Gas stoves put restaurant cooks’ health at risk, new study finds

A new peer-reviewed study, published in Environmental Research Letters, measured heat and air pollution in 27 restaurant kitchens across California, New York, and Pennsylvania, comparing those running on gas or propane to three all-electric kitchens. The results showed fossil-fuel kitchens running hot and dirty even with commercial ventilation systems in place. Most gas and propane kitchens hit temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, well past the 80-degree threshold that federal regulators have proposed as a trigger for mandatory work breaks. Electric kitchens stayed much cooler.

The air quality gap was just as stark. Seventy percent of fossil-fueled kitchens had levels of nitrogen dioxide, a lung-irritating byproduct of combustion, above limits set by the EPA and World Health Organization. Electric kitchens never came close to those limits. Even with the stoves off, about a third of gas and propane kitchens kept producing unsafe nitrogen dioxide levels overnight, likely from pilot lights left burning. Some fossil-fueled kitchens also showed unsafe spikes of carbon monoxide and benzene, a known carcinogen. Electric kitchens stayed under safety guidelines for all of these pollutants.

This study focused on commercial kitchens, not home stoves, but it points to the same combustion byproducts that gas ranges release into home kitchens, just at a different scale. California now requires new commercial kitchens to be built electric-ready, and the state along with several others offers rebates for efficient or electric kitchen equipment. If you're weighing a kitchen range replacement at home, it's worth checking whether your state or utility offers similar incentives for switching to electric or induction cooking.