Can you cook? Then I have something to advise you!

I vaguely remember that year,

A chef taught me,

“ It’s easy to make this spicy pork.

The secret is to make sure the food is cooked to perfection."

I humbly asked what pot qi was.

He showed a mysterious smile...

Later I understood that this pot smell is the smell of fireworks . From ancient times to the present, Chinese people have a special liking for the smell of fireworks. "The distant village is warm and the smoke is lingering in the market" is the smell of fireworks in the eyes of the ancients. Now the smell of fireworks in Chinese people is hidden in every meal. A pot of chicken soup and a meal of barbecued skewers are all manifestations of the smell of fireworks. Wang Zengqi also said that food from all over the world is nothing more than a bowl of fireworks. However, "the smell of fireworks" may not be as beautiful as imagined. In reality, it is actually a type of pollutant that affects indoor air quality and human health.

With more and more restaurants in the city, it is unexpected that restaurant fumes have become the main source of PM2.5 in urban air.

(I want to go back to the countryside)

Because oil smoke contains many substances with extremely small particle sizes, they are important components of PM2.5.

(We in the scientific research community call it “organic aerosol”)

These substances are produced by thermal decomposition or incomplete combustion of edible oil and food ingredients at high temperatures and are harmful to human health.

(So ​​scary)

Authoritative research shows that high-temperature cooking can increase the risk of cancer by 1.64 times (Zhong LJ et al., 1999).

(Pretty accurate)

Compared with ordinary residents, restaurant workers are 2-3 times more likely to suffer from chronic diseases (Juntarawijit C et al., 2017).

(Who did I offend?)

Academician Zhong Nanshan also said that among non-smoking female lung cancer patients in my country, more than *60% have long-term exposure to kitchen fumes.

(It’s all for this family)

Our extensive and profound Chinese cuisine emphasizes frying, stir-frying, and deep-frying. So are there differences in the fumes produced by different cooking methods?

Among the following four classic dishes, Kung Pao Chicken, Fried Tofu, Shredded Cabbage and Fried Chicken , can you guess which one is the most polluted?

The team of Professors Hu Min and Guo Song from Peking University found the answer by measuring the rate of organic aerosol generation during cooking (Song K et al., 2022), which is:

Because frying and pan-frying require higher oil temperatures than stir-frying and boiling, which produces more organic aerosols, which means more oil smoke and more harmful ingredients.

The type of cooking oil is another important factor affecting cooking fumes. Sunflower oil has always been a good choice for healthy diet because it is rich in unsaturated fatty acids. However, experimental results show that the generation rate of organic aerosols when cooking with sunflower oil is significantly higher than that of other cooking oils (peanut oil, soybean oil and corn oil), which is 6 times that of corn oil (Song K et al., 2022). How to choose between healthy diet and healthy breathing is indeed a difficult problem.

Written by: Wang Si, Zhang Weihao, Lu Wenqi

Design and layout: Ningning, Rourou

The original cover image comes from Beijing Foodie Squad

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References:

Song, K., Guo, S., Gong, Y., Lv, D., Zhang, Y., Wan, Z., Li, T., Zhu, W., Wang, H., Yu, Y., Tan, R., Shen, R., Lu, S., Li, S., Chen, Y., and Hu, M.: Impact of cooking style and oil on semi-volatile and intermediate volatility organic compound emissions from Chinese domestic cooking, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9827–9841, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9827-2022, 2022.

Zhong LJ, Goldberg MS, Gao YT, et al. Lung cancer and indoor air pollution arising from Chinese-style cooking among non-smoking women living in Shanghai, China[J]. Epidemiology, 1999, 10(5): 488-494.

Metayer C, Wang ZY, Kleinerman RA, et al. Cooking oil fumes and risk of lung cancer in women in rural Gansu, China[J]. Lung Cancer, 2002, 35(2): 111-117.

Juntarawijit C, Juntarawijit Y. Cooking smoke and respiratory symptoms of restaurant workers in Thailand[J]. BMC Pulmonary Medicine, 2017, 17(1): 41.

Sun Dongxu, Zheng Weifeng, Zhang Xiaofeng. Toxicity of cooking fumes and their health hazards[J]. Industrial Hygiene and Occupational Diseases, 2016, 42(03): 232-235. DOI: 10.13692/j.cnki.gywsyzyb.2016.03.020.

Li Qinqin, Wu Aihua, Gong Daocheng, et al. Research progress on PM2.5 pollution characteristics of catering sources[J]. Environmental Science and Technology, 2018, 41(08): 41-50. DOI: 10.19672/j.cnki.1003-6504.2018.08.008.

Wen Mengting, Hu Min. Physical and chemical characteristics of fine particles emitted from catering sources in Beijing and their contribution to organic particulate matter[J]. Environmental Science, 2007(11): 2620-2625. DOI: 10.13227/j.hjkx.2007.11.025.