Gas stoves may soon come with a tobacco-style health warning label in California | California lawmakers have passed a bill that would require such warning labels on gas stoves for sale in stores and online.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/13/nx-s1-5003074/climate-gas-stove-health-warning
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From the article: The next time you shop for a cooking stove, the gas versions might show a health warning label similar to those on tobacco products.
Because a stove’s blue flame releases air pollution into your kitchen, California lawmakers have passed a bill that would require such warning labels on gas stoves for sale in stores and online. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until the end of September to sign the bill into law.
The legislation comes after a series of lawsuits was filed against stove manufacturers, claiming they should have warned customers about potential health risks. Environmental activists are encouraging people to switch to electric stoves, part of a broader campaign to cut climate pollution from buildings. Now there’s an effort to put health warning labels on stoves nationwide.
About 38% of U.S. homes cook with natural gas, and utilities have preserved that market share with tobacco-style tactics to avoid regulations on gas stoves. Part of that is a decades-old “cooking with gas” campaign that has helped gas stoves remain popular with cooks, including famous ones.
“I will say, historically, I’ve been really a snob about that,” says Samin Nosrat, who wrote the 2017 award-winning cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. She learned to cook with gas. “I just never accepted an alternative in my imagination.”
Iirc, there was some subjective advantage about using gas that it was easier to guage the heat going into the pan by looking at the color/size of the flame.
There might also be something about hot air flow staying attached to the side of a pot so you’re heating from the bottom and sides at the same time.
I’m not promoting gas, but something to look at or consider if true so make a more informed decision. Especially since buying a stove is typically a very long term type of purchase.
This is why the hood exhaust fan was invented. Not just for smoke, but for gas fumes and odors. Please dont tell me you cook without turning on the fan. Must smell like moldy cheese and grease in your house if you do
It would be ironic to see gas stoves with a cigarette-like sticker and nothing for a wood stove.
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You know for absolute certain that the people that wrote this bill don’t ever cook their own food
Geez, and here I was left to believe that the Biden/Harris admin were going to send armed agents into homes to confiscate them. So they’re only going to inform people of the potential health impacts and give them an informed choice?! NO FUCKING WAY!!! This is fascism at its peak! /s (just in case)
Just California doing stupid California stuff again.
Seems reasonable, that’s why the right is so appalled by it.
I monitor my indoor air quality.
The problem of gaz stove is not fine particles but CO2.
Wish they would make the already existing smoking policies a little more enforceable, including smokless/vapes/whatever.
Wonder if they’ll eventually come out with warnings for induction stoves, given the electromagnetic field humming along a few inches from your nuts and all that?
It’s literally just a warning label for the sake of people’s health.
Gas stoves release NO2, CO, formaldehyde, and PM (particulate matter) into the air. These are linked to CO poisoning, lung cancer, respiratory issues, and asthma especially in children. It can also just straight up harm lung function over time.
Nobody’s saying that you can’t buy a gas powered stove, health advocates just want people to know the risks.
Having a gas stove isn’t like you’re straight up eating cyanide or anything. But there’s always a risk of harming your health.
Are they going to do wood stoves, candles, glade plugins, and incense next?
Doesn’t everything in a five state radius of California already have a Prop 65 warning label on it? Did they really not realize that was a mistake? Everyone ignores warning labels now precisely because California started putting them on everything.
Great. another sticker we laugh at and say “Good thing we aren’t in California” about.