How cooking affects indoor air pollution

The cooking you do every day can be a major influence on your home’s indoor air quality – with the different sources used to cook producing varying levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), NO₂, and particulate matter.

Even after cooking, odors and potentially harmful contaminants can remain in the air.

Just like outside, the direct combustion of fossil fuels indoors are the worst polluting. Most commonly, this occurs when cooking with natural gas.

From roasting and baking inside a gas oven to frying, sautéing and even boiling water over a flame, these methods produce a larger variety and a higher quantity of potentially harmful pollutants than non-combustion cooking methods like electric ovens and microwaves.

If you have an electric or induction range, you may be on track toward a less polluted home, but you’re certainly not out of the woods.

While electric ovens and cooktops don’t rely on direct combustion, they still produce a variety of potentially harmful particles.

Although levels are usually less than with a natural gas oven or stove, particular cases of electric cooking like stir-frying or frying tortillas could potentially produce even higher amounts of particulate matter. In the case of self-cleaning ovens, which rely on extreme temperatures to burn away caked-on debris, both the electric and gas varieties have been found to release high levels of pollutants

Whether on an electric or gas burner, frying and deep frying release a high amount of potentially harmful emissions into your indoor air. This cooking method requires the oil to be heated to a high temperature, and hot oil emits compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Indoor air quality: common sources of indoor air pollution

How you cook and what you cook dictate the type and concentration of potentially harmful particles that end up suspended within your indoor air, and each type of particle can have a unique impact on your health.

A common outdoor pollutant, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) has been associated with adverse health effects such as increases in respiratory symptoms and asthma prevalence.¹ It finds its way into homes regardless of cooking methods, but it’s been observed at notably higher concentrations in homes that cook with gas combustion.

One study estimated that without using a cooker hood, cooking with gas adds 25–33% to the week-averaged indoor NO₂ concentrations during summer and 35–39% in winter.²

Most Dyson purifiers capture NO₂ using activated carbon filters. In Auto mode, they automatically sense and capture cooking fumes and odors in the kitchen - displaying real-time reports on the LCD screen or the MyDyson™app.

Dyson Purifier Big+Quiet Formaldehyde BP04 uses an exclusive K-carbon filter to absorb 3x more NO₂. It’s also 2x faster at capturing cooking odors by 97%.⁴

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a highly toxic gas that's invisible to the naked eye, odorless, tasteless, and non-irritating. While normal cooking with electric ovens doesn’t produce much CO, gas ovens – especially older ones – are susceptible to producing the gas due to the combustion.

Often found within a variety of building materials and furniture inside modern homes, formaldehyde is a carcinogenic organic compound that can also be produced and emitted into your home’s air through cooking, after which it can be inhaled and cause a range of health effects.

Dyson Purifier Formaldehyde range has all of the capabilities found in our advanced purification products, but goes a step further to detect and destroy formaldehyde.⁶ An added solid-state sensor precisely detects formaldehyde, while our catalytic filter breaks it down into two safer molecules – carbon dioxide and water.

The label of particulate matter (PM) covers a broad range of pollutants of varying microscopic sizes, measured in microns. Gas stoves that are not vented properly are one of the biggest sources of particulate matter indoors. Particles include sulfates, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, and water. Studies have shown that inhalation of particulate can have a negative impact on your health. Plus Dyson's global air quality study found that homes in all countries studied exceed the WHO annual guideline for PM2.5 (5 µg/m3).⁷

How to improve indoor air quality

Don’t take your chef’s hat off just yet. While some indoor air pollution is virtually inevitable, there are multiple measures you can take to reduce your emissions and maintain a cleaner, healthier indoor air quality.

While cooking with electric can still release pollutants, it generally emits much smaller quantities.

Electric ovens and ranges have come a long way, with a variety of cooking features that elevate them far beyond the classic red-hot coils you may be familiar with. If you're still not sold on traditional electricity-heated burners, consider exploring induction technology, which uses a magnetic field to indirectly heat metal cookware. This gives you complete control over your cooking temperature and it’s easy to clean.

With proper ventilation in place, pollutants released through cooking are quickly transferred out of your home.

Methods include range hoods and microwave vents with a direct path to the outdoors. Range hoods tend to ventilate the back of the range more efficiently, so try to cook on the back burners when possible. If you don’t have a range hood or mechanical venting system, open multiple windows while cooking to encourage polluted air to flow out of your home.

Dyson Purifier Big+Quiet Formaldehyde intelligently senses and reports CO₂ levels –notifying you when they exceed recommended volumes,⁵ and alerting you on the MyDyson™ app or LCD screen when to ventilate by opening a door or window.

Even if you don’t cook, outdoor pollutants can infiltrate your home and negatively impact your indoor air quality.

Using modern air purification technology in your home can only be beneficial. Dyson’s latest air treatment technology has advanced filtration that captures more NO₂ and 99.95% of pollutants as small as 0.1 microns.⁸ Our air purifiers are engineered to provide real-time data on your indoor air quality.

Indoor air quality: causes, treatments, and prevention