Kavate doesn't regret switching from gas to electric cooktops
Analyzing the article
The Guardian
Our Analysis: 1 Fallacy
1 Moving to a new flat forced my wife and me to go electric - and realise it wasn't the tragic culinary loss I believed
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Switching to electric is often portrayed as a tragic culinary loss, an abandonment of classic cooking principles. But, for the daily tasks - caramelising onions, sautéing greens, or crisping a skin-on salmon fillet to perfection - I was surprised to find there was really no difference at all.
Don't get me wrong,1 there's a place for flame - and a reason why barbecued food is so delicious. Charring imparts flavour that you can't replicate with an electric hob. But dishes that truly require cooking over an open flame are the exception, not the rule.
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A gas stove can make the air in a kitchen so dirty it would be illegal if it was outside. Got kids? It could give them asthma. Evidence shows that ventilation does help. But I don't always remember to flick on the extractor fan...What's worse is that gas stoves are also, well, cooking all of us. The primary ingredient that fuels them is methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.
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That's why I quit using gas stoves - and abandoned my prior conviction that I could never live in a home without one. The switch has been seamless because 2 there has simply been no compromise to my cooking. There is no justification for burning fossil fuels under my food every day. The realisation has 3 felt at times like living in the future... Like switching from a coal fireplace to central heating, or swapping a tired old pony for an electric scooter. Instead of a sacrifice, it feels like a leap forward.
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... 4 it's time to move gas out of our kitchens. Some might be horrified. 5 The rest of us, though, can step calmly into the future. It's embarrassing that it took a global pandemic for me to come to my senses.
- The author makes a personal argument for switching from gas to induction cooktops based on his own experience and cites evidence on the health and environmental risks of gas stove. There are several subjective statements when relating his own experience, but until the last paragraph there are no clear-cut instances of a fallacy.
- The acknowledgement that "charring imparts flavour that you can't replicate with an electric hob" may at first seem inconsistent with the assertion that "there has simply been no compromise to my cooking." However, a charitable interpretation requires us to presume that the author himself does not desire any charring in his cooking, so that, for him personally, the switch required "no compromise." Because of this possibility, the author cannot be charged with an inconsistency here.
- The mentions of "the future" and "a leap forward" have the sound of an appeal to novelty, and the comparison to replacing a pony with a scooter may be a questionable analogy, but these are from the author's personal narrative, wherein he reports what the switch felt like to him. Since the author does not assert that everyone else will feel the same way, and because these points do not figure principally into his reasons for making the switch, it would be hard to allege that the author is committing these fallacies at this point in the text. Nonetheless, readers should consider that something's being futuristic doesn't mean it is necessarily better, and there are times and places where many people would prefer the pony over the scooter.
- The tone and language the author uses throughout the article implies that he believes his experience should convince others as well - that his lack of culinary compromise in switching to electric would apply universally. Phrases like "it's time to move gas out of our kitchens" project his view outward. But near his closing, he does acknowledge that his experience may not resonate with everyone, saying "some might be horrified." This saves the author from being seen as making a sweeping generalization that everyone would have a similar experience to his own.
- False dichotomy • The concluding language portrays those reluctant to give up gas stoves as irrational and overly emotional, while the author positions himself and likeminded folks as calm and sensible. The juxtaposition of being "horrified" versus stepping "calmly into the future" sets up an opposition between gas stove defenders as reactive adherents to the past and the author's side as progressive thinkers embracing change through reason. Saying it's "embarrassing" it took a pandemic for the author to see the light further implies others should share that embarrassment and shame for not having yet "come to their senses." This establishes a false dichotomy rooted in subtle ad hominem attacks - either join the author in moving beyond gas stoves or be deemed irrational, oblivious to facts, and stuck in outdated thinking. This overlooks that a person could embrace both gas and electric options, using induction cooktops for most tasks while employing flame appliances judiciously for certain recipes (while ensuring good ventilation).
References
- Michael Kavate (2024, Feb 5). I was a kitchen snob who would only cook on gas. Now an induction hob is my new flame.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/05/cook-gas-induction-hob-electric
Disclaimer
Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'
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