A resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, Brian Kezer enjoys a wide range of interests and hobbies, including reading, playing video games, and playing and watching sports. Brian Kezer also enjoys spending time listening to music, as well as cooking.

There’s an ongoing debate over which is better, cooking with gas or with electricity. Many people just prefer whatever they grew up with, but those who’ve tried both usually have definite opinions. In addition, one’s lifestyle may affect the choice of cooking medium. The first area is cost. While gas and electric stoves generally cost around the same, the cost to operate them can vary greatly, depending on one’s location. In general, though, gas is less expensive to operate. This may increase dramatically, though, if the home needs gas lines installed in the kitchen. By contrast, all modern homes have electricity, though most modern electric stoves require a 240-volt outlet.

Another area of concern is safety. Gas stoves cook with an open flame protected only by an iron grate, so there’s always the potential that a stray piece of paper or plastic could catch fire. Electric stoves also have a safety concern: if the cooking surface has an electric coil, the lack of an obvious signal like the open flame of a gas stove makes it hard to know when the cooking surface is safe to touch. This is an obvious concern to families with very young children or very old adults, or anyone in-between.

Probably the most important consideration is the cooking experience itself, and here opinion seems to fall on the side of gas stoves. Gas stoves are prized for their flexibility and their quick response to temperature adjustments, despite the fact that electric stoves, which utilize 74 percent of their energy to heat the food, are almost twice as efficient as gas stoves, which use only about 40 percent.