Cooking activities can produce more pollutants indoors than the U.S. EPA says is healthy outdoors. How do you know? Well, the experts often say, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
If you cook with gas, install a UL listed carbon monoxide detector at least 5 to as much as 20 feet from your gas range, at a level higher than your cooktop. And, regardless of what type of oven/range you use, consider using an all-in-one IAQ monitoring device to help monitor other cooking-related pollutants, such as humidity, particulate matter, and VOCs.
You can also follow these simple ways to reduce your family’s exposure to cooking pollution.
Tips to Reduce Pollutants When Cooking
• Cook on the back burner. Most range hoods suck air from the back of your stove, making the cooking on the back burner optimal for pollutant capture by the fan.
• Cover your pots and pans with a lid to trap moisture and cooking fumes.
• Reduce cooking temperature. Avoid grilling, charring, burning, and frying at high temperatures and over prolonged periods, especially when cooking meat. Take these activities outside if you have an outdoor grill. Using lower cooking temperatures and marinating meat reduces the formation of potent carcinogens.
• Avoid pans with nonstick coatings. These can add extra chemicals into the indoor environment.
• Use an induction cooktop. It cooks faster at lower temperatures without fumes from burners and is more energy efficient.
• Use your microwave to pre-cook or fully cook food.
• Shut the doors to other areas of your home when cooking to prevent cooking pollutants from entering those areas.
• Clean up spills before they burn and cause pollutants.
• If you have a self-cleaning oven, evacuate the house during cleaning and run the range hood on high throughout the full cleaning cycle.
