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"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its
opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Max Planck

Keep in mind that there are differences of opinion about these matters,
which we will both explain and comment on when the time comes. First,
though, here is a summary of the key points.

Quick page jumps:

Favorable
Instant Adjustment
No Wasted Heat
Safety
Ease and Adaptability of Installation
Ubiquity
Cleanliness
Unfavorable
The Cooking Vessels
Inadequate Power?
Radiation Hazards?
Noise
Electricity Failures
No "Char" Flames
Neutral Or Hard to Reckon
Energy Costs
Purchase Costs
Vessel Sizes
Get Others' Opinions
Cracked Pots
Summing Up

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Favorable

Instant Adjustment

To serious cooks, the most important favorable point about induction cookersgiven that they are as
or more "powerful" at heating as any other sortis that you can adjust the cooking heat
instantly and with great precision. Before induction, good cooks, including all professionals,
overwhelmingly preferred gas to all other forms of electric cooking for one reason: the substantial
"inertia" in ordinary electric cookerswhen you adjust the heat setting, the element (coil, halogen
heater, whatever) only slowly starts to increase or decrease its temperature. With gas, when you adjust
the element setting, the energy flow adjusts instantly.

But with induction cooking the heat level is every bit as instantaneousand as exactas with gas, yet
with none of the many drawbacks of gas (which we will detail later). Induction elements can be adjusted
to increments as fine as the cooker maker cares to supply (and nowadays that is very fine, especially at
the critical low-temperatures end), andagain very important to serious cookssuch elements can run
at as low a cooking-heat level as wanted for gentle simmering and suchlike (something even gas is not
always good at). Someday, perhaps not so many years away, the world will look back on cooking with
gas as we today look on cooking over a coal-burning kitchen stove.

No Wasted Heat

With induction cooking, energy is supplied directly to the cooking vessel

by the magnetic field; thus, almost all of the source energy gets transferred
to that vessel. With gas or conventional electric cookers (including
halogen), the energy is first converted to heat and only then directed to the
cooking vesselwith a lot of that heat going to waste heating up your
kitchen (and you) instead of heating up your food. (The striking image at
the left shows how precisely focussed heat generation is with
inductionice remains unmelted on an induction element that is boiling
water!)

As a comparison, 40%less than halfof the energy in gas gets used to cook, whereas with induction
84% percent (or, by many estimates, more) of the energy in the electricity used gets used to cook (and
the rest is not waste heat as it is with gas). There are two important heat-related consequences of that
fact:

cooler kitchens: of course the cooking vessel and the food

itself will radiate some of their heat into the cooking areabut
compared to gas or other forms of electrically powered
cooking, induction makes for a much cooler kitchen (recall the
old saying: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the
kitchen."); and,

a cool stovetop: that's right! The stovetop itself barely gets

warm except directly under the cooking vessel (and that only
from such heat as the cooking vessel bottom transfers). No more burned fingers, no more
baked-on spills, no more danger with children around. (The photo at the rightone of several
similar ones to be found on the webshows, like the one above, how only the cooking vessel does
the actual cooking.)

Safety

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We have already mentioned that the stovetop stays cool:

that means no burned fingers or hands, for you
orespeciallyfor any small children in the household.
(In the image at the right, you can see a pot boiling
water on an induction unit while a dollar bill between
the pot and the cooktop surface is unsinged.) And for kitchens that need
to take into account special needs, such as wheelchair access, nothing,
but nothing, can beat induction for both safety and convenience (see the
paragraph farther below).

Furthermore, because its energy is transferred only to

relatively massive magnetic materials, you can turn an
induction element to "maximum" and place your hand flat
over it with no consequences whateverit will not roast
your non-ferrous hand! (Nor any rings or braceletsthe
units all have sensors that detect how much ferrous metal is
in the area that the magnetic field would occupy, and if it
isn't at least as much as a small pot, they don't turn on.)
And, while an element is actually working, all of its energy goes into the metal cooking vessel right over
itthere is none left "floating around" to heat up anything else. (The image at the left shows a
handwearing a metal ringharmlessly touching a full-on induction element, while a metal utensil
lies equally harmlessly on another, emphatically demonstrating those points.)

Moreover, gasinduction's only real competitionhas special risks of its own, not all of
which are as well known as they perhaps should be. While the risk of a gas flame, even a
pilot light, blowing out and allowing gas to escape into the house is relatively small, it does
exist. But a much bigger concern is simply gas itself, even when everything is working
"right". Use any web search engine and enter the terms gas health risk cooking and see
what you find (really: do try it right here); if, for example, you visit the Gascape web
site, you may never again want to even enter a house with gas laid on (take some time to really poke
around on this siteyou may be shocked). And, of course, all combustion releases toxic carbon
monoxide.

Ease and Adaptability of Installation

Unlike most other types of cooking equipment, induction units are typically very thin in
the vertical, often requiring not over two inches of depth below the countertop surface.
When a cooking area is to be designed to allow wheelchair access, induction makes the
matter simple and convenient. (In the image at the left, notice how the induction
cooktop is scarcely any thicker than the actual countertop.)

Ubiquity

It is an obvious but still very important fact that induction cookers are powered by
electricity. Not every home actually has a gas pipeline available to itfor many, the
only "gas" option is propane, with the corollary (and ugly, space-taking, potentially
hazardous) propane tank and regular truck visits. But everyone has clean, silent,

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ever-present electricity.

Cleanliness

Burning gas has byproducts that are vaporized, but eventually condense on a surface
somewhere in the vicinity of the cooktop. Electrical cooking of any kinds eliminates such
byproducts.

Unfavorable

The Cooking Vessels

The most obvious and famous drawback to induction cooking has already been mentioned: it only
works with cooking vessels made of magnetic materials. The commonest such materials used for
cooking vessels are stainless steel and cast iron. Cookware suited for use with induction cookers, from
the extreme high-quality end down to thrift-store modest, is readily available; but if you already have a
stock of mostly expensive aluminum or copper or glass or pyrex cookware and little or no cast iron or
stainless, you might be up for a cookware investment.

On the other hand, if you have a significant quantity of non-ferrous cookware that is not terribly
expensive, you can replace itpossibly with much better stuff!as part of the process; cast iron is by no
means "spendy" cookware. If you have ever seen the inside of a real restaurant kitchen, you will surely
have noticed that most or all of the cookware is either cast iron or nice, shiny stainless steel (even when
they are still using gas for their cooking). Steel is most cooks' preferred cookware material for many
good reasons we discuss elsewhere on this site (see the link belowand recall that enamelled steel
cookware also works beautifully on induction.

(Note that not all stainless-steel cookware works equally well on induction units; much depends on how the
maker has assembled the layers of metal of which the pot or pan is made. Do not assume that all cookware
labelled "stainless steel" will work on an induction unitbut almost all makers whose products do work, which
includes a lot, will proudly say so in their advertising material or specifications. The easiest test in the world is
to take any magneta refrigerator-decor type works fineand see if it will cling to the bottom of a piece of
cookware. If it doesn't, or if it clings very weakly, that item of cookware will not work on an induction cooker. If
you're shopping for cookware that you want to be able to use on an induction unit, now or in the future, just
take such a magnet along with you. Or, if you're buying off the web, make sure the product description says the
item is induction-compatible, or ask for a written or emailed statement that it is, with full refund privileges.)

For the curious, the difference is how much, if any, nickel was added to the stainless, as nickel kills magnetic
fields; the sort labelled "18/0" is nickel-free, whereas "18/8" or "18/10" stainless has too much nickel to work
effectively on induction cooktops. (Nickel is used because it tends to make a shinier steel.)

As we noted elsewhere, technology to allow use of any metal cookwareeven copper and aluminumis
in the pipeline, but there are definite problems with getting sufficient power levels with that technique,
so it will likely be many years before units with it start showing up in the mainstream (if they ever do).
So, for now, the need for ferric cookware does remain.

(There are now, however, adaptors available that will allow any pot or pan to be used on an induction
element; because they essentially turn an induction element into a standard stovetop type of heater, they lose
many of the advantages of inductionthey are less efficient, they get very hot, and may be restricted as to
maximum power levelbut if you have a special-purpose item of non-ferrous cookware, such as glass or
ceramic, it can be made to work on induction.)

(To see what constitutes good cookware for induction, see our page on Induction Cookware.)

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Inadequate Power?

This is not a valid negativebut we list and discuss it here because there are so many falsehoods and
misunderstandings floating around on this matter. As we clearly showed, with hard numbers,
induction cooking units are not merely as powerful as even "pro" gas ranges (residential "pro", that is),
they are almost invariably much more powerful. (And that's using conservative figures for both gas and
induction efficiencies.) To recap, a top-line (and top-price) so-called "pro" home gas range might have
burners each rated at 15,000 BTU/hour or, in a few cases, as much as 18,000 BTU/hourbut that is
only about 2.1 to 2.5 kW for induction elements, and even the most modest cooktops have at least one
element of at least 2.4 kW (and many have elements up to 3.6 or 3.7 kW or even more!). Any concern
over the adequacy of the "cooking power" of induction units is simply silly and ignorant.

Radiation Hazards?

Owing to the length of quoted material involved in our discussion, we have put this topic on a page of its
own; but the real scientific literature seems to show rather clearly that there are simply no radiation-
associated hazards, even for those with imbedded cardiac devices. The fields are very localized, and in
any event the cooking vessel absorbs virtually all of the field energy (and if there is no cooking vessel on
an element, it won't turn on). You should certainly read about it for yourself, but claims of hazard
seem quite groundless.

Noise

Induction itself is a noiseless process: the energy fields are generated by electronic equipment, which is
silent. But even efficient electronics generates some heat. Whether the amount of heat generated can be
dissipated "passively" (just by radiation and natural air flow, still silent) or requires a small fan to
augment the air flow depends in good part on how tightly a given maker has packed how much power
into how much spacesome units have fans, some don't. But even on those with fans: one, the fan does
not necessarily run all the timeusually just when the unit is running multiple elements at high
settingsand two, such fans are normally pretty soft-sounding. There can also an occasional very soft
"tick" sound, as the power controller cycles the elements on or off to keep the element power steady and
stable.

What can sometimes produce sound with induction cooking is not the induction equipment but the
cookware itself. Some of the possible causes include:
Encapsulated slugs in the base of the cookware: "clad" cookware (which is what any stainless-steel-finish cookware that
works on induction is) has as its base a sort of "sandwich" of layers of several different metals (typically steel outside,
aluminum or sometimes copper in the middle, and more steel inside); if the middle layer is merely encapsulated in the
steel, as opposed to being actually welded within it, it can move about, however microscopically; but any such
microscopic play can give rise to a sort of "buzzing" noise. On some other cooking surface, that buzzing won't happen, but
the high-frequency oscillations of induction's magnetic field can cause it in lower-quality clad cookware (but even then,
only on higher-power settings). When it occurs it's not typically loud, but it can annoy some people. Again: it's not the
induction equipment, it's the less than ideal cookware, but it is an induction-related phenomenon.

Loose-fitting handles on cookware, typically when riveted on, can vibrate slightly.

Pans with irregular bottoms can vibrate audibly on the glass surface, though again typically only at high-power settings.

At high-power settings, lighter-weight lids may occasionally vibrate a bit.

Cookware of solid cast iron, including enamelware, is not subject to such issues; and clad cookware of
better-quality lines should not be.

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Electricity Failures

If the electricity supply to your home is interrupted, you will be unable to cook; gas supplies can be
interrupted, too, but such interruptions are normally somewhat less likely than electricity interruptions.
If the electricity where you are frequently goes out for hours at a time, the loss of cooking ability may be
an issue for you. Most people living in such circumstances will have provided themselves with a backup,
such as a propane-powered emergency generatorbut if that's you and you have no backup, factor the
matter into your decisions.

No "Char" Flames

For those to whom charring such items as peppers in an open flame is important, the lack of such a
flame is a drawback. (It is, of course, one shared with all non-gas cookers.) But nowadays, most good
ovensgas certainly, but probably even electriccan do an acceptable job of charring food.

Neutral Or Hard to Reckon

Energy Costs

Energy-cost differences are hard to reckon because the prices of gas and the price of electricity these
days are highly volatile, even relative to one another (the DOEthe U.S. Department of Energyreports
that between 1999 and 2008, the national annual average residential natural gas price more than
doubled), and vary considerably from locale to locale even on the same day at the same hour (and, of
course, by season, too), sometimes by as much as a 3:1 ratio. But in any event, it is not a really large
factor: according to the DOE (Table A.4), cooking accounts for only about 2.7 percent of an average
home's energy useand that use includes ovens, toasters, microwaves, and whatever else, not just
stovetop cooking. The difference in cost for various cooktop energy sources is at most on the order of a
couple of dollars a month.

Where does that come from? In November of 2009, on a national average, induction-cooking electricity cost
about 1.43 times what gas-cooking cost (gas was $11.25 per thousand cubic feet, about 1,020,000 BTU, while
electricity was 11.33 cents a kilowatt-hour, and 1 kilowatt-hour equals about 7,185 BTU). Overall household
energy costs were estimated by one sourceand this is a big variableat $5 to $10 a day. Assuming, then
$7.50 a day, that's about $228 a month, of which on average 2.7%, or roughly $6, goes for cooking costs. The
43% greater cost of electricity would be about $2.60, but that's way high because it assumes that all of the
cooking energy is used for stovetop cooking, and that all households were using gas, the lowest efficiency
method, for their cooking. So a couple of bucks a month is probably too high an estimate.)

As one often-cited energy resource site put it, Most people can't save much energy by
changing their cooking methods. That site estimates saving about $13 a year for gas cooking
rather than electric, and that's not induction electric, which is significantly more efficient than most
other electricity-powered cooking methods. So perhaps even a buck a month difference is too high an
estimate. In short, the energy cost differences just don't matter. (Which, of course, is why they're in this
"neutral" category.)

Purchase Costs

It's hard to say that induction cooktops are "comparable" to gas cookers when induction-unit prices
start at close to a thousand dollars: nonetheless, we will say it. The reason we do is because one needs to
be careful to compare apples to apples, and the conventional 30-inch slide-in kitchen stove is an orange
in this analogy. It is not always true that "you get what you pay for", but it is always true that you don't

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get what you don't pay for. An induction unit is so clearly superior, in so many ways, to any other form
of cooking that it is hard to exaggerate the differences. One can say that a Chevy and a Rolls Royce are
both "cars"vehicles that take a given number of passengers from Point A to Point Bbut there are
valid reasons for the difference in their prices.

Moreover, a cookerordinary, fancy gas, induction, whateveris a very long-term investment. The cost
difference between a simple, inexpensive plain kitchen stove and a decent or better induction unit is not
much when averaged out over the likely lifetime of such a unit. Moreover, consider: right now (early
2013), the top-ranked gas range on Consumer Search's list costs about $1,350; ranges topped with
induction cooking surfaces range from $1,150 or so up, with a half-dozen under $1,500. That is awfully
competitive. (Curiously, induction-topped ranges cost little more than induction cooktops.)

Vessel Sizes

Cooking vessels at the extremes of sizethe very small and the very largeoccasionally raise issues.
Because the auto-detect feature that all induction units have is meant to assure that things from cooking
implements (such as metal tongs or spoons or ladles) to jewelry (rings or bracelets) will not activate an
element, the detectors are often set rather conservatively, so much so that on some units very small pots
or pans will not be detected (the usual minimum pot base size for activation is from 4 to 5 inches,
depending on particular unit.) But that is scarcely a major issue: if you really must have such a potsay
"a butter warmer"there are accessories available that make it easy.

At the other extremethings like griddles or fish poachers that are well over 12 or 14 inches in at least
one dimensionalso present issues, or rather they used to. We still list this as a nagative because not all
units can deal with such cookware, but nowadays a large and growing number feature "element
bridging", which allows a matched pair of elements (commonly the left front and back pair) to be
"bridged" so as to act as a single extra-long element, allowing things like griddles or fish pans to be
satisfactorily accomodated.

Nonetheless, we list this as "neutral" because even un a unit without bridging, those issues are not
substantively different from induction to, for example, gas. An induction element heats a cooking vessel
placed on to the width of the elementjust as with, for example, a gas burner. If one places a 12-inch-
diameter skillet on a 9-inch induction element, the actual heat generation will take place in a 9-inch-
diameter zone in the pan bottom; likewise, if one places the same skillet on a same-size gas burner, so
also will the heating be limited to the size of the burner diameter. Heated cookware will do one of two
things, depending on its construction (see out page on cookware for more detailed explanations):
vessels designed to accomodate rapid changes in cooking temperature, such as clad stainless-steel
cookware, will be correspondingly rapid in spreading heat throughout their total cooking area; vessels
intended for even-temperature cooking, such as cast iron (enamelled or not), will be slower to achieve
temperature equilibrium, but once well heated will hold temperatures pretty even and constant across
their total cooking area.

And today, for those for whom such considerations

loom large, there are several induction units
available with true "bridged" element pairs (as
shown in the image at the left); that means that on a
given unit, some same-size pair of elements (it
seems to typically be the left-hand front/back pair)
can be set as a "bridged pair" making them
effectively one long single element, such that a grill
or griddle or fish pan will work well on them.

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Moreover, for those with truly unusual needs,

there are now "zoneless" units that will take
any size or shape vessel you can set down on
them (as shown in the image at the right).
Zoneless is, so far, still pretty pricey, but units
with bridging are little if any different in price
from others of their general size and quality.

Get Others' Opinions

If you would like to take a current look at what is being said about induction cooking by actual users,
not "authorities", here are some direct links. Each will do a realtime Google search for the word
induction used in any discussion. The first is an especially good web resource; the other two are usenet
("groups") discussion forums. The difference between the last two is that one will search one set of
groupsall those with the word cooking anywhere in their nameand the second another group, all
those with the word food anywhere in their name (of course, there will be some overlap between those
two sets of results, notably rec.food.cooking):

the GardenWeb forums, where much and frequent discussion of induction equipment and
cooking is to be found.

the rec.food.cooking Usenet group (a forum)

The GardenWeb posters tend to be everyday folk; the usenet posters tend to be more various. In any
event, using these links gives you a set of results over which we have no control at all, so it's as unbiased
as it gets (the selection is unbiased: many of the posters will be highly biased one way or anothersee
the text immediately below for examples of what we mean).

Cracked Pots

No, not the cookware you might use, but the crackpots who post nonsense about subjects
about which it is manifest that they are sorely uninformed, thus creating false worries in
the minds of those who expect authoritative-sounding posts to actually be authoritative.
As some wit once remarked, "There is no harm in being a fool; harm lies in being a fool at
the top of your lungs." And the internet, whether the web or usenet, is chock full of
cracked pots apparently willing to be fools at the tops of their lungs about induction cooking and
induction equipment.

We used to have here a little selection of cracked-pot postings, with our explanatory comments
appended, but there's really little point to it now. Once, when so little was generally known about
induction in North America, cracked pots could get away with posting ignorant (and usually snotty)
nonsenses about the inferiority of induction and the supposed vast superiority of gasbut those days
are gone now.

Not that there aren't likely to still be a lot of cracked pots out therethis is the human race we're talking
aboutbut hard, factual data is now readily adduced. One could, for example, if given to being tediously
supererogatory, compile a long laundry list of top-rank chefs and restaurants that use, and
extravagantly endorse, induction equipment, as a sort of "Take that!" to those who insists that "the
pros" use nothing but gas; but there would be no point except to prove a willingness to scan a lot of web

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pages, because so very many top chefs and restaurants would make that list.

The old guff seemed to be especially based on the purported weakness of induction units beside gas
cookers; today, to anyone who can read without moving their lips, that scarcely rises even to the level of
being humorousit's just so silly. Remember, for comparing induction with gas:

gas BTU/hour = induction kW x 7185

Most household units have at least 2.4 kW elements, and many have 3.6 kW; that is very conservatively
equivalent, for gas cooking, to 17,000 BTU up to just almost 26,000 BTU. That is cooking power, and
it's commonplace in home units. Nuff said, hm?

Summing Up

Although this site is about the clear superiority of induction to any other method of cooking, we really
have tried to give as balanced a picture as possible. If it seems to you, after reading this page, that we
have skewed toward the favorable, that is only because induction really is immensely superior. Its sole
consequential drawback is its inability to work with certain kinds of cookwarewhich is not an inherent
flaw, because it works with the very bestbut which can be a drawback is you are at present heavily
invested (whether in a dollar or in an emotional sense) in incompatible cookware.

(And don't forget to see our page on Induction Cookware.)

You can now explore the rest of this site as you please, but if you want to jump straight to some hard
data on real induction-cooking units, the logical next stop is our page on Induction-Cooking
Manufacturers and Their Products. Or, if you want a fuller background on the "how and why",
check our "mini-course" at Kitchen Electricity 101.

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