Source · category
Cooking
Also: gas cooking, frying emissions
The largest indoor source of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide in most homes. Frying, grilling and gas burners release particles, aldehydes and nitrogen dioxide in bursts that can exceed outdoor levels tenfold.
“The indoor generation of these particles is associated with human activity, like the burning of materials, which is present in everyday activities such as cooking and heating but also from cleaning products.”
Why it matters indoors
Cooking emissions have two parts: combustion (gas hobs produce nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and ultrafine particles even before food is added) and the food itself (frying and grilling generate fine and ultrafine particles, acrolein and other aldehydes). A single frying session can push kitchen PM₂.₅ above 100 µg/m³ for half an hour and raise levels in the whole flat. An extractor hood vented outdoors is the single most effective measure; electric or induction cooking removes the combustion part entirely.
What the studies report
12 of 21 Findings — those with the strongest study design.
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lung cancer | OR 1.61 (1.01–2.56) | — · home | case-control study of lung cancer in Chinese women: exposure to tobacco smoke, to daily cooking and to incense or mosquito coils recorded by interview, with odds ratios adjusted for potential confounders and examined for interaction between smoking and indoor inhalants | F-1728 Lung Cancer in Chinese Women: Evidence for an Interaction be… (2010) | machine |
| Birth outcomes | OR 1.7 (1.1–2.8) | — · home | multicentre hospital-based case-control study in Karachi: women with an adverse pregnancy outcome compared with controls, with tobacco use, kitchen ventilation and other determinants recorded by interview and analysed by logistic regression | F-1750 Association of tobacco use and other determinants with pregn… (2016) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | other 250 | — · test house | measurement campaign (HOMEChem) in a manufactured test house at the University of Texas at Austin during prescribed everyday activities: cooking, cleaning, opening doors and windows | F-0076 Patel et al. Indoor particulate matter during HOMEChem - Concentrations, … (2020) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | other 19 | — · home | measurement study: indoor and outdoor PM2.5 and PM0.4 sampled at four fixed residential stations in Tehran over four seasons (August 2020 to July 2021), 6- to 12-hour samples, source shares estimated from the measurements | F-0090 Oroji Assessment of Indoor/outdoor Particulate Matter in Residenti… (2023) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | ratio 46.9 | — · laboratory | laboratory measurement-method comparison: cooking fumes generated under simulated typical cooking conditions, manual gravimetric analysis as benchmark against an optical particle counter (Promo 3000), a photometer (DustTrak 8533) and infrared spectrophotometry | F-0109 Wang et al. Cooking Fume Particulate Matter as an Indoor Air Pollution S… (2026) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | ratio 2.13 | — · laboratory | laboratory measurement-method comparison: cooking fumes generated under simulated typical cooking conditions, manual gravimetric analysis as benchmark against an optical particle counter (Promo 3000), a photometer (DustTrak 8533) and infrared spectrophotometry | F-0110 Wang et al. Cooking Fume Particulate Matter as an Indoor Air Pollution S… (2026) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | other 80.3 | — · laboratory | laboratory measurement-method comparison: cooking fumes generated under simulated typical cooking conditions, manual gravimetric analysis as benchmark against an optical particle counter (Promo 3000), a photometer (DustTrak 8533) and infrared spectrophotometry | F-0111 Wang et al. Cooking Fume Particulate Matter as an Indoor Air Pollution S… (2026) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | other 73.1 | — · laboratory | laboratory measurement-method comparison: cooking fumes generated under simulated typical cooking conditions, manual gravimetric analysis as benchmark against an optical particle counter (Promo 3000), a photometer (DustTrak 8533) and infrared spectrophotometry | F-0112 Wang et al. Cooking Fume Particulate Matter as an Indoor Air Pollution S… (2026) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | mean 150 | adult residents of Bamako in four occupational groups · home | personal exposure measurement study: residents of Bamako in four occupational groups (office workers, drivers, cooks, students) wore palm-sized optical PM2.5 sensors on the chest during daily activities, September 2020 to February 2021 | F-0125 Sidibe et al. Personal Exposure to Fine Particles (PM2.5) in Northwest Afr… (2022) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 0.56 | children under 5 years · home, cooking outside under a roof only | cross-sectional assessment at recruitment to the Cooking and Pneumonia Study, a cluster-randomised trial of cleaner-burning biomass cookstoves in rural Malawi: 48-hour personal carbon-monoxide monitoring of 1928 children under five with carboxyhaemoglobin measured in 1520 of them, against household characteristics and cooking practices from questionnaires | F-0762 Havens et al. The Cooking and Pneumonia Study (CAPS) in Malawi: A Cross-Se… (2018) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 1.39 | children under 5 years · home, cooking veranda | cross-sectional assessment at recruitment to the Cooking and Pneumonia Study, a cluster-randomised trial of cleaner-burning biomass cookstoves in rural Malawi: 48-hour personal carbon-monoxide monitoring of 1928 children under five with carboxyhaemoglobin measured in 1520 of them, against household characteristics and cooking practices from questionnaires | F-0763 Havens et al. The Cooking and Pneumonia Study (CAPS) in Malawi: A Cross-Se… (2018) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 1.83 | children under 5 years · home, cooking inside in the kitchen | cross-sectional assessment at recruitment to the Cooking and Pneumonia Study, a cluster-randomised trial of cleaner-burning biomass cookstoves in rural Malawi: 48-hour personal carbon-monoxide monitoring of 1928 children under five with carboxyhaemoglobin measured in 1520 of them, against household characteristics and cooking practices from questionnaires | F-0764 Havens et al. The Cooking and Pneumonia Study (CAPS) in Malawi: A Cross-Se… (2018) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Identifiers
- MeSH
- D003296
In the literature
- Natural Ventilation Reduces Cooking-Related PM2.5Peaks Indoors (2026). ACS EST Air. doi:10.1021/acsestair.5c00427 CKB 1198
- Tang et al. Quantification of VOCs, Nitrogen Oxides, and Ultrafine Particles Emitted by Domestic Air… (2026). ACS EST Air. doi:10.1021/acsestair.5c00363 CKB 1084
- Indoor air pollution from cooking: emission characteristics, exposure risks, and health implications (2026). doi:10.3389/fenvs.2026.1925033 CKB 1043
Studies in the Coridum Knowledge Base in which this term is used. The definition follows standard usage in WHO, ISO and textbook sources; it is not quoted from these papers.
CKB = document number in the Coridum Knowledge Base, our curated library of peer-reviewed studies. Follow the DOI for the original paper.
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Cooking. Coridum Knowledge G-0064, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0064/