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Cooking Sunday Roast Causes Indoor Pollution 'Worse Than Delhi' (theguardian.com)
pgmrdlm writes: Cooking a Sunday roast can drive indoor air pollution far above the levels found in the most polluted cities on Earth, scientists have said. Researchers found that roasting meat and vegetables, and using a gas hob, released a surge of fine particles that could make household air dirtier than that in Delhi. Fine soot and tiny organic particles from gas flames, vegetables, oils and fat combined to send harmful PM2.5 particulates in the house to levels 13 times higher than those measured in the air in central London. Peak indoor pollution lasted for about an hour.
"We were all surprised at the overall levels of particulate matter in the house," said Marina Vance, who led the research at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She advised people to open windows and use extractor hoods if possible to ventilate the home while cooking. PM2.5s are particles that are smaller than 2.5 micrometres across. They are small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs where they exacerbate respiratory disorders and cardiovascular disease. Smaller particles can spread from the lungs into the bloodstream where they build up in the liver, heart and even the brain, where they may contribute to depression and other mental health issues.
"We were all surprised at the overall levels of particulate matter in the house," said Marina Vance, who led the research at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She advised people to open windows and use extractor hoods if possible to ventilate the home while cooking. PM2.5s are particles that are smaller than 2.5 micrometres across. They are small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs where they exacerbate respiratory disorders and cardiovascular disease. Smaller particles can spread from the lungs into the bloodstream where they build up in the liver, heart and even the brain, where they may contribute to depression and other mental health issues.
Roasting meat and vegetables are in NO WAY similar to Asian Smog!
For one, that's what ventilation is for. And I mean both the active one you have above the stove if you have half a brain and the opened windows after cooking is done.
In Delhi they breathe that 24/7. Doubt that is the same as breathing it for a few hours.
It's not like we're from caves with constant open fires with meat roasting since the dawn of man or any... oh, wait... oops.
I'm sure it is plausible that at the PEAK there are more particles matching a SPECIFIC metric than Delhi's AVERAGE, but who the hell cares? Unless you're doing things very wrong, your roasted dinner is going to exceed these levels for maybe a few hours, whereas in a major city on a bad day it will be bad for many dozens of hours, or even for days or weeks, and will be bad on a wide variety of measures.
We've built this system of demand for "information", and the infrastructure works to fill that demand, no matter how trivial the information is, resulting in a confusing continuum from important stuff to trivial stuff to downright stupid stuff. Honestly, what we need is to add computer algorithms which STOP exposing us to stupid useless stories, to reduce the overall demand.