[crooked-v]

I suspect you're conflating resistance cooktops (the kind with coils that heat up) and induction cooktops (which use EM fields to transfer energy directly into the pan). Resistance cooktops are slow and weak, but induction cooktops are just plain better than gas (faster to heat across the entire temperature range, better temperature control) in pretty much every case except when needing a pan that doesn't fit the induction plate (like a round-bottom wok).

[rayiner]

Yeah, and if you’re talking about poor people, what electric stove will their apartment have, resistance or induction? And will they have induction safe cookware?

Banning gas stoves would be a huge blow to all the immigrants who rely on cooking techniques (like woks) that don’t work well on resistance coils, and require expensive special equipment to work on induction.

[tptacek]

People in China routinely use woks on electric stoves; they're just as common in China as they are here. There's a lot of mythology about woks and wok hei, most of which is based on people confusing restaurant cooking techniques with home cooking. This issue isn't racially coded.

[Freedom2]

This is my experience as well. I've spoken to Chinese co-workers who cook a lot of traditional food at home, and they have zero issues with electric stoves (induction or no) for cooking with a wok.

As for those who claim that gas stoves are needed for wok cooking w/ specific techniques, most people who I've actually asked about what they cook on the wok is basically "fried rice", or even worse, they don't actually have a wok at all, and are using the issue as a strawman to complain about government overreach.

[tptacek]

For what it's worth: I have a fussy gas range and I'd be peeved to have to give it up, and I don't have an opinion about whether it's good or bad to require new construction to use induction. But the racial angle on this is risible. It's evidence of bad faith argument.

[usrusr]

It's a recurring pattern: people not being able to tell "like in the country I/my ancestors came from" apart from "like in the decade/century I/my ancestors left the old country". In the emigrant's mind, the old country is forever locked in the old times. Can't really blame them for it, it's a natural mistake to make, but a mistake nonetheless.

[schrectacular]

I lived in China for a decade and never once saw an electric stove.

[tptacek]

I've lived in Oak Park, IL for over a decade, shopping for houses several times, and have never seen an electric stove. What's your point?

What's clearly the case is that homes in China do not generally have the ultra-powered gas wok burners that restaurants do, which is what people are talking about when they talk about what's distinctive about cooking on a wok.

[schrectacular]

My point was that in my experience they are far less common in China than in the US, as you were claiming. I guess one of us could go look up stats bit given the cost of the item and the relative affluence of the countries I seriously doubt they are close. What was your point in bringing up that they were similarly ubiquitous in both places?

[fsckboy]

woks are round (hemispherical) on the bottom, gas is better for heating that shape

[tptacek]

Not even that is true! This seems like another instance of people deriving every facet of their arguments from faulty first principles. There are bowl woks and flat-bottomed woks. We're not going to get anywhere discussing this issue if we can't even agree what a wok is.

[culturestate]

I lived in mainland China and Hong Kong for nearly a decade and had electric induction stoves in every apartment. Anecdotal evidence is, as ever, weak evidence.

[schrectacular]

Interesting. Maybe it's a north/south thing? I was in Beijing. Or maybe it was an affluence thing? I can totally imagine an indication stove being a status symbol. But they are far from ubiquitous and common in the country overall, of that I can assure you.

[culturestate]

I lived in Shanghai and Shenzhen, and I think it was mostly indicative of how new the building was. Anything built after ~2000 usually had the option of plumbed gas or electric, but in older buildings I saw a lot of those standalone bottled gas hobs with the purpose-built alcove in the kitchen.

In Hong Kong, it was really down to personal preference. My first apartment came with a normal resistive stove that the landlord swapped to an induction cooktop at my request, and that building (on HK island) didn't even have plumbed gas. It'd been disconnected during a renovation years before I moved in.

> But they are far from ubiquitous and common in the country overall, of that I can assure you.

I actually agree with you here, I was just making a point about the precariousness of using personal anecdata to support a position as broad as "people in China rarely have electric stoves." In a country that big, even the outliers make for an enormous group.

[arp242]

I know absolutely nothing about the type of stoves they use in China, or in the US for that matter, but remember that experiences may go out of date quicker than you'd might expect.

Before I moved to the UK I had literally never seen an electric stove in my life, much less used one, as gas was ubiquitous in the Netherlands. I'm sure you could find it, but it was rare. In the last few years things changed rapidly though, and when I moved back last year there were a number of apartments that had electric or induction) stoves.

[qwytw]

> what electric stove will their apartment have, resistance or induction

I'd assume nobody would install a resistance stove in a new apartment (since this only applies to those)

[bretticus]

They certainly won’t install an expensive induction stove in housing for poor people

[qwytw]

What proportion of new housing is built for "poor people" to live? I was under the assumption that most new developments are aimed at the mid/high end of the market which makes older buildings more accessible to low income households.

Also induction stoves are quite cheap nowadays (in relation to the overall cost) so it would seem absurd for me to get a resistive one even if you could save $100-200

[tanseydavid]

>> so it would seem absurd for me to get a resistive one even if you could save $100-200

But if it were 30 apartment units, then the cost difference on paper would amount to $3000-$6000 (and it would probably be judged in this way, rather than the cost difference per unit).

[doikor]

Induction cooktops are not expensive anymore. This would have been an argument 10 or 15 years ago but not today.

The price difference between a resistive 4 element resistive and a inductive cooktop is like 20€ maybe 30€ tops. So a cheap one will cost you between 200€ to 250€

(maybe the pricing in US is totally different but that is what you pay for the cheap stuff here in Finland)

[geoduck14]

I live in America. Builders will definitely cut corners to save $20. Hands down. Even brand new houses that sell for $500k will have "builder quality paint" that needs to be repainted in 5-7 years because it is cheap. If they cut corners on paint, they will cut corners on your stove.

[labawi]

Don't have experience, but I'd guess a buyer/renter won't see a difference between grades of paint quality, but a resistive vs. induction cooktop will be very noticeable and may raise the value far beyond the price difference.

[DocTomoe]

It is arguments like these that make me happy I live in a country where you rent a flat and bring your own kitchen (and appliances).

[lostlogin]

> And will they have induction safe cookware?

Cant you just put a steel plate under any pan, and then it’s induction compatible?

Ideally you’d have compatible pans, but you don’t have to.

[cmclaughlin]

Yes it’s possible to use a transfer plate to adapt cookware that’s not induction compatible, but it’s very inefficient. One of the benefits I appreciate of induction cooking is not heating up my house while cooking - a transfer plate would negate that.

I understand not everyone wants to buy or can afford new cookware, but cast iron pans are very cheap. Also see brands such as t-fal that make affordable non-stick aluminum cookware with a small steel bottom to make them induction compatible.

[lobocinza]

Not all kinds of steel have strong magnetic properties. I had to buy a new pan when I moved to induction because my steel pan didn't work at all.

[blevin]

We got a $75 portable induction unit and it’s all I ever use. Our wok works great on it, as do all our other pans except 1. Using the gas cooktop now feels like cooking with a Bic lighter. Admittedly it is not a high end expensive one.

[Aeolun]

Induction these days is almost as cheap as gas, not sure if that makes a difference any more.

I still like looking on gas a lot better.

[eulgro]

> Resistance cooktops are slow and weak

Resistive is just fine. No way I'm throwing out my 20 years old stove to save 2 minutes boiling water. Once the coil is red hot there's virtually no time difference with induction.

[dan-robertson]

I think the reason people usually don’t like resistive cooktops is that they change temperature slowly so it is hard to adjust things to the right temperature.

[cmclaughlin]

They also transfer heat to the house, whereas induction does not. Huge benefit in hotter climates

[YurgenJurgensen]

Also they're capable of melting dark coloured soft plastic with radiant heat even when they've been switched off.

[lostlogin]

I’d challenge anything to a race with a decent induction cooktop. I doubt gas is quicker, it’s silly fast to boil water.

That said, upgrading for this reason would be very silly.

[vel0city]

> No way I'm throwing out my 20 years old stove to save 2 minutes boiling water

A normal electric stove isn't even going to be two minutes slower to boil. Depending on the stoves in question, the resistive stove might even be faster to a boil than the gas stove, even if the gas stove is rated for more BTUs.

[otterley]

Induction cooktops are like 3-5x the cost of resistive ones, and so very few homes for rent -even ones with electric cooktops - have them.

[lostlogin]

Are they?

New Zealand is ludicrous marked up in terms of consumer goods, and I’ve just checked pricing. The cheapest is resistive electric. Then fractionally more is gas. Induction costs approximately double for 4 hobs (for 2 hobs it’s about 50% more than resistive).

If you count installation, both electric options are going to be less expensive than gas. If the big cable needs running for induction, the cost might be similar to gas.

Not factored in, cleaning. My god is induction nice to maintain.

[wepple]

Gas is rare and expensive in NZ, I knew very few people who had it. In NYC every house does. My clothes dryer runs off gas. It’s dirt cheap.

[teruakohatu]

Gas cooktops were very popular and are still common in New Zealand. It used to be legal (within building code) to run a small 9kg gas bottle (BBQ size) under your cooktop in a kitchen cupboard, so very cheap to install. Resistive cooktops were and are pretty aweful.

Gas indoors is now considered a health hazard even with range hood, and while you can still buy gas cooktops, I haven't seen a new build with gas in a long time.

[Wowfunhappy]

I'm actually so confused about this.

When I was in college, I bought a portable induction cooker off Amazon for $60. It was the best. I could boil a large pot of water in about the same time as the gas stove I had at home. (I never timed it, but it felt basically the same.)

I could have bought four of those induction cookers for less than $250. If I ever built a house (I currently rent an apartment and am stuck with gas), I would at least be tempted to literally do that, instead of spending the money on a "real" cooking range.

Why are full ranges so expensive?

[lobocinza]

Probably marketing as portable and full range are different markets/consumers. Could also be due to volume. Full ranges might be manufactured at a smaller and less efficient scale. It's also possible that they have better components, are more durable, have more features and more power. Induction cookers can cook faster than gas.

[AdamJacobMuller]

And if the government mandates electric stoves, which of those (restive or inductive) do you think the landlords of cheaper apartments are going to pick?

[freetime2]

Anecdotal, but in my cheap apartment (like $300/mo) there is an induction stove. This is not in New York, of course, but still it couldn’t have been that expensive to install.

[zajio1am]

> induction cooktops are just plain better than gas

I generally prefer induction to gas, but there is one disadvantage - uneven heating of large thin pans. On induction, a part of pan directly above coils can be > 50 degC hotter than its border. This can be mitigated by using pans with thick bottom with good heat conductivity, but then you get higher thermal inertia.

[op00to]

Gas heats large thin pans unevenly too.

[swearwolf]

Resistance cooktops are fine too, you just have to learn to adjust to them. I’ve had one in all but one home I’ve ever lived in, and it’s second nature at this point. Every time I try to cook on a gas stove I burn whatever I’m making until I remember how to use them.