Seven Ways To Protect Your Health When Cooking With Gas

Cooking can contaminate the air in your home to such an extent that breathing in the kitchen is as safe as breathing on a busy street. Poor oxygen supply can prevent gas or solid fuels from burning properly, producing harmful pollutants such as fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides which can irritate the lungs, and increase the risk of heart diseases such as asthma, lung cancer and stroke.

The degree of contamination depends on the type of fuel used. The most common fuels in developed countries are gas and electricity. People in developing countries depend on more polluting options like coal, charcoal, firewood and cow dung. Children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with pre-existing medical conditions are most vulnerable to the pollution they produce.

About one-eighth of childhood asthma cases in the United States are linked to gas stoves. President Biden's Anti-Inflation Act will offer $1,340 to families to upgrade from gas stoves to electric induction cooktops.

Together with our partners, we measured the concentration of fine particulate matter in 60 different types of kitchens in 12 cities across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. About 33% of households use natural gas for cooking, followed by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG, 27%), electric heating (17%), coal (14%), kerosene (8%) and ethanol (1%) . Interestingly, when using natural gas, the impact of this pollutant on cooking is only 30% lower than when using coal, one of the most polluting fuels.

Gas stove replacement policies were slow and difficult to enforce. If you have such devices in your home, there are several things you can do right now to reduce your exposure. Here are our top seven.

1. Reduce frying

Grilling releases more particles than any other method and can account for more than half of total cooking emissions. Boil and steam food whenever possible.

2. Reduce cooking time

Choose recipes and dishes that require less cooking time to reduce overall kitchen pollution. Vegetarian dishes are usually prepared in a simple, fast and healthy way.

3. Control the air quality in the kitchen

Indoor exposure to carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels above 1000 parts per million (ppm) can cause headaches and drowsiness, and airborne concentrations of fine particulate matter above 15 µgm³ can be harmful to your health. Monitor the levels of these contaminants in your kitchen and take steps to increase ventilation when safe levels are exceeded.

4. Increase ventilation

Turning on exhaust fans while cooking can reduce the average exposure to fine airborne particles and reduce kitchen humidity by up to 40%. Opening kitchen windows and doors while cooking can reduce CO₂ by up to 54% compared to opening the door alone. Mechanical ventilation using fans in combination with open doors and windows can reduce a kitchen's exposure to half that of natural ventilation alone.

5. Use cleaner fuels

Using natural gas instead of coal can reduce the impact of fines in cooking by an average of 1.3 times, and when using liquefied petroleum gas - up to 3.1 times. Kitchens that use a combination of gas and electric stoves have reduced their CO₂ levels by more than a third compared to kitchens that use kerosene.

6. Stay away from the kitchen

Hanging out in the kitchen while someone cooks doesn't need to cost more people money. It also increases CO₂ levels, which can be more than 7% with two or more passengers compared to one passenger.

7. Reducing fuel accumulation

Using multiple fuels for cooking, such as a combination electric stove and gas stove, is called fuel storage and can prevent people from using environmentally friendly cooking methods. If the right fuel and the right stoves and equipment are available and affordable, people can be encouraged to switch to cleaner fuels and stoves.

Switching from gas cooking to electricity is an obvious way to reduce the impact of air pollution in the kitchen, while limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Policies, infrastructure and public awareness campaigns are needed to accelerate this change.

Every year, 3.2 million people die prematurely from diseases related to household air pollution, mostly in developing countries where people do not have access to gas for cooking. Even this is not possible to provide a reliable power supply for most rural areas. Alternatives such as solar cookers are more accessible and inexpensive, and their wider application could help more people get rid of polluting kitchen appliances.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Quote : Seven Ways to Stay Healthy When Cooking with Gas (9 February 2023). Retrieved 12 February 2023 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-02-ways-health-cooking-gas.html.

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