Gas-vs-electric cooking

[Samantha]

I'm brand new, here......both to macrobiotics and to the Forum. I came to macrobiotics because I suffer with fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis and am looking for enhanced energy and relief from pain. Here's my dillema: I need to replace my electric stove, which provides the opportunity to make the switch to gas. To bring in gas, however, would require extensive new plumbing which would add about $1000 to the cost of the new stove. My question: has anyone experienced any difference in health between cooking electric and cooking with gas? If it will improve my health, I'll find the money somehow, but if it doesn't really make a difference I'd not go to the expense which, in my circumstances, feels considerable. I'll appreciate all responses; thank you! Samantha

[garymill]

Hi Samantha,

I took the Way to Health Week at the Kushi Institute back in 1990. It was impressed upon me that using a Gas stove over an electric one would make a difference in one's health.

After that I initally used a Coleman Camping Stove in my apartment and noticed a difference in my health. But you are getting the opinion of someone that was so sensitive to anything electric that when I went macrobiotic, my face would swell from fluorescent lights. This was serious enough that for the first few years after becoming macro, I did not watch tv as I was so sensitive to even something like that.

I recently purchased a house about 6 months ago, there were no gas lines, so I had a propane company install a propane tank on the side of my house and connect it into the inside of my house to the stove. The cost was like $280 or so for the installation. It was nice getting one year interest free on the stove from Sears so that made everything a lot more Palatable.

Hope this helps,

Gary

[Mara]

Hi Samantha,

First of all, welcome to Cybermacro. I've been a member here for over 3 years and it's ultimately been a good and enlightening experience for me. You'll find a lot of kind and experienced folks here to give you advice on your healing path.

To address your question about cookstoves, I should start by saying I have been through a long healing journey on a very small personal budget.
I have had to make do with many things being imperfect, and have found that a little bit of faith in the healing process goes a long way.

In other words, I have yet to transition from an electric to a gas cookstove. Most or all macrobiotic people will tell you that gas is superior, for all the reasons that you have probably read, and I would generally agree with them.

But, I also believe that delicious and healthy food can be prepared on electric stoves as well, if this is what you happen to have around.

I would recommend that you do whatever you can for yourself and for healing. But at the same time, take it slow, don't worry about things too much. The healing properties of whole foods will not be seriously negated by cooking with electricity.

They may be enhanced by using gas, but they won't be canceled by using electric, if that is all you can afford.

Financial stress may very well be a bigger parasite on your energy levels and healing capabilities than anything else, right now. Same goes for worrying too much about these things.

And for the record, I've healed myself completely from debilitating chronic fatigue using electric stoves and ovens. It may be unorthodox, but it can be done.

I wish you good luck with everything!

Sincerely,

Mara

[Bruce Paine]

Samantha,

Depending on your sensitivity to physical phenomena, you could notice a difference in how electric cooked food versus gas cooked food affects you or not.

One way that you could find out, at a relatively low cost, would be to invest in a couple of butane portable stoves (which also could become exceedingly useful for cooking when traveling or camping) and then cook on the electric range for 2 weeks, followed by cooking on the portable gas burners for 2 weeks and then compare the difference.

Having had used propane stoves in various settings, I feel that they could be more convenient than portable butane stoves in areas where natural gas is not easily or cheaply available, but just beware that propane needs a considerable amount of venting if you are installing that system, yourself.

iwatani http://www.iwatani.com/ is one of the best portable butane stove makers and one can get upwards of 3 hours worth of cooking with each cassette of butane which can cost more than 5 dollars each or less than 1 dollar each, depending where one buys them.

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine

[garymill]

Samantha,

If you have not read this already, you may find it helpful.

It comes from the Kushi Institute's web site regarding various methods of cooking, gas, electric microwave etc, and which are best to use.

http://www.kushiinstitute.org/healing/water.html

[Nancy]

Hi Gary,

I found your description of gas vs electric particularly interesting. I wonder what it was about macrobiotic food that caused this supersensitivity to electronics? Maybe beginning to eat macro, showed you where your addictions and excesses were. That seems perfectly right on. Thus, for balance, you had to cut back on the electronics until you reached a stable place, for you.

The face swelling sounds like quite an extreme response.

I am finally at the point, where I want to eliminate all unnecessary electronics from the bedroom, including digital faces of anything staring at me, and TV. In the past six months, I have been in another city over 50% of my time, and slept in a quiet bedroom with very heavy drapes.

I really liked it.

The environment was different, comfortable, yet with fewer material possessions than I surround myself with at home. I loved the simplicity and the Zen-like atmosphere.

Zen ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz's...

Nancy

[garymill]

Hi Nancy,

15 years ago around this time, I had hit rock bottom in terms of my health. I had an exteme case of enviromental illness, literally getting an allergic reaction from almost every food, common household chemicals and products, and electronics like tv's Of people with enviromental illness, maybe 10% suffer that same sensitivity or EMF sensitvity like I did. This was before Macro. I found a much better allergist, probably about the tops in the country, she introduced me to macrobiotics, and encouraged me to go to a weekend at the Kushi Institute then in Brookline Mass, and also to have a consultation with Michio. All this worked to the degree that I am typing this on a computer now.

Gary