Ordinary appliances like the gas stove are considered harmless, but they're significant contributors to harmful emissions. This episode exposes the shocking influence of the gas and oil industry that has led us to favor gas stoves, even with their environmental and health impacts. I also delve into the alarming data about natural gas revenue and the water volume used in fracking.
But don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom! I'll offer you tangible ways to become a kitchen activist. Small changes, like opting for a toaster oven or a single burner induction cooktop instead of a gas stove, can make a difference in reducing air pollution and improving health.
Together, we can write a story of well-being for our home.
Be well,
Florencia
Click here for the free How to Eat Less Water CONDIMENT STORAGE TABLE. It is a printable list of popular condiments that belong in the pantry and those in the refrigerator that can be hung in your kitchen for easy reference.
Download the TEN TIPS to EAT LESS WATER SUMMER PARTY PLANNING GUIDE for all the tips, steps, and info on celebrating like a kitchen activist with your friends and family.
Find gifts designed to serve well-being at the Eat Less Water Shop.
Get a copy of the EAT LESS WATER book.
Reach me at info@eatlesswater.com
Ordinary appliances like the gas stove are considered harmless, but they're significant contributors to harmful emissions. This episode exposes the shocking influence of the gas and oil industry that has led us to favor gas stoves, even with their environmental and health impacts. I also delve into the alarming data about natural gas revenue and the water volume used in fracking.
But don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom! I'll offer you tangible ways to become a kitchen activist. Small changes, like opting for a toaster oven or a single burner induction cooktop instead of a gas stove, can make a difference in reducing air pollution and improving health.
Together, we can write a story of well-being for our home.
Be well,
Florencia
Click here for the free How to Eat Less Water CONDIMENT STORAGE TABLE. It is a printable list of popular condiments that belong in the pantry and those in the refrigerator that can be hung in your kitchen for easy reference.
Download the TEN TIPS to EAT LESS WATER SUMMER PARTY PLANNING GUIDE for all the tips, steps, and info on celebrating like a kitchen activist with your friends and family.
Find gifts designed to serve well-being at the Eat Less Water Shop.
Get a copy of the EAT LESS WATER book.
Reach me at info@eatlesswater.com
Welcome. I'm glad you're here. Together, we will turn our shared concern about the state of our environment into a force for change. It will require you to reimagine the role of your home kitchen as more than a warehouse of food or a room where we cook and gather to eat. The time has come to enter your kitchen with eyes open to the transformative power it harnesses for the planet and you. The home kitchen has always been ground zero for positive environmental and social change. Waiting for you to take your position as a kitchen activist Now that you arrived, you will change the world with what you eat. Welcome, my name is Florencia and I am so glad you're here to learn with me ways that you and I can partner to make a difference on this planet and for our own health. And today's podcast. You're going to see just how linked our human health with the larger environmental health when we talk about natural gas the natural gas in our stoves. If you already have an electric stove, you are way ahead of the curve, but in the United States, 50% of kitchens have gas stoves and in more populous states like New York and California and Illinois, that number pushes up to 70%. It is likely that you are, like me, sitting in the group of people that still has a gas stove.
Speaker 1:One of the sections in my book the Kitchen Activists I'm writing is on how to electrify our kitchens. I spend a lot of time talking about how to get fossil fuels the leading contributor to climate change off our plate. So when we, for example, purchase from that organic or regenerative farmer, we are taking fossil fuels off our plate, which is food overall is one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters. But one part that I haven't talked about at all, or really done a deep dive myself into, is our appliances in our kitchen and specifically our gas stoves. When I was a child and the gas stove that we had in our kitchen when I was growing up so this was back in the 70s and early 80s the house that we lived in had an electric stove, and that goes hand in hand with the statistics that I found, because in the 1970s only about 30% of all homes had gas stoves at that point. But the gas and oil industry has spent a lot of marketing dollars and lobbying effort to get us away from electric stoves. For my mother, listening to her reasoning of why she wanted a gas stove and then handing that same reasoning to me Was very much cultivated by the marketing efforts. That was incredibly successful by gas and oil. So things like the electric stove doesn't cook evenly. That was something that my mom would say.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it was really based on fact, but think about how marketing campaigns are effective. Politicians do this too, when they say the same thing Over and, over and over again, to the point that then you start to believe it as truth. So was it true? I don't know. I just know that it cooked all of our meals for many years just fine, or there was also the aesthetic piece right, that it just didn't look as good, or or that it didn't have the same Satisfaction at an electric stove that had the flat, you know, top, versus a Gas stove where you see the flame, and somehow the flame was more satisfying than the flat Coils that light up. I can see it in my mind right now exactly what it was like, because I would use it to cook tortillas right on the electric Coil, which seemed to work well.
Speaker 1:Back then, when I found myself in a position to buy my own stove, I Also bought the natural gas stove, which is what I have now in my kitchen. So when we bought this house didn't already have all the setup for Electric, because you need 220 volt for an electric stove, which isn't already there for you. It's all piped in for natural gas. So the infrastructure of our homes at least older homes are set up for us to continue this trend of natural gas. I came across this eye opening statistic 68% of the revenue generated by natural gas is directly resulting from our gas stove. So you could see why they're pushing back so hard Against this wave that is inevitable for us to move away from natural gas.
Speaker 1:And the other thing about Natural gas, which is also part of the marketing there's nothing natural about this gas. It turns out that Natural gas is, in fact, mostly methane gas. Methane gas is A potent greenhouse gas emitter. Methane warms the climate at least 80 times more 80 times more than an equal amount of carbon dioxide over a 20 year period. Natural gas is mostly mined through hydraulic fracturing, which we also call fracking. And consider this one fracking well uses 2.6 million gallons of fresh water. One fracking well and this is not water that we can clean and use again. This is polluted with toxins.
Speaker 1:Here, where I live in Ventura County, we have a tremendous amount of fracking wells. In fact, we have fracking wells that are situated right in the center of strawberry fields, and I find it to be jarring. But also it goes hand in hand, because it's all petroleum based the strawberry fields that are treated with petroleum through chemicals of pesticides and fumigants and petroleum based fertilizers, and then you have a fracking drill happening as well. But then there's people on those farms, farm workers, who are ingesting not just the chemicals and toxins from picking strawberries, but now also from the pollutants caused from fracking. There's more and more evidence about the pollutants generated from fracking. As much as the marketing campaigns are telling us that it's clean and it's safe, there is more and more research to tell us otherwise, of not just the water pollution but also the air pollution.
Speaker 1:And then what does that mean in our house? So let's move from the bigger picture of what natural gas or methane gas is doing to our larger community and how it's impacting climate change in profound and harmful ways. What does that mean in our homes? Well, the pollution is in our homes, in a place that is even more impactful to our health, because our house is not well ventilated and we're just ingesting these particulates that are coming out of our stoves I'm talking about. We need to cook more often, and every time we're turning on that stove or that oven, we are ingesting harmful toxins, which is unnecessary, and at the end of this podcast, I'm going to give you some simple suggestions on how we can move away from fossil fuels in our homes.
Speaker 1:One out of every eight cases of asthma in children in the United States is directly caused by a gas stove in their house. That is just right there, just so telling of the harm it's doing to our health. Cooking more often should not bring more harm to our health, but should be part of the solution of building health, not just for our planet, but also for ourselves and for our families. Every time we turn on the burner or heat up our oven, it produces carbon dioxide, and it's estimated that gas stoves collectively emit 6.8 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, which is equivalent to 1.9 million cars. A study by Stanford University showed that our gas stoves are also emitting unburned methane through leaks and incomplete combustion, which just means that the firing didn't fully complete. So we have carbon dioxide, we have methane emitting in our homes and we also have nitrogen dioxide. They found that homes that have, gastroves have more than twice the levels of nitrogen dioxide, which is a gas associated with respiratory symptoms like wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and it can be harmful for children with asthma and, if not, causing asthma. Another study found that there's elevated carbon monoxide in the home with gastroves. One study out of Portland University showed that carbon monoxide readings were above nine parts per million, which is higher than the long-term exposure limit in the United States. Long-term levels of carbon monoxide can cause fatigue and, of course, are dangerous for people, and especially people who have underlying health issues already.
Speaker 1:Ventilation can certainly help with this, but, for example, we don't have a ventilation system that takes the air outside, so instead it's just recirculating toxins inside the house. So the ventilation system needs to be strong, it needs to be powerful, it needs to be turned on during the entire time of cooking, plus 15 minutes afterwards. Your windows need to be open, and that becomes less and less likely when the weather becomes cold outside, especially in some areas where it gets very cold. In the best case scenario, you have a ventilation system that's powerful, it's clean, it's connected to the outdoors, it's on and it remains on for those 15 minutes, and in those cases it can remove up to 80% of particles, but if those conditions are not met and nor is there a lot of research to tell us what is exactly powerful ventilation, then we are in this scenario where we're creating more and more air pollution in our homes each time we turn on the stove.
Speaker 1:When I started thinking about how to electrify my kitchen, all of this work for me comes from the larger perspective of how can I improve the health of the environment. So how can I move away from fossil fuels, not just with my shopping and the food that I'm bringing into the kitchen, but also the way that I'm cooking, baking and roasting my food. I started to do a deeper dive on this topic. It gets me so mad about how incredibly harmful natural gas is in our homes, whether it's our fireplaces which, by the way, I also have a natural gas fireplace and especially our stoves, and I don't listen to the pushback by the marketing campaign that's happening from oil and gas, because they have a lot to lose with our switchover to electric. Just overall, it's just noise.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at the research. I know that I don't want fossil fuels. I know fossil fuels are part are a huge contributor to climate change, and if I'm someone who is interested in making a difference and being a climate activist, a kitchen activist, making a difference with my daily habits and routines in positive ways that are going to build well-being for this planet and for myself, then I don't care what the marketing is from oil and gas. I'm not going to listen to it, because I see the research, I know the research, I know that we need to move away from natural gas and what are ways that we can do it, regardless of where you are with your budget to do so. So let's talk about the action steps that we can take, that any of us can take.
Speaker 1:So, of course, the best thing would be to just get an induction stove. The induction uses less energy than an electric stove and it is more expensive than an electric stove. But I have been watching the prices. The prices are starting to go down little by little, and especially now. Right now is a time to buy an appliance during the holiday season and in the pipeline. As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, there is money there for rebates up to $840 to make the switch from a gas stove to electric or induction stove. But after doing hours of research and making phone calls, what I learned is that the rebates are not available yet in most states at least not in California because it is a state-by-state thing. So each state has to figure out how exactly they're going to coordinate these rebates. So in my particular state, that money is yet to be made available, because the rebate will be available immediately at the point of sale. So if you are going, say, to Best Buy or Home Depot to buy your appliance right away, you should get that rebate when it is available. But right now it is not available, and from someone who I was talking to within that industry, I thought it would not be available until sometime in 2024, and maybe in 2025 even, but it is something that will be in the future. You also may be someone who is renting, and so that's not a possibility either.
Speaker 1:So what can you do if you cannot buy an induction stove? So do you just say, well, forget it then. No, there's plenty that we can still do that is not as costly but can make a difference, both in a larger scheme of things of reducing our dependence on oil and gas, but also for our own human health in our homes to reduce that air pollution that is, over time making us sick. If it's not in your budget to buy that induction cooktop, I get it. I'm right there with you. What are other things we can do to electrify our kitchens in more affordable ways, until it is the right time for us to make that transition or the rebates are made available?
Speaker 1:So some ideas. Instead of a toaster on your countertop, you can instead swap that toaster that only does one thing toast your bread and get a toaster oven so we don't have to turn on the oven to cook small things. There are toaster ovens that are quite large that you can cook even roasted chicken in them, but for the most part, when we turn the oven on, it's for things that are pretty small. Think about when you use your oven so you know what size toaster oven you can use. That's one thing. Another would be to buy a single burner induction cooktop.
Speaker 1:I found one on Ikea called the Till Radha, which sells for about $60. What I like about it? Because I'm always thinking around how much space we have in our kitchens and most of us don't have a tremendous amount of space or extra space in our pantries or on our countertops. So what I like about this one is it has a hook so you can hang it up when it's not in use and that is key right, so that you have enough space to still chop and do all the other things that you need to do on your countertop and then just bring out the induction stove when you need it. So I really like the idea of a single burner. So that's another idea. So electric toaster oven a single burner.
Speaker 1:Another is slow cookers insta pots, rice cookers, electric teapots, electric griddles Any way that you can cook on an electric appliance is better. And again there's a space issue. But there's many good products out there I've been noticing that do more than one thing. Well, I think the rule of thumb before was, once you purchase something that does more than one thing, then it doesn't do any of those things. Well, I think that was true at one time, but it's not true today. The technology's gotten a lot better in these small appliances that you can find good kitchen appliances that do four different things. I found one that is a slow cooker, a pressure cooker, a rice cooker, plus it sautes. I already have a slow cooker that is using that amount of space and I have a rice cooker. So if I can get an all in one and donate those other two things. I've actually gained space by doing so.
Speaker 1:Think about what is it that you can use to electrify your kitchen with these small appliances and move away from fossil fuels. And right now is a good time to think about it, as people are asking you, what do you want for Christmas? Cause I know my kids are asking me mom, what do you want for Christmas? And I don't know what to say to that. But now I do. What I want for Christmas is a toaster oven and I want an all in one slow cooker, pressure cooker, rice cooker simple fixes to moving us away from fossil fuels, moving us away from using our natural gas stoves as much as possible. Get those small electric appliances back into your kitchen and minimize how much you're turning on that stove in oven. These are also good ideas for Christmas gifts for others too. Think about getting your friend or family member who loves to make tea an electric teapot. I did that years ago and it's so much easier. I'm gonna leave you there. I hope you're having a really nice holiday and I hope I gave you some good, simple action steps to think about and to help you move away from natural gas and fossil fuels in your kitchen.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much, and I will be back here next Wednesday. Be well, let's stay connected. Sign up for my newsletter and receive more tips in your inbox weekly and 15% off your first purchase at the Eat Less Water Shop. You can also find me on your favorite social media space. At Eat Less Water, please remember to hit subscribe and leave a review, even if it's only the star rating, because every one of them will increase the chances of other like-minded folks to find us. Thank you for joining me on this journey to Eat Less Water. Together, we will write the story of wellbeing for this planet we have the privilege to call home. Meet you back here every Wednesday. There is power in the collective.