Researchers have studied the health impact of using gas in our homes, and their conclusions are clear: gas stoves are as harmful as passive smoking, if not more.
It’s hard not to come across someone who says they’ll never be able to cook with an electric oven and hob. Indeed, these are still struggling to convince many cooks, despite the environmental cost of natural gas and its price, which has risen sharply over the past three years.
A carcinogen in large quantities in our kitchens
But the impact of the gas could also have a greater than expected harmful effect on our health. In an article published in Environmental Science & Technology, a team of Stanford researchers report that using gas stoves releases a well-known organic compound in greater amounts than previously observed. This is benzene, which is formed during combustion and is also found in smoke from forest fires, tobacco smoke and car exhaust.
His name will no doubt remind many people of their middle school and high school science classes. But its main drawback is that it is highly carcinogenic, even at very low levels of exposure. It is notably linked to leukemia and other blood cell cancers.
The study by Stanford researchers focused on indoor benzene pollution caused by gas stoves in 87 homes in California and Colorado. In 30% of the kitchens tested, emissions of this compound from a single burner set at high temperature, or an oven set at 180°C, were found to be higher than the average concentration caused by passive smoking. And this, regardless of the brand or age of the gas stove.
A gas addiction that we will have to get rid of?
Worse still, the researchers also discovered that benzene leaks in large quantities throughout the rest of the house. Thus, it can be found in concentrations dangerous to health for hours in bedrooms. And it wouldn’t be so surprising, since in 2022 it was discovered that almost 13% of childhood asthma cases in the United States were linked to the use of gas stoves.
Things may be set to change in the years to come. On the one hand, because of the delicate geopolitical situation which surrounds natural gas which encourages many countries to turn away from it in the interests of energy independence. On the other hand, long considered a tool for the energy transition, this fossil fuel is today singled out for its significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet the gas industry has spent years promoting gas stoves, which have become, in the collective mind, the best way of cooking possible. And habits die hard: in the United States, a federal court blocked the implementation of a policy in Berkeley, California, aimed at prohibiting the connection to gas of new buildings…
Source : The Verge
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