Kathleen Martin: Welcome to Kathleen Can Do It, the DIY podcast celebrating the fun and fails of doing it yourself. I'm Kathleen Martin.

Kathleen Heaney: And I'm Kathleen Heaney. And we're just two Kathleens exploring the future of induction cooktops and induction cooking.

Kathleen Martin: And in this episode, we are breaking down the pros and cons of buying an induction stove.

Kathleen Heaney: I hate to admit this, but when you started talking to me about induction stoves, or cooktops rather, I was like, "Come again?" Kathleen, I had no idea what you were telling me.

Kathleen Martin: I have only recently started to dive into the world of induction. It is something that we are behind on, I would say, in the US.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: It is more popular in Europe and Great Britain and things like that.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: It's crazy. Do you know how it works?

Kathleen Heaney: I don't. Okay, I know about electric stove tops, which I have to say I don't like.

Kathleen Martin: No. Me either, but this is also electric.

Kathleen Heaney: Okay, so that is something that I learned just when we were doing our initial research for this episode that there's electric cooking, there's gas cooking, and then induction is also another type of electric cooking.

Kathleen Martin: So when people think of an electric stove top, they think of the old-fashioned coil burner. It gets flaming red. It can take a while to heat up. It can be uneven. Or they do have the type of electric that is the glass.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: So it looks like induction, but isn't necessarily.

Kathleen Heaney: I have not had great experiences cooking on electric until we started learning about induction cooktops. I was a gas girl through and through.

Kathleen Martin: You're a gassy girl.

Kathleen Heaney: I mean, listen. I know.

Kathleen Martin: Me too!

Kathleen Heaney: You did fart in front of me the other day.

Kathleen Martin: Oh, stop it.

Kathleen Heaney: That's true.

Kathleen Martin: It sealed the deal.

Kathleen Heaney: And it sealed our friendship forever.

Kathleen Martin: Yes. It's love. So I think a lot of people feel that way. They are very pro-gas. You kind of know what you're getting. You turn it on. It's hot. But have you heard the drama around gas stoves?

Kathleen Heaney: This is not a political podcast, but there are a couple of articles that I came across that's like, "President Biden is trying to take away your gas stoves."

Kathleen Martin: "The liberals want your gas stoves."

Kathleen Heaney: Until I actually started looking into the science behind induction cooking, I, too, was like, "Pry my gas stove from my cold, dead hands."

Kathleen Martin: Yeah, no. Honestly, me too because I never want to go to standard electric. But I do think induction is the future. Now, I almost didn't want to do the research on why gas is bad.

Kathleen Heaney: I know because I support it.

Kathleen Martin: Because I have a nice gas stove.

Kathleen Heaney: I know.

Kathleen Martin: It's a beautiful focal point in my kitchen.

Kathleen Heaney: It is. It's so pretty, your stove.

Kathleen Martin: I love it. But I do not have a vent hood. I know you're looking at me.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: By code in New Jersey, as long as you have a window in the room, you technically don't have to have a vent hood.

Kathleen Heaney: Okay.

Kathleen Martin: So I don't. I just have a floating shelf, and I never really thought anything of it. I thought it was more so for smells or smoke or something.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah, cooking smells with stuff. When you're cooking, searing something, and all the smoke flies up from whatever you're making.

Kathleen Martin: Yes. This is a quote from The New York Times, "When you use a gas stove, it emits poisonous gases what called nitrogen oxide, including nitrogen dioxide, a respiratory irritant thought to trigger asthma.

Kathleen Heaney: You sound skeptical. You don't even believe that asthma exists.

Kathleen Martin: That is true. I take it back. It triggers asthma.

Kathleen Heaney: So I read something about the American Lung Association actually getting behind the big push for induction cooking, induction ranges and cooktops and stuff, and this makes a lot of sense. I never thought about the gases that are being admitted into my home.

Kathleen Martin: No. Only from my own body, not from my stove.

Kathleen Heaney: I did a little research on the history of the gas oven because there's always a pushback when you try to change anything.

Kathleen Martin: Right.

Kathleen Heaney: I mean, think about any time Instagram tries to change the interface. People are like, "I hate it. I hate it. I hate it," and then eventually, the next day, they're like, "Oh, yeah. I figured it out." So gas stoves were invented by the British, which is why heat is measured by BTU, British thermal units. The Brits had it for 30 years before the Americans were like, "Okay, we can finally get down with it." Americans were complaining that as opposed to their coal ovens or their wood-burning ovens, that gas cooking made their food taste weird. I mean, I guess because there's less carcinogens.

Kathleen Martin: "It doesn't taste so smokey."

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. "Doesn't taste like the tree I chopped down in the backyard." And really, the only reason that gas cooking took off it did in America was because gas companies ... especially gas companies that monopolized people needing gas lanterns for their home ... lanterns and lights in your house then converted to electric, and the gas companies were like, "We need to find another way to make ourselves relevant again." And that's when they introduced gas cooking to the American public.

Kathleen Martin: That makes sense. We're like, "Oh, crap. Must adapt."

Kathleen Heaney: I don't have to buy a new oven or stove top or anything in the near future, but I'm glad that we're looking into this today because this will help inform me and I hope you, gentle listeners, for future appliance purchases that you're going to make for your home.

Kathleen Martin: Yes. So now that we've scared you a little bit, what I will say ... Am I going to throw out my gas stove? Absolutely not. Would this cause me to go buy a new stove? Absolutely not. But if you are in the market for a new stove, or if you're doing new construction or moving into a condo, whatever it is, sometimes they give you an option to select appliances. So if you're in the market, we want to tell you about induction and all the pros and cons.

Kathleen Heaney: I would select induction if I was given the option to have something new. That's what I would get at this point.

Kathleen Martin: Now that I know, I think I would. First of all, I hate cooking, so I never want to cook ever. If I have to, I guess it'll be induction. I'm always looks before function, but you can get some good-looking induction and there is magical induction that I want to talk about-

Kathleen Heaney: Okay.

Kathleen Martin: A little bit later that is completely 100% hidden, and that I think is the future future. It's cool.

Kathleen Heaney: What do you mean hidden?

Kathleen Martin: It is under the countertop.

Kathleen Heaney: Wait, wait, wait. There is a type of induction cooktop that's underneath the countertop

Kathleen Martin: And you can't see anything. It looks like you're just cooking on the countertop.

Kathleen Heaney: Is it very expensive?

Kathleen Martin: Of course.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. Of course. Everything good in life is expensive. So I think that probably ... I mean, I don't know. Kathleen, what would you say would be someone's biggest apprehension to converting their kitchen, should they need a new appliance, into induction? Would it be the way that the cooking is? Would it be the price?

Kathleen Martin: So I would say number one, it's going to be the price.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: I think they start bare minimum in the thousands up to ... I'm sure the sky's the limit, but one I saw was $3,000. So if you can get a standard range for $500, obviously this is way, way higher. But there are a lot of pros. So if you do have the money to invest, there are a lot of benefits like long-term cost savings because they are more energy-efficient. But why don't we take a step back and talk about what it is, because it is a little bit different, of how it works.

Kathleen Heaney: Okay, yeah.

Kathleen Martin: So induction cooking uses copper coil underneath the cooking surface to generate electromagnetic energy.

Kathleen Heaney: That sounds like space.

Kathleen Martin: I know. It's super science-y.

Kathleen Heaney: Is there a comet coming out of the sky that's going to scramble my eggs for me?

Kathleen Martin: So it's really cool. It's a very interesting technology where the copper coil is heating up the pan directly.

Kathleen Heaney: Ooh, interesting.

Kathleen Martin: You do need special cookware for it.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. So we were watching a video on YouTube from America's Test Kitchen, and we'll include the link in our show notes. The woman giving the demonstration about induction, she was saying that you need a pan. This is how you test. If a magnet sticks to the bottom of your pan, like a regular cast iron pan or a regular stainless steel pan, those are always pretty sure bets that they'll work on induction cooking. I am obsessed with my Caraway cooking, and I was like, "I bet that Caraway is not induction safe." Looked it up. Caraway cookware is, so all of my beautiful, colorful cookware is safe to use on this theoretical induction cooktop that I'm going to get in the future.

Kathleen Martin: Amazing. Yeah, I didn't realize that either. So yes, it has to be magnetic. If it is magnetic, it's going to work. So you may have some pans at home, you may not. That increases the investment if you have to go out and buy a whole new pot and pan set. But what's interesting is through that electromagnetic energy, it is heating up the pan itself, which means no energy is lost. It's going directly into the pan-

Kathleen Heaney: Oh.

Kathleen Martin: The surrounding area. Even the surface itself does not get hot.

Kathleen Heaney: You're telling me lies.

Kathleen Martin: I am not.

Kathleen Heaney: The surface of the cooktop doesn't get hot?

Kathleen Martin: Does not get hot. So if you lift your pan off, you can put your hand right on it.

Kathleen Heaney: What?

Kathleen Martin: You could put silicone in-between the induction and the pan for easy cleanup. You could put paper towel in-between. Wax paper. Parchment paper. Yes. It is very safe in that aspect.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: But the pan itself does get hot, so there still is a burn risk, but there's no fire risk from the heating element itself, which is very cool.

Kathleen Heaney: As somebody who can never sleep naked because I am deathly afraid of fire and running out into the neighborhood with no clothes on because my building's on fire or something, that's a huge pro for me.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah.

Kathleen Heaney: That there's no fire risk.

Kathleen Martin: Well, no fire risk on the heating element itself.

Kathleen Heaney: Yes.

Kathleen Martin: You could cause a pan fire.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. Okay. I don't know if anybody else does this, but I am so paranoid that sometimes I think I smell gas coming from my stove. I have phantom gas whiffs coming towards me, where I'm like, "Oh my god. The oven's on," and I go and check it and none of my burners are on.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah. Or you ever have it where you just forget to turn the burner off?

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: Maybe you finish cooking and it's on low, and then you come back and you're like, "Oh my god. That was on for a while."

Kathleen Heaney: I've done that, where I'm like, "Oh my God. Where was my brain? Why didn't I shut this off? And also, I'm very lucky that I didn't burn everything down."

Kathleen Martin: Yes. So that is a great pro of it. It does feel like magic. It's really cool. Love that. So another good thing: Because of that direct heat right into your pan, it's faster. So they've done boiling tests of standard electric, gas, and induction. And in that video we were watching, it was two quarts of water, it was uncovered. Seven minutes induction, 12 minutes gas.

Kathleen Heaney: Also, Consumer Reports ... whom I live by, by the way ... I've never purchased a major appliance other than my stackable washer/dryer. But if I had to buy all new appliances for a kitchen, a subscription to Consumer Reports would be my first stop because I really like to read reviews and figure out the pros and cons of what I'm buying because appliances are major purchases.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah.

Kathleen Heaney: Thousands of dollars. And Consumer Reports said that all of the tests that they did and all of the surveys they did, induction cooking ... and I was shocked to learn this ... beat out gas and electric in all of the ways that they tested it.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I believe it. They say there is a little bit of a learning curve because the pan heats up a lot faster. So you don't need to wait as long for it to heat up, which means you could accidentally burn something. So you turn it on and think you have to wait, and all of a sudden it's super hot.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. With gas, you have to wait quite a bit for that pan to heat up.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah, exactly. Another good thing about cooking with induction is that the cooking temperature can be more easily regulated. It's not just, "How big is the flame?"

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: It's typically a number. The one we saw was one to nine, and takes some time to get used to, but you can really dial in that temperature.

Kathleen Heaney: I think that that's really cool, being able to pick a heat setting on a cooktop from one to nine, or one to 10 or something, as induction cooktops and range tops become more popular. I bet we start seeing more big-time recipe websites do cooking instructions for induction included in their directions as well.

Kathleen Martin: Oh, yeah. "Turn it on to level three."

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. Or, "Start at three and then go up to six," which is so much more helpful than a low simmer. I don't know what a low simmer is.

Kathleen Martin: Depends on your burner size.

Kathleen Heaney: Yes. I guess I know what a low simmer is, but when the directions are like, "Put your pan on heat level two," that is so more exact.

Kathleen Martin: Another pro of induction cooktops is it's easier to clean.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. I like that.

Kathleen Martin: With mine, a normal gas, everything falls down there.

Kathleen Heaney: Oh, I hate cleaning it.

Kathleen Martin: You have to lift the fricking burners up, and you have mac and cheese down there.

Kathleen Heaney: And then stuff rusts if you have an older appliance. I hate cleaning my gas stovetop. That would be a major selling point for me as well.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah. It's annoying. Now I know with standard electric glass, my parents had that at their house, and it can also stain in a different way. Liquids can burn on. But that wouldn't happen because the surface isn't hot.

Kathleen Heaney: The surface doesn't get hot.

Kathleen Martin: So nothing would sizzle and burn on there.

Kathleen Heaney: And also, I feel like whenever I'm cooking for the holidays, I'm always scrambling for more surfaces to put things down. You could put something down on top of a, I don't think they call it, "burner." They call it an element, the space where you're supposed to put your pan. You could put down a carton of ice cream on top of the element right after cooking up some country ham or something, and that ice cream's not going to melt.

Kathleen Martin: That's true. Okay, so speaking of the extra space, are you ready to learn more about the invisible induction?

Kathleen Heaney: Kathleen, I feel like this is one of those things where I'm going to say, after you tell me about it, "I wish I didn't know about that because now I want that."

Kathleen Martin: It absolutely is the future in my mind for design. So it's called Invisacook. It literally says "The Original" under their logo. It's I-N-V-I-S-Acook.com.

Kathleen Heaney: Okay. I'm looking this up on my phone right now.

Kathleen Martin: What's so cool is in either porcelain or granite, they build the induction cooktop underneath.

Kathleen Heaney: Oh, it's gorgeous.

Kathleen Martin: It's just directly under the natural stone surface.

Kathleen Heaney: Oh my God.

Kathleen Martin: And still has all the induction cooking capabilities, but you don't see anything. You do see controls.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: So there's a small rectangle, but I have seen examples where it's even more camouflage. But they just have this pan with two disgusting fish in it right on the counter.

Kathleen Heaney: This looks like photoshop to me.

Kathleen Martin: So weird, right? And I saw a TikTok, and people in the comments were freaking out. "Imagine being so drunk you can't find your stove," and, "Dude, you're going to burn yourself." And every time, he's like, "It doesn't get hot."

Kathleen Heaney: It just lends itself in terms of design to the most beautiful kitchen ever.

Kathleen Martin: Yes. I like the examples. They show examples where it's on a perimeter wall where your cabinets would be. But I really like the example of if you had a large center island, you hide it there. And because it creates so much more usable space, it's seamless. All you see is the stone.

Kathleen Heaney: Oh my god.

Kathleen Martin: They have a video. It's pretty funny. But it's all these events where he's ironing on it, and they're just eating on it because it's just an island. And then he is cooking, and then he is doing Jenga, and then he's cooking.

Kathleen Heaney: It's kind of cool to think that one day, I could just have a countertop with this induction on it and then not even need an oven because I could just have one of those industrial toaster oven thing-a-ma-jiggers. And then I could just have more space for beautiful bowls and cookware.

Kathleen Martin: One can dream.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. We didn't mention it's good for the environment. So heating up with gas admits, like you talked about, the same gases that irritate our lungs. They're also really bad for global warming, and so transitioning everybody to induction heating would be a big win for the environment, which I think is worth mentioning.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah. And they say it takes less energy, so it's a little bit more energy-efficient.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: So that is a minimal, but a savings over the long run.

Kathleen Heaney: And I think if you invest in an induction cooktop or an induction range, you get a certain amount of tax benefits too. You get money back because you are helping the environment when you purchase this appliance.

Kathleen Martin: I didn't see that. But yeah, they do definitely have those Energy Star tax break things.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. It's like laptops. Remember how expensive laptops used to be?

Kathleen Martin: Yeah.

Kathleen Heaney: And flat screen TVs?

Kathleen Martin: Oh my gosh.

Kathleen Heaney: I bet in two or three years, induction cooking will be a lot more affordable than it is right now.

Kathleen Martin: Yeah. And I'm a few years away from needing it, so going to start saving now.

Kathleen Heaney: You and me both, sister. And Kathleen, thank you, genuinely, from the bottom of my uninformed heart, for teaching me today about induction cooking because I really was totally in the dark about how cool it is and how it's kind of the future.

Kathleen Martin: Anytime. If you are looking for a new appliance, maybe induction is right for you.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah.

Kathleen Martin: We have some people in our Facebook group that we're talking about appliances. One of our friends, Jennifer, was mentioning she might swap out her appliances, so maybe this would work for her. She'll have to let us know.

Kathleen Heaney: Yeah. Jennifer posted a picture of her small galley kitchen. Induction would be great because it gives you more countertop space when you're not using it.

Kathleen Martin: So true.

Kathleen Heaney: Follow this podcast. We're everywhere on socials. Just give us a search on Facebook, Instagram, @kathleencandoit.

Kathleen Martin: You can follow me, Kathleen Martin, @createacolorfullife

Kathleen Heaney: You can follow me, Kathleen Heaney, @kathleenlovescolor.

Kathleen Martin: You can give us a call. Leave us a voicemail. It's 201-378-3378. We'll play your voicemail at the end of the pod.

Kathleen Heaney: And as always, don't forget:

Both Kathleens: If Kathleen can do it, you can do it too.

Kathleen Heaney: If you get a fancy cooktop like this, will you finally learn to cook?

Kathleen Martin: No.

Kathleen Heaney: Seriously, you need to learn to cook.

Kathleen Martin: Can't make me.