining sound. Perhaps a high-end range would not suffer from the same affliction, and in an ideal world, I would have been able to replace our gas stove entirely, but in a realistic world, this patch works. And doesn’t cost $4,000+, which is what the induction version of our Bosch slide-in range retails for.
So coming back to the Feu de Bois candle that my husband longs for: after ridding our home of one major source of indoor pollution, do I welcome a smaller one in and call it a good deal on net? The jury is still undecided, so maybe we’ll let Santa make the call.