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> No one should be cooking inside without a vent running or a window open. ...or perhaps, it doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things, and you're
by timr 4y ago
> No one should be cooking inside without a vent running or a window open.
...or perhaps, it doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things, and you're worried about it because you bought a measurement device and started measuring something you hadn't measured before.
This isn't a minor point. It's a recurring theme in biological and medical science where researchers start to measure things for the first time, discover a previously unknown level, declare it significant or "alarming", and ignore that there's no causative link to any known harm.
When you measure things, you find things, but most things you find are uninteresting.
- MengerSponge 4y agoExcept here there is a causative link of combustion byproducts of that size causing real harm. I've also lived in lots of apartments that don't have external-venting range hoods, so all that PM you generate while cooking is just in your living space until you filter it or breathe it. Introducing a PM counter, better filters, and enhanced ventilation practices (such as running the upstairs bathroom fan while cooking) dramatically reduced the eye irritation and stuffy nose I tended to wake up with. For what it's worth, the same particulate counter will also spike off the charts when anyone takes a shower, but as far as we can tell those salt pm's aren't dangerous.
- timr 4y agoNo, here is a link between car fumes and lung cancer in mice. Unless you routinely have a car running in your kitchen while cooking (for mice), it's not related. PM2.5 particles are not all the same, nor are periodic exposure levels in a household kitchen in any way comparable to those used in a laboratory animal study. > For what it's worth, the same particulate counter will also spike off the charts when anyone takes a shower, but as far as we can tell those salt pm's aren't dangerous. Yes, exactly. You are perfectly illustrating my point. You have just as much evidence for this claim as for the kitchen one (i.e. none), but you assume one is fine and the other is not.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoYou're not wrong... but running a vent or opening a window while you're cooking to mitigate PM2.5 exposure, which we know can be carcinogenic, seems like incredibly minimal intervention. I'd rather change my behavior slightly than wait for more conclusive data in this specific case.
- timr 4y agoYes, of course. I'm not reacting to the idea, so much as the "everyone MUST do this" implication. It's probably not a bad idea to open a window or run a vent (depends on where you live, I guess), but I wouldn't panic or deploy a particle meter, or stop cooking if I couldn't do it, either.