Whenever I walk into a kitchen and see gas burners my heart sinks

For many years chef and restaurateur Luke Burgess believed cooking with gas was normal. He’d been trained on gas, and used it in several commercial kitchens where he’d worked.

Nowadays he can’t understand the attraction of cooking gas.

“Whenever I walk into a kitchen and see gas burners, my heart sinks,” Burgess told the SwitchedOn podcast. “Piping a fossil fuel into your kitchen, whether it's your business or your home, to me now seems like a very antiquated concept.”

Still a chef, Burgess is also a consultant for the Global Cooksafe Coalition, a global organisation set up to promote safe and sustainable cooking.

The Global Cooksafe Coalition is aiming to get affordable, energy-efficient cooking appliances, powered by decarbonised grids or distributed renewable energy, in all buildings worldwide by 2045.

Before his work with the Coalition Burgess was unaware of how hazardous and unhealthy cooking with gas is.

“In my experience over the years, there was no discussion about respiratory issues,” says Burgess. “I didn't know … what was being expelled in the process of burning gas within a kitchen.”

There is now plenty of evidence to show that burning gas indoors – from gas stoves and heaters – releases combustion products and pollutants that have substantial negative health impacts.

The most significant impacts are caused by air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and benzene, which can reduce indoor air quality, especially if an appliance is faulty or poorly maintained, or there is inadequate ventilation.

These pollutants can increase the risk of asthma, exacerbate chronic illnesses and even cause death.

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More efficient

Luke Burgess was the founder and co-owner of the two-star Garagistes restaurant in Hobart for several years. When he got rid of gas from the restaurant, and changed his business over to all-electric, he found he could swap his four-burner gas stove with a two-hob induction stove.

That’s because induction stoves are so much more efficient than gas.

“With gas burners, up to 70% of the heat is actually not used within the cooking medium, so it goes up into the environment.”

“With gas we can't see the wasted energy. We can feel the heat, but we're not actually able to gauge what's being wasted there.”

Induction stoves however are up to 90% efficient. They look like an ordinary electric cooktop but they differ in the way they generate heat.

Gas and traditional electric stoves heat a burner which then transfers heat to a pot.

Induction cooktops use a magnetic induction field to turn the cookware into the heating element. Only the cookware itself gets hot, not the cooktop surface.

Beneath the surface of an induction cooktop, there’s a coil of copper wire. When an electric current passes through this coil, it generates a magnetic field, which induces an electric current in the cookware.

So a pot can quickly, almost immediately, heat up. The power and speed of an induction stove is easily seen when boiling a litre of water.

“On an old electric cooktop it could take up to five minutes. On a gas cooktop - top of the range -  it could take about a minute and a half to almost two minutes,” says Burgess. “On an induction cooktop it can take 30 seconds.”

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Government incentives not well targeted

In its last budget the federal government announced tax deductions of up to $20,000 to help small and medium businesses quit gas and electrify.

Whilst Burgess recognises the need for some government assistance to help small business go all-electric, and purchase appliances like induction stoves, he doesn’t think the new Small Business Energy Incentive is well targeted for the hospitality industry.

“With an industry that is running on a 2 to 4% profit margin, most small operators are not looking to save on taxation. They're simply not earning enough profit to even worry about that.”

“If we want to make a big change quickly, then subsidies are probably the best way to go in a very measured program with a lot of accountability, and focus.”

Most household gas cooktops only burn a small volume of gas throughout the year – cooking usually only accounts for about 4% of a household’s carbon emissions – but if we’re hanging on to gas just because we like our cooktops, it’s becoming an expensive way to cook.

Burgess is aware that many people cook at home on gas because they think that’s what professional chefs do and prefer.

He argues that the decision to ditch a gas cooktop is a ‘gateway’ decision for many householders - if we can give up the gas cooktop, we’re usually ready to give up gas entirely.

“It is the last bastion of gas being used residentially ... once people have tried induction, I think they will start to realise what was I really holding on to.”

The breath of the wok

Many people believe induction stoves are lousy for wok cooking, that only a gas cooktop can harness wok hei, ‘the breath of the wok’.

Wok hei refers to the flavours imparted by a wok during cooking. It requires extremely high heat, but Burgess says it’s not dependent on the fuel used to cook.

“It's about sugars and caramelisation and smokiness and a flavour that can happen in the wok, as well as outside that wok.”

“I can't see what the next evolution in cooking appliances will be after induction. I look at it and think whatever it is, it actually won't be necessary, because this is as much power, control and flexibility that you'll ever need to heat a pan, or a tray.”

“This is the technology we're going to have for a very long time, so it's worth investing in it now.”

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You can hear the full interview with Luke Burgess on the SwitchedOn podcast here.