Health risks of cooking with gas

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

My wife says: "Cooking on an electric stove is an oxymoron!"

Originally Posted by gonesail

I can't imagine not wanting a gas cooktop. Electric burners are good for scorching and ruining pans.

What odd things to say. Been cooking with electric for 40+ years and haven't ruined a pan yet. You should try induction - arguably better control and speed than gas - although it's harder to flambé.

[CassidyNZ]

Most of the electricity on our boat is solar generated so cooking with electricity rather than gas would certainly be less “toxic”. But we have, ever since I can remember and for most of our nearly five decades of marriage, cooked with gas both on the boat and in our home.

I wouldn’t dare to suggest to the missus that we put any other kind of cooktop in the galley or the kitchen. Luckily my level of paranoia doesn’t drive me to that place.

[SalingSue]

Unless you run 5 miles a day, are ideal body weight, and eat only local grown fruit and veg and meat you harvested yourself, you probably have much bigger risk fish to fry.

[Adelie]

If you cook most meals electrical consumption will be about 150Ahr/d
That means you need another 500W of solar panels to support cooking.
Assuming you get a 1800W convection oven and a 1800W 2 burner induction hob you need a 4kW inverter if you are going to run everything full power at the same time. The inverter needs to output a real sine wave.
If you have FLA batteries then minimum bank size needs to be about 600Ahr to deal with the high discharge rates. With Gels you probably want 700-800 and 500Ahr if they are AGM or Carbon.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

Unless you run 5 miles a day, are ideal body weight, and eat only local grown fruit and veg and meat you harvested yourself, you probably have much bigger risk fish to fry.

The risks are cumulative, not alternative.


And no, a little bit of propane fumes are not going to make you choke and die on the spot. It's just unpleasant and ultimately, somewhat unhealthy. Just one more reason not to have gas on board. Those reasons are also cumulative BTW.

[a64pilot]

I think it’s actually more of a where do you cruise, and or what weather do you cruise in question.
Those of us that cruise in warm water / weather who almost always have every hatch open and hatch boards stowed to catch the breeze think the subject is silly, where those that cruise where it’s cold and keep the boat buttoned up can see the issue.

But I’m with Jim, my opinion is that the smoke from frying and the moisture from boiling and the just odor from food is way more of an issue than the combustion products of Propane, Propane is actually a very clean burning fuel, anyone ever seen the oil drained from a Propane engine?
Your going to get far, far more combustion products from motoring in a light following wind.

Although many will argue that it’s not true, actual electric cooking will drive most to run a generator, and those pollute way more than a propane stove, and you can and will get fumes aboard. Most have to supplement the Solar that they have from time to time, without cooking electrically, an extra 500W of Solar is not a trivial amount, and that’s average, what about cloudy overcast Winter days?
Electric cooking in my opinion is best for those that are going to be running a generator anyway, then sure why not?

As much of a fan of a little Honda generator that I am, I measured CO with a very accurate CO meter I had from work, I got detectable amounts of CO no matter where I put the thing, only time I measured no CO was if it was in the dinghy that was tied to the stern. Never enough to set off a detector, but the CO was there none the less.

[MSgt]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

Open a hatch, which technically you should do anyway when cooking with any combustable fuel.

And lets be honest we all ingest far worse chemicals daily if we eat a "western" diet with all the sweeteners, preservatives, flavourings, colours and other stuff.

Since the 60s I heard how all those preservatives are going to kill us, yet here we are with average lifespan longer than back then, so I say: "Better Living Through Chemistry"

[carstendenmark]

Jim, I feel sorry for Ann.
Could you fry your pan fried chili in the cockpit, not in the galley ?
You can use a gas can powered mini stove there.

Frying chili is a hazard, even for hard-core chinese !!!
Trust me, my wife is a spicey cooking chinese.

[merrydolphin]

Well lets see, how much of a problem is it?

Have been in this scenario my whole life. In my late seventies now with no problems. Especially respiratory. What can I say.

[Colin A]

While I tend to be somewhat lax in things like this normally, I will say gas makes me nervous on a boat. When I worked in insurance the most destructive (non hurricane) things I saw happen to boats were form propane systems. Most of them occurred in marinas too and had collateral damage to other boats.

I do agree however that electric is not all that practical in a small boat. But I think as soon has a built in genset is an option I would go right to electric cooking. In the last couple decades that's the direction the powerboat and RV market have started going in as well.

I grew up cooking with gas but have been using electric at home for the past 20 years. It's a little slower but other then that I have no issues with it. My wife felt unsafe with gas cooking so out it went can't say I miss it. Oddly enough my grandmother apparently told my grandfather the same thing in 1952 when they bought their house and they cooked on electric ever since.

[Davo1404]

I hope you are not using 5G to post this??

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by mikereed100

I used to scoff at electric ranges on boats. Now, not so much.

"While many Americans might think illness linked to indoor cooking and heating is a problem confined to smoke-filled kitchens in the developing world, the natural gas-burning stoves and furnaces found in millions of U.S. kitchens and basements can produce a range of health-damaging pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and formaldehyde. Over the past four decades, researchers have amassed a large body of scientific evidence linking the use of gas appliances, especially for cooking, with a higher risk of a range of respiratory problems and illnesses."

https://undark.org/2020/12/02/hazard...-new-scrutiny/

Surely that's a bit dramatic?
I guess cooking with electricity is ok if you have a generator supplying you the 2000W for your cooktop.
Worst thing that can happen you run out of diesel for your generator, have empty batteries or electrocute yourself.
I guess life is dangerous and out to get us in one form or another.
Better stay away from BBQs.

[scareygary]

I'm not a liveaboard or long distance cruiser, so non-pressurized alcohol works for me. However, even though it may not be quite on topic, I lost an acquaintance in my marina to a pressurized alcohol stove fire. Tried to refuel while it was hot. It 'exploded' and, before he could get topside and overboard, the burns were fatal. He died a day or so later. So....whatever fuel you use, please take precautions around FIRE. Please....

[RaymondR]

Easy peasy one.

Cruise in the tropics and everything's open all the time and the biggest problem is wind blowing the flame out.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Icarus

Surely that's a bit dramatic?
I guess cooking with electricity is ok if you have a generator supplying you the 2000W for your cooktop.
Worst thing that can happen you run out of diesel for your generator, have empty batteries or electrocute yourself.
I guess life is dangerous and out to get us in one form or another.
Better stay away from BBQs.

It's generally not worth panicking over concerns like stove emissions. But it's worth giving it some thought. It's one of those issues that's often easy to mitigate by making sure you've got good ventilation, or possibly by design choices if you're already re-doing a galley. So it's a fairly small risk, but one that's often easy to mitigate, making it a good target.