Worried About Your Gas Stove? Here’s What To Do

Worried that using your gas stove is negatively affecting your health? Though experts and pundits continue to debate the fine points, gas stoves have long been shown to release potentially harmful pollutants like carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and nitrogen dioxide, a respiratory irritant. New studies have also linked gas stoves to increased rates of childhood asthma, and shown that using a gas stove can produce elevated levels of benzene on par with those from second-hand tobacco smoke.

In January 2023, the Consumer Product Safety Commission made it clear that while the agency isn't looking to ban gas stoves, it is actively researching performance tests for measuring emissions, safety standards, and other solutions for reducing the potential hazards. The Department of Energy is in the process of proposing stronger efficiency regulations for new gas stoves that would also effectively reduce their emissions.

The good news is, you can mitigate risks right now-even if your household includes kids with asthma-by getting more fresh air into your kitchen while you cook. Here are some tips.

Turn on your range hood every single time you cook
Recent studies about cooking and indoor air quality show that when it comes to range hoods, people are not using them enough. You should flip on your range hood every time you cook or bake, not just when you're deep-frying fish, say, or charring the heck out of a steak.

A range hood is there for ventilation, not odors, notes Jessica Petrino Ball, who runs the education programs at the kitchen appliance retailer AJ Madison. A good range hood sucks up and removes steam and harmful pollutants as you cook, she says. We're just lucky that action also tends to move smells, heat, and tiny steam-borne grease particles out of the kitchen too.

Range hoods vary widely in effectiveness, so get familiar with what kind you have, especially if your home or kitchen is on the smaller side. Some hoods vent to the outdoors, which is ideal, says Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability who studies gas stoves and indoor air quality. Others recirculate air through a filter, which may dilute pollutants immediately in front of the stove, he says, but won't remove them from the rest of your home.

Open the windows, add a fan
What if your kitchen doesn't have a vented range hood, or doesn't have a range hood at all? Again, one of the easiest ways to get fresh air into your kitchen is to open a window or a door to the outside while you cook.

Jackson says that because his research shows pollutants make their way into the rest of the house (even with vented hoods, and especially in apartments or smaller homes), "the ideal case is to have two windows open that give you a cross breeze."

Use countertop appliances
One immediate and affordable way to improve your indoor air quality is to use countertop appliances in place of your gas stove or oven. This is especially true if you don't have a good-quality range hood, if it's too hot or too cold outside to stick a fan in an open window, or the outdoor air quality in your community is poor.

Adjust your cooking routine
How you use your cooktop or stove can also affect the quality of the air inside your home, Stanford's Rob Jackson told us. His research has shown that concentrations of pollutants are actually higher when you cook something slow and low rather than fast and hot. And the longer your stove is on, the higher the concentration of many pollutants, says Jackson. Stoves also tend to be less efficient at lower temperatures, so more pollutants leak into the air rather than disappear with combustion. If you have to use your gas range on a day when you can't open a window (or turn on a powerful range hood), consider a quick saute tossed in a wok instead of a lengthy braise.