By Angela Kantola
I cooked on gas stoves for five decades. I loved the precision of gas. In fact, I hated the few electric stoves that I used in my mid-20s so much that when it came time to purchase a house, I wouldn’t even look at one that didn’t have a gas stove. I was a gas stove snob… that is, until six or seven years ago when I began learning about induction stoves.
Our 2018 kitchen cabinet/countertop remodel got me thinking about eventually replacing our kitchen appliances. That’s when I began learning about induction. “WHAT? Professional chefs like induction BETTER than gas?! This cannot be!” Ah, but they do and it can. As I learned more, I became convinced electric induction was superior to gas (without ever actually cooking on an induction stove!).
My husband and I agreed to defer appliance replacement until we redid our kitchen floor. Knowing that wouldn’t happen for a few years, I began replacing our non-ferrous, mostly anodized aluminum cookware with induction-ready stainless steel, one piece at a time. Then when we installed a new kitchen floor in 2023, I was ready for an induction stove. I’d done the research and concluded that a smart induction slide-in range by LG had the reliability and features I wanted. It was in the mid-to-high price range for induction stoves and we also hired an electrician to upgrade the range outlet to 240v.
It’s been worth every penny! We’ve had our induction stove since July 2023 and I absolutely love it. Ask my husband if he misses cleaning up a gas range. (Heck, no!) And what he loves most is the positive lock feature that keeps any burner or the oven from being turned on accidentally. (Don’t ask how many times our gas stove knobs got bumped and slightly turned on in years past...”Hey, what’s that smell?!) My favorite feature may be how fast it boils water for pasta – no more building in an additional 15-20 minutes to wait for that to happen!
With this switch from gas to electric induction range, our gas bill went down, but our electric bill did not go up because our 6.5 kW solar PV system generates enough power (and then some) for all our electricity use.
I can’t recommend an induction stove highly enough. And if you’re a renter or don’t want to switch out your gas range yet, consider a portable induction cooktop. They come in 1- and 2-burner configurations and can be placed right on top of your stove! Here is one that fits over a griddle in a small gas cooktop. Copper pots can still be used on the gas side and metal based pots, like cast iron and multi-ply steel (magnetic)
can be used on the induction side.