Cooking is something everybody does inside their home. Did you know that cooking indoors puts a lot of pollutants and chemicals into your indoor air? This is why there has been discussion in the news around reducing the use of gas stoves in the future.
It’s not just gas stoves that create indoor pollution. All cooking creates a broad variety of particulate matter and chemicals that can get into the indoor air and impact you and your family’s health.
How Cooking Creates Indoor Pollutants
From your cooking appliance:
- Gas range burners and ovens produce carbon monoxide (an odorless, tasteless gas that in high concentrations can be deadly); nitrogen oxides (a severe lung irritant), formaldehyde (a carcinogen and irritant) and small and ultra-fine particulate matter (can induce coughs, worsen asthma, and cause lung inflammation)
- Electric range burners and ovens also produce small and ultra-fine particulate matter.
From the process of cooking, including pollutants from the food itself:
- This can be related to the type of pan, and how you use it (with/without lid, cooking temperature, and pan coatings)
- A vast array of chemicals and particles from food products, especially cooking oils and meat.
- Moisture and odors released during cooking.
