We often think of air pollution in the context of outdoor air pollution, as that is what is focused chiefly on by media and studies. However, indoor air pollution is (depending on which data you believe) more or equally as dangerous as outdoor air pollution concerning mortality rate. This isn’t surprising, considering that most of us spend 90% of our time indoors.
The vast majority of these deaths are in the global south and are caused primarily by the use of solid fuels in cooking and heating. For this reason, I’ve found that many people in developed countries are often unaware of how polluting cooking can be or don’t care. This always bothers me because it impacts all of us (albeit disproportionality).
A recent study that I came across shows that cooking impacts many of us much more than we think. The study estimates that in the European Union and the United Kingdom, 14 country’s NO2 concentrations (from gas-based cooking) exceed the WHO guidelines. In isolation, this stat might not sound overly concerning. When put into perspective, though, it quickly becomes worrying; the study estimates that this leads to 40,000 premature deaths in Europe every year. As someone who grew up in a household with a gas stove, the findings of this study stunned me. I knew cooking created a lot of pollutants with adverse side effects, but it turns out cooking (at least with a gas stove) is vastly more dangerous than I thought.
While more and more people in these countries are now swapping to electric and induction stove tops, it’s important to note that even these can create a significant amount of indoor air pollution. For example, we cook food most nights in the studio where I am currently staying. Below, you can see the PM2.5 spikes caused by our cooking.
What surprises me the most about this is how we’re using a relatively clean form of cooking (induction) with the extraction fan almost always on. We also keep one window open 24/7. This is all in a studio of around 32 metres squared.
Nearly all of us experience the same (or worse) when we cook. In fact, another study found that simply cooking an omelette exposes you to more PM2.5 than if you were standing on an (average) London roadside for the same period. Of course, PM2.5 is not uniform, and I would hazard a guess that the particles from the traffic are more harmful (at least if you’re not using gas for cooking), but this is still a striking fact nonetheless. The same BBC article (based on the same study) goes on to say that cooking the average Thanksgiving dinner could also produce a higher concentration of PM2.5 than standing on the side of the street in Delhi - one of the most polluted cities in the world. Both are very revealing facts about how dangerous the air pollution emitted while cooking is.
I’ve always wondered how polluting cooking could be, and while there’s a lot more to learn, I think this emphasises how we need to be cautious when preparing our food. If you have a gas stove and can purchase something cleaner, it’s absolutely worth it. However, if not, my advice remains the same as it does for everyone - do your best to ventilate whenever cooking. Open your windows, use air purifiers, use an extraction fan, and take any other steps you can to reduce your pollutant emissions from cooking. Whatever you have access to, it’s worth using.
If anyone else has monitors set up around their house (especially near the kitchen), I would love to see what your results show!
One more interesting thread worth reading: x.com