12 mo. ago • 95%

How to Minimize Indoor Air Pollution When Cooking at Home

www.bloomberg.com How to Minimize Indoor Air Pollution When Cooking at Home

Cooking a big meal can produce more indoor air pollution than health guidelines suggest is safe even when you’re outside.

22 comments

I'm not gonna lie, the thumbnail did NOT look like an arm with a hand.

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- Yepp
  
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- I also had to do a double take
  
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Summary: Use a vent hood (preferably one that blows the air out of your home) or open a window.

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- yeah. What they're not talking about so much (but which can also help) is keeping the temperature down while frying. Some of the newer induction stoves and hot plates have temperature sensors so you can reliably keep temperatures just below the point where the oil starts to smoke and produce a lot of particulates.
  
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  I didn't know that stoves with temperature sensors exist. That sounds like a really useful feature.
  
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  Not just Induction, I have a (new) gas stove with a frying mode on one of the hobs that lets you set the temp from 160-200 Celsius, and it controls the gas level to keep it at temp.
  
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  A lot of instructions/recipes will tell you to bring the oil to smoking, though. The other issue is that some oils smoke lower than others
  
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  YO! That's so neat! My stove has a huge problem with overheating and I have to play close attention to it
  
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@ uno online I often use a wall or ceiling exhaust fan while cooking. Open windows and/or exterior doors to improve air flow through the kitchen.

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Feel like this would be an amazing selling point to get people to try sous vide style cooking, though I’ve never used it personally, I’ve heard nothing but good things about it, and it seems like it would be pretty sterile since everything is just warming up in a contained bag.

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- Sous vide has the problem of time and inflexibility.
  
  Don’t get me wrong, it’s easy to produce a literally perfect steak or whatever. The thing with steaks though, is that they look awful unless you take them out and slap a very high heat sear on them- and they lack the browning and carmelization the sear provides (which is a source of the flavor- especially in chicken breasts,)
  
  As for time, it’s going to add a couple hours to it, and for some reason, nobody mentions the time it takes to get up to temp to begin with. (You can shorten this by preheating the water, mind- microwave and stove are both faster.).
  
  The real take away is to use a hood on your cooktop- either one that vents to outside or a filter capable handling it. (Also, clean your hoods. Just saying.)
  
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- I don't think you can reduce air pollution by cooking sous vide. After the sous vide part, the food is probably grilled and then you have all the smoke again. See an example in this short video: Steak sous vide
  
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  You can cook the steak fully sous vide and it tastes great, especially when you add stuff during the cooking process.
  
  Even your own video they eat both the regular and the seared version and seem to greatly enjoy both.
  
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Then there's me: torn between wanting to use the hood to vent and my fear of the noise it makes (misophonia).

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- Get therapy for the noise fear and use the hood.
  
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  Misophonia is actually a physical thing rather than psychological. Mostly, anyway. I have improved it a lot through exposure therapy, but it still hurts when I hear certain sounds. I can use the vacuum now! Mostly. Slow and steady.
  
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