Induction cooking EMF magnitude vs other things? Missus is a bit concerned.

[Marco]

The device is expensive, not the technology.

[thm_w]

A probe on a spring? Expensive?

That's 50s tech! Some early heating coil stoves have those! Little mechanical thermostats in the middle of the coils.

EDIT: I know it's now a thermistor with microprocessor shenanigans, but it's still a simple principal. No mystical voodoo...

You'd be surprised at the lack of sensible tech that makes it into consumer stoves/ovens.
I had to pay a small fortune for an inductive cooktop with a 7-segment display and a simple digital on/off timer, something that has been around for decades and could be made with less than $5 in parts.

The base Miele oven doesn't even have a CLOCK, you have to pay hundreds more for the "high end" version with one. 

[CopperCone]

Well to be fair its completely unknown if its possible to have someone that is sensitive to low frequency EM fields. Even microwaves could theoretically cause thermal gradients in the brain, which could effect functioning, though it is expected that with all the circulation that occurs in these regions and the thermal time constants the effects are rather small, despite the fact that they are way faster then anything in our body.

Personally, if I had the money, I would shield everything, including power lines (probably use DC here) and hardwire everything... if only to make scientific pursuit easier

You could try to live in a radio quiet area for a while, to see if you feel any different, but your mood is very subjective to so many things that its difficult to isolate factors that are probably negligible like low strength electric fields.

It does make me wonder though, if something in the brain could go high impedance somehow and be effected by fields, I am sure alot of people here have seen this on fried transistors.


I would say that it is a good conjecture though that, at least harmful effects of electric fields are blocked, due to the fact that life evolved with natural RF noise sources like lightning... but the present day situation is a bit different.

easy for engineers to yell that nothing is wrong, but im sure chemists said the same thing about certain pesticides etc.

[NiHaoMike]

We have a top of the line Zojirushi induction heating pressure cooking rice cooker. The induction aspect made it a lot more expensive than the similar looking Zojirushi model with resistive heating, but it doesn't offer any practical advantage. The resistive heating ones keep very tight control over the cooking, and are silent. The induction ones have an annoying cooling fan. I'd buy the resistive heating one next time. I know from the experience of friends that other makes, like Panasonic, are similar. The benefits of the pressure cooking angle seem marginal, too. Don't expect a pressure cooking rice cooker to speed up the cooking. They are usually a bit slower than similar models without the non-pressure cooking feature. The pressurisation is supposed to force more moisture into the core of the rice grains, and achieve a more even softness.

I think the real advantage of induction heating is better control. Resistive heating can also be controlled remarkably well with a triac, but apparently the cost over a relay is hard to justify if they can't get very much marketing boost putting it in.

[coppice]

 

I think the real advantage of induction heating is better control. Resistive heating can also be controlled remarkably well with a triac, but apparently the cost over a relay is hard to justify if they can't get very much marketing boost putting it in.

Only cheap rice cookers use a relay to switch the heater. Since the early 90s the nicer models have all used fuzzy logic to keep tight control of the heater throughout the cooking cycle. That's pretty much the same controller, whether you have a resistive heater or an induction one.

[NiHaoMike]

Only cheap rice cookers use a relay to switch the heater. Since the early 90s the nicer models have all used fuzzy logic to keep tight control of the heater throughout the cooking cycle. That's pretty much the same controller, whether you have a resistive heater or an induction one.

My parents have bought several rice cookers over the years and the only one that didn't have a relay clicking on and off throughout the cooking cycle was the one that had an induction cooker. (Most usual failure point is the coating on the pot starting to flake off despite being treated with a lot of care.) It probably also helps that induction has basically instant response although I suppose a resistive heater's thermal inertia can be compensated for somewhat in software.

I personally use a standalone induction cooker and a high end stainless steel pot, because the combo costs less than a high end rice cooker and can do far more. It does take a little trial and error to get the settings right but engineers like having control over the whole process.

[james_s]

I would have thought a triac would be cheaper than a relay. Certainly when I've actually bought triacs and relays the triac and related parts have been similar or less.

[Ampera]

To be honest, I prefer gas anyways. I don't care what electronic device you have, temperature is nowhere near as good as a gas flame. Also, it's usable if the power goes out.

[james_s]

I prefer gas in a cooktop, but electric is arguably superior for an oven, and it's certainly more convenient for a self contained gadget. I cook a lot of burgers on one of those George Foreman widgets, it's super convenient and the amount of grease it extracts is actually a little disturbing. Heating both sides at once it will cook a hamburger patty in just a few minutes, electric works nicely for that application.

[David Hess]

I have been teaching myself to cook with a cast iron pan for a couple of years now so once I have the stove settings figured out, I do not care what kind of stove it is.  Gas would be nice for a wok type of pan though which I have not tried yet.  Lodge makes some cast iron woks which they advertise as suitable for induction heating so I assume they would work on a resistive heating stove also.

I did my first hamburgers a couple months ago using my pan and they were perfect on the first try and resulted in easy clean up but that just takes experience.

[NiHaoMike]

I would have thought a triac would be cheaper than a relay. Certainly when I've actually bought triacs and relays the triac and related parts have been similar or less.

At high current, the cost of building in the heatsinking is not negligible. At low currents, they are in fact cheaper.

To be honest, I prefer gas anyways. I don't care what electronic device you have, temperature is nowhere near as good as a gas flame. Also, it's usable if the power goes out.

Considering induction furnaces can easily heat metal to white hot, it's safe to say electric is capable of getting way hotter than what you need for cooking food. "Preppers" generally recommend some sort of camping stove (most likely one capable of burning wood) as a backup because (obviously) you can take it with you if it is necessary to evacuate.

[james_s]

There's a large gap between doomsday preppers and the sort of minor emergency like power outages that occur now and then in the winter. I do like being able to light my kitchen stove with a match, I don't get many power outages here but there's usually one every few years that lasts a day or two.

[NiHaoMike]

I just realized the one who says rice cookers that use triacs are very common is in 240V country, where the current is halved for a given power compared to 120V. Considering the biggest market for rice cookers - China - is also a 240V country, there's a lot of R&D put into 240V rice cookers.

[CJay]

Dump the induction hob and buy a gas one, take it from someone who cooks every day and enjoys it.

[NiHaoMike]

Dump the induction hob and buy a gas one, take it from someone who cooks every day and enjoys it.

Not everyone has access to gas. Those who do, in warmer climates, might not find the service charge worth it.

[IanMacdonald]

The biggest annoyance of infrared glass cookers in my experience? Any spill gets baked onto the glass and you'll have quite a time scraping it off. With induction, just wipe it off with a paper towel and that's it.

Biggest issue IME is that if a pan drips a little salty water onto the touch controls they go haywire.

[coppice]

The biggest annoyance of infrared glass cookers in my experience? Any spill gets baked onto the glass and you'll have quite a time scraping it off. With induction, just wipe it off with a paper towel and that's it.

Biggest issue IME is that if a pan drips a little salty water onto the touch controls they go haywire.

A lot of work has gone into taming that problem. A recent well designed hob is pretty hard to disrupt through water spillage.

[CJay]

Dump the induction hob and buy a gas one, take it from someone who cooks every day and enjoys it.

Not everyone has access to gas. Those who do, in warmer climates, might not find the service charge worth it.

I'll add 'if possible' then.

I've yet to find an electric hob that's anywhere near as nice to cook on as a gas hob but of course, I've not tried them all.

[thm_w]

I've yet to find an electric hob that's anywhere near as nice to cook on as a gas hob but of course, I've not tried them all.

And I couldn't stand cooking on gas: fumes, noisy ventilation required, no nice smooth cooktop that is easy to clean and slide pans across, less efficient, and can't be used as flat counter space easily. Its a personal preference thing.

[TheDane]

Burning gas/methane/carbonhydrides is anything far from healthy - make sure you have plenty of ventilation to the outside

"
  *   Around 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using open fires and simple stoves burning biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal.
  *  Over 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels.
  *  More than 50% of premature deaths due to pneumonia among children under 5 are caused by the particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution.
  * 3.8 million premature deaths annually from noncommunicable diseases including stroke, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer are attributed to exposure to household air pollution."

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Combustion

Coal can be used to make methane, so it is not every biomass-burner who lives in a 'developing country' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Gasification_Company

[CJay]

I've yet to find an electric hob that's anywhere near as nice to cook on as a gas hob but of course, I've not tried them all.

And I couldn't stand cooking on gas: fumes, noisy ventilation required, no nice smooth cooktop that is easy to clean and slide pans across, less efficient, and can't be used as flat counter space easily. Its a personal preference thing.

Not sure what kind of gas you use that requires noisy ventilation, we use methane which only requires enough airflow to provide the oxygen necessary to burn clean, the only time noisy ventilation is required is when there's lots of odour or steam from the food being cooked (or I've burned something)

[coppice]

I've yet to find an electric hob that's anywhere near as nice to cook on as a gas hob but of course, I've not tried them all.

And I couldn't stand cooking on gas: fumes, noisy ventilation required, no nice smooth cooktop that is easy to clean and slide pans across, less efficient, and can't be used as flat counter space easily. Its a personal preference thing.

Not sure what kind of gas you use that requires noisy ventilation, we use methane which only requires enough airflow to provide the oxygen necessary to burn clean, the only time noisy ventilation is required is when there's lots of odour or steam from the food being cooked (or I've burned something)

I was wondering what kind of electric hob doesn't require a noisy exhaust fan to suck away all the food fumes? Electric frying without a cooker hood soon greases up the whole kitchen.

[thm_w]

Not sure what kind of gas you use that requires noisy ventilation, we use methane which only requires enough airflow to provide the oxygen necessary to burn clean, the only time noisy ventilation is required is when there's lots of odour or steam from the food being cooked (or I've burned something)

Natural gas, it does burn quite clean but you still need enough exhaust airflow to pull away the carbon dioxide and other combustion fumes. Whether or not you are using the recommended level of ventilation I can't say. I think for 20k BTU, required airflow is 200 CFM (probably not too loud with a decent fan, but would have to measure the air quality to know for sure).

https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/12/25/home-gas-ranges-produce-toxic-gases-lawrence-berkeley-lab-study-says/

I was wondering what kind of electric hob doesn't require a noisy exhaust fan to suck away all the food fumes? Electric frying without a cooker hood soon greases up the whole kitchen.

I rarely turn mine on and if needed its on low (I don't fry with high heat), its not as loud as the level you are supposed to use when cooking with gas.

[james_s]

I think you'd have to be doing serious enough cooking to need the exhaust fan on anyway for the fumes from natural gas to matter. Certainly the basic cooking I do has not been a problem, I have a CO detector near my stove and I've never seen it register anything at all, just the natural convection seems to be enough to carry the draft up the vent hood whether the fan is on or not. There's a damper flap but it's not airtight. Burning gas with a blue flame is a lot different than burning solid fuel like wood or charcoal.

[thm_w]

I think you'd have to be doing serious enough cooking to need the exhaust fan on anyway for the fumes from natural gas to matter. Certainly the basic cooking I do has not been a problem, I have a CO detector near my stove and I've never seen it register anything at all, just the natural convection seems to be enough to carry the draft up the vent hood whether the fan is on or not. There's a damper flap but it's not airtight. Burning gas with a blue flame is a lot different than burning solid fuel like wood or charcoal.

CO2 not CO, you won't see CO unless there are some serious issues with incomplete combustion (poor engine or starved for oxygen).