If you're concerned about indoor pollution, I highly recommend house plants.
In NASA research[1], common house plants were found to remove toxic agents such as benzene and formaldehyde from the air.
Some of the best air purifying plants: Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant), Dracaena reflexa (song of India), Nephrolepis exaltata (Boston fern), Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant), and Chamaedorea seifrizii (bamboo palm).
Recently, Waring and his colleagues reanalyzed all 195 studies that have examined whether houseplants can filter the air. They found that some types of plants can remove higher amounts of VOCs than others. But once you factor in the effects of working in a large room, none of the plants are able to do much.
Waring told me to imagine a small office, 10 feet by 10 feet by eight feet. “You would have to put 1,000 plants in that office to have the same air-cleaning capacity of just changing over the air once per hour, which is the typical air-exchange rate in an office ventilation system,” he said. That’s 10 plants per square foot of floor space. Even if you chose the most effective type of VOC-filtering plant, you would still need one plant per square foot, Waring said.
That is spot on. The only solution is to build houses with better materials that release less VOCs and/or use an air filter with a good activated carbon stage.
Carpets have become very popular. But cheap ones release tons of VOCs due to fire retardants and anti-stain treatments.
I've switched to a house built in the Scandinavian style, with oiled wooden floors and simple soap-treated furniture. Not only beautiful, but also lacks the typical brand new smell. Theoretically much better in terms of nasty VOCs.
Most modern European housing also has to abide by strict energy efficiency and air leakage standards, so they come with heat-recover air exchange systems.
I came here to say exactly this. I'm in Toronto Canada and just renovated a duplex, i was required to install ERV's to exchange the air. VOC's from off-gassing is unavoidable with present building materials, so the best we can do is replace the air as often as possible to minimize the impact. They're not expensive, and the impact to air quality is massive.
It's hard to say, there's evidence some are carcinogenic. E.g. formaldehyde.
Studies are lacking, so I prefer to err on the safe side. Especially since buying natural furniture that releases less VOCs is not limiting. In fact, it will last longer as materials are of higher quality.
If you shop around, there are some really affordable options.
IKEA has a whole range of raw solid pine furniture (without stain) that is incredibly cheap. E.g. an Ingo dining table costs ~$50. Last time I checked, it was manufactured in Poland, and it's pretty awesome quality for the price.
Buying used is definitely a good option for well-built furniture. (Here you can get a lot of things for free as well if you're willing to arrange transport.)
In many places new homes today include HRVs or similar ventilation systems which would likely do more than plants. I keep mine on 'intermittent' mode where it runs 15 minutes per hour all day.
Is there any sensor/device on the market capable of detecting carcinogenic VOC at a reasonable price?
If not is there a market opportunity to create such a product, maybe integrated into home HVAC systems that can sample circulating air with a mobile app dashboard for monitoring levels?
I've always worried that everything in my house is off-gassing and slowly affecting my health and lifespan negatively.
Current devices are all very expensive because they're lab equipment, but there is no theoretical reason for the expense. I'm sure you could design a $1 device with a servo, photodiode and spark gap.
Do these have any actual impact on health? Like, if I get a house plant, am I going to live a year longer? Two years longer?
That’s the whole problem with all this “health science.” It’s completely disconnected from expected outcomes that you can use to determine whether this is something even worth caring about.
EDIT re: sibling comment debunking impact of indoor plants. See, this is exactly what I mean. When you don’t tie observed correlations to concrete outcomes, all you do is confuse people. It’s not quite junk science, but it’s not helpful reporting of the science.
The "conclusions" people draw from that study have been disproven again and again. The study did nothing to prove that a few specimens of certain kinds of house plants are enough to replace an air filter or change.
yes, i bought a spider plant and boston fern as they're easy to find. both grow like crazy in the sun (fern also needs humidity, so it's in the bathroom).
i'm not sure how well they filter the air, but it's nice to have green, living things around that are hard to kill. =)
I always wonder about small acrylic hairs and such that float about the house. In a bright room just flex your jumper, there's thousands of these weird impurities, and I can't imagine they can be filtered out easily before or after getting into the lungs.
The biggest shocker is when you disturb loft insulation. They claim it's not terrible (specifically if undisturbed), but floating glass strands can't be all that nice.
This. We evolved in an environment with plenty of particulate matter. It's the exotic stuff that has no analog from the time when we evolved that causes problems.
Without knowing for sure, I imagine acrylic to be inert and most like any other dust on the time scale it takes for our bodies to expel it. But I could be wrong. Certainly, there are modern dangerous materials which do affect us, such as asbestos and heavy metals.
Interesting that fiberglass fibers are typically 5-25 micrometers (µm), while asbestos fibers can be 180A to 300A (1 angstrom = 1/10000th of a micrometer. So an asbestos fiber is between ~200 to 1400 times smaller than a glass fiber.
Acrylic fibers are 15 µm to 25 µm.
Merino wool fibers are 15 µm to 30 µm.
And human hairs diameters are between 20 to 200 µm.
Seems to be a biological limit to the body cleaning system e.g. nanoparticles, abestos
It all depends on how well your body is able to clean them out and what it does if it remains. Asbestos isn't bad because it's a fiber it's bad because it is hard for your lungs to move and damages the interior.
Indoor air quality means different things to different people. There are so many chemicals and particles that qualify as air 'pollution' that I find it helpful to rank how important they are. This article does a good job of quantifying the damage by pollutant, using a metric called 'Disability Adjusted Life Years': https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/which-indoor-air-polluta...
You can see that while there are a lot of things to consider, PM2.5 is by far the most dangerous. Surprisingly to me, mold is actually the next most dangerous, implying that indoor humidity control is also very important.
I got a laseregg 2, and highly recommend it or a similar monitor. It's been very eye opening to see how various scenarios affect air pollution:
* frying indoors generally swiftly puts things in the unsafe range. Especially if it led to browning.
* a neighbour's bbq would do the same if the window was open
* idling truck on the street for construction? Unsafe range
* surprisingly, the toaster would raise levels if it was on high enough to brown toast
Really helped me make better decisions about when to open/shut windows and how to cook.
I got the laseregg after reading reviews of air quality monitors used in china. Apparently it holds up well to specialized lab sensors. It has a battery and can be moved around
I've recently borrowed a similar device, and this one also measures formaldehyde. To be honest I'm quite anguished by it, because I can't find any indoors object with formaldehyde concentration less than 0.1ppm, which is the "safe" (by some legal standards) margin. Only outside or in a room with a wide open window it comes down under. It's even borderline higher in buildings not recently renovated. I've tried researching how dangerous is 0.3ppm or such, or how to keep it under control, but no luck. All sources are very academic...
0.1 ppm is quite a high indoor concentration of formaldehyde. Most homes will not air exposure levels this high.
Just for reference, NIOSH recommends 0.016 ppm as the max exposure limit for a workday. CARB recommends a max safe level of 0.05 ppm. WHO recommends max level of 0.08 ppm for 30 minutes, etc.
After these words I'm seriously starting to doubt the correctness of the device. I can't believe I wasn't able to find any indoor location with a low enough concentration for below 0.1 ppm, or only outdoors. I mean, these are rooms where I, my colleagues, friends and family are non-stop, we should all be good as one by now with those concentrations.
However, I've read the reviews and dug a bit deeper, talked to some people. Basically, that value might be elevated by some unknown amount, but the device should not be trusted for the absolute levels.
I'm now curious enough to want to get one of the meters. The reason being that everyone at work swears by the new wave of "mattress to your door" mattresses that you can buy online. Buy I insisted on getting a "real" mattress filled made of cotton, wood and springs. I'm still looked at like a caveman because I didn't go for the extruded oil hipster mattress and would like to be vindicated by evidence from an impartial electronic device. If only for the rights to say "i told you so".
Equally if my so-called 100% natural mattress is giving of fumes, I'd like to know about it! Because I'm certain the living room furniture is doing so.
I was also curious, as an owner of a box mattress and laminate flooring.
I used https://acsbadge.com/ to do a highly-accurate one time test of my home and was happy with the results. Piece of mind to determine if you have a potential issue or not. They also give guidance on how to interpret the numbers and what 'safe' means (results are in ppm concentration accurate to 0.002 ppm).
Common sources of formaldehyde would be things like furniture, and another less obvious one would be air infiltration through your walls (picking the formaldehyde up from the engineered lumber) due to a depressurized home envelope (e.g. stack effect). When the house is depressurized enough to really draw in through the walls you should notice a puff of air when you crack a door.
Most often the stack effect (warmth in the house causes air to rise & leak out the attic which sucks in replacement air down low- like a chimney), but also potentially overpowered range hoods, bath fans, clothes dryers, open flue gas appliances, wood fireplaces, etc.
Incidentally this is why there are limits on range hood CFM without makeup air (and there are broader recommendations on overall house design from groups like ASHRAE for air quality management). There are also whole-house leak tests in some regulations, e.g. Title 24 in California.
Typically it's around 300CFM before you should consider a mechanical make-up air device (gravity activated or a makeup air fan tied to the hood activating).
I've ordered an awair, I think it does vocs but not sure it does them in any specificity.
And I think the only real solution is venting. Open a window. Other than identifying the source and removing it of course. But in many places I think it's wall materials, furniture, etc
Dhh had a talk on indoor air quality you may find useful.
There are many devices out there on amazon, since formaldehyde inside your house == bad is a chinese health meme where air meters will measure it specifically.
I am not aware of a consumer sensor that measures this accurately enough, but I'm also curious what is available.
I tested my home using a badge from this company: https://acsbadge.com/ They are not cheap ($60 for one test), but it's accurate to 2 ppb and will give you an idea what your chronic home exposure is and if changes are needed.
i bought a wave-plus[0] on a whim, and it's also been eye-opening. it doesn't measure particulate matter directly, but has a VOC meter (and radon, which is their strength) that similarly spikes for all sorts of things, including closing the windows at night. it's battery-operated and connects to a phone app via bluetooth (which then can sync to their cloud dashboard if you choose).
i may buy a foobot[1] one day, as it was highly rated in recent studies on pm measurements, and has an api.
thanks! i had not seen that particular tweet, though i'd heard dhh was into this stuff generally.
i'm a little less concerned about accurate co2 levels, since mitigation is straightforward (open a window). even imperfect co2 readings are good enough to signal when to open a window (around 800-1000 ppm, or ~2x ambient co2 levels).
voc's and particulate matter are more my nemesis, as my lungs are more sensitive to that stuff. beyond knowing generally how bad the air is, i'd like to be able to figure out what is causing the bad air and how to mitigate it. information there seems lacking right now.
i'd trust the radon sensor in the airthings more than the voc/co2 sensor, since radon is what they're known for. the voc/co2 sensor is probably the cheaper type used in most consumer air quality monitors, so it's good directionally but is not strictly accurate/precise.
Definitely seen these studies. I think they are from a few years back though, so the relevance might be in question. I don't think the newer versions of laseregg, netatmo, awair, or any of the other leading brands are on there. What I love about that study (and find funny) are the A-F ratings. If you look at the averages... both foobot and awair have the same grades (2 As, 2 Bs, and a D), yet one of them gets an A and other gets a C.
For everything non-Radon, I'd trust Awair (http://getawair.com) honestly. I feel like I'm shilling for them at this point. Outside of DHH's recommendation, I read somewhere that their sensors are certified (plus their 2nd Edition does PM2.5 and CO2, unlike the foobot one). I've looked into smart things, but I'm not concerned about Radon, so wasn't going to pay the extra $75.
Seems like the laseregg 2+ at best detects PM2.5, but something like the PurpleAir sensor can detect PM1.0 for roughly the same cost. Have you or anyone else used it? I'm interested in purchasing one.
Are there any of these types of devices that don't need to phone home or be connected to the Internet? The fewer "smart" devices I can have in my home the better.
I have serious food allergies and celiac disease in addition to allergies/sensitivities to ingredients of cleaning products. I have problems entering are staying in a lot of environments, pretty much anywhere that I don’t have control over the air or access to fresh air.
The results on the toaster are not surprising. I’ve worried about toast smoke in coffee shops before because small amounts of gluten or allergens can make me sick.
It’s great that they are measuring concentrations of chemicals in the air related to cleaners. Something like someone spraying air freshener or mopping the floor with Pinesol makes me feel ill, and continued exposure will make me sneeze and my eyes turn red and so forth.
It’s amazing how casual people are about this. I sat down at the bar the other day and immediately the bartender started spraying Windex all over and wiping a wall. I had to rinse out my nose, and gained a headache. It definitely ruined the experience for me, but most people don’t think twice.
The possibility is raised that “The dominant source of VOCs in Los Angeles is now emissions from consumer products, including toiletries and cleaning fluids.“ Again, not a surprise. A statistic that quote to people is that about 5% of VOC emissions in the United States come from dryer vents, from mostly unnecessary chemicals in detergent and dryer sheets. Almost every single chemical product that is packaged for consumers and sold in plastic bottles at stores makes me very, very sick. Conditioners, shampoo, clothing detergent, pesticides, air freshener, candles soaps, fabric softener, floor cleaners, dish soap, glass cleaner. The annoying thing is that while the base formulation of these is bad enough, the part that is the worst for me is the completely unnecessary fragrances.
Only if you think of it that way really, considering a) the majority of people don't have problems and b) long-term effects of those products are sometimes not known at all, let alone known by the general public. Don't forget things like allergy information for food etc are fairly recent developments even in the western world. And studies showing/hinting at links between cleaning produtcs and premature deaths etc are also fairly recent I think, so unfortunately the general population isn't really aware of the dangers.
Sure, I distinguish between my specific problems and everyone else. Of course the common food items I’m allergic to are all over. That’s no surprise.
What I’m really objecting to is the needless chemicals and fragrances. There is growing awareness that fragrances bother some people. There’s a growing trend of fragrance free workplaces, for instance the entire state government of Oregon.
City of Portland: “Fragrance Free Workplace
Employees who are sensitive to perfumes and chemicals may suffer potentially serious health consequences, triggered by exposure to scented products. Consequently, employees are asked to refrain from the use of personal scented products in the workplace where the sole purpose is to produce a scent, such as perfume, after shave, and cologne and to avoid the use of strongly scented personal hygiene products such as laundry soap, dryer sheets hand lotion, powder, hair spray, and deodorant.
All City managers and supervisors are expected to enforce this rule. An employee who is experiencing health consequences due to another employee’s use of scented products should report the problem to their supervisor to ensure appropriate action is taken.”
We can divide fragrance problems into allergies, sensitivities, and the mere fact that fragrance is distracting. In the bar example, I’m there to consume an expensive spirit that supposedly has a price based upon the flavor. Spraying a bunch of chemical cleaner in the air with a distracting fragrance right when I’m about to consume in my drink is a poor choice in that regard. You also see this in cannabis stores – some of them burn incense. When they are charging sometimes three times as much for certain products, mostly based on the aroma and flavor, why would the store be filled with fragrances that coat everything, dominate the air, and even soak into the product? If you were attending a winetasting, and there’s a heavy air freshener scent or somebody there is wearing an extremely strong cologne, it distracts from the entire purpose of the event, which is tasting wine, not perfume. It’s like shining a light and someone dies when they’re trying to read.
I woman I dated for years used to have problems with her mother blasting the bathroom with some sort of Clorox cleaner. She would complain of headaches and watery eyes. Her mother paid absolutely no attention, as if her headaches and watery eyes were somehow less important then sanitizing the bathroom floor. I don’t understand that attitude. Now that more testing has been done on cleaners like that, it’s not that question at that concentration of toxic chemicals in the air exceeds safety levels in such a situation. It baffles me that common sense doesn’t tell people this, too. Reading the label would help. The concept claimed by manufactures that people use things like raid and roundup in accordance with labeling is ludicrous.
As far as premature death, there is a long way to go from healthy to dead. The spectrum in between is a wide range of discomfort and illness. Studies have long showed a correlation between use of indoor cleaners and fragrances and respiratory problems such as asthma. Also, the trend of natural and non-toxic cleaners has been on the rise for years. So, there should be some awareness in the average person that certain consumer products pose a hazard if not for everyone for some people.
But yes, the general population is definitely not aware of the dangers. I would say that’s for many reasons. Certainly manufactures are not seeking to spread information they would expose them to liability or make them change their formulation. Instead they do things like cover up severely toxic contaminants in their products and lobby against labeling. And then, given the propensity of society to engage in activities that everyone knows can be harmful such cigarette smoking, alcohol, speeding, eating fried foods, fast food and so forth, it’s clear that most people don’t heed warnings of well-known dangers. Cigarette smoking causes all sorts of illness, impairment and discomfort before death, but to hear people talk, the only risk is death. Social pressure and marketing are stronger.
yes, i used to use "simple green" for cleaning because it was advertised as non-toxic, but the resultant sneezing and coughing made me move to even simpler cleaners like dish soap and baking soda.
I've been exposed to air toxics risk assessments through my work. The problem, in my mind, is not the toxics we're facing in our homes (or even outdoors). It's that humans are really bad at understanding risk. Let's imagine an annual Thanksgiving dinner presents an excess lifetime cancer risk of 2 (made up number -- probably much lower). Many people would find that unacceptable. But why? Many activities we engage in every day present much more material risk. For instance, this article says the odds of dying in a car crash are approximately 10.7 per 100k. That is 10,000 in a million. Yet we gladly get behind the wheel every day.
Noncancer effects are gauged in terms of multiples of the lowest observed effect level or the no observed effect level. If across a spectrum of exposures, we observed no effect at a certain level, that would be our NOEL. Of course, the observed effect could be a runny nose. 100x the NOEL could still be a runny nose (it could, in fact, be no adverse effect at all), but people see 100x the benchmark level and freak out.
In my mind, we really need to reshape this discussion around toxics. People are willing to suffer great costs to avoid hazards that do not, in fact, present material risks.
I would point you to the quote in the article I cite: "'Motor vehicle traffic' deaths in the U.S. in 2013, the most recent full year of data available, totaled 33,804, for a death rate of 10.7 per 100,000, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." I believe the denominator is confined to drivers. No matter, there are dozens of other good examples to support my point that ordinary activities are much riskier than the levels of risk we talk about in the context of air toxics.
You're correct. Moving too quick. And that, in turn, is still two orders of magnitude greater than 2. I think my point still stands. Thanks for the help.
I got a air quality monitor when we had the California wildfires, and I was shocked to learn that my air quality was worse indoors when cooking than outdoors during the wildfires. (I am now in the process of getting a properly vented range hood instead of the dinky recirculating one we have).
I bought an AQI / PM2.5 monitor and was shocked to find the same thing. I placed it in an upstairs bedroom, far removed from the kitchen, and the PM2.5 readings jump to unhealthy levels within minutes or cooking, even that far away. HVAC systems do a great job of circulating bad air throughout the home. I've also observed measurable CO level increases in the upstairs while running a gas oven, using a low-level monitor.
I've also come to the conclusion that a vented range hood is really an essential for indoor cooking of any kind. It should definitely be the #1 priority for any home to improve air quality.
Air quality sensors don't tell the whole story, and they can only notice particulates of certain sizes.
The worst day for me during the past few years' Seattle-area smoke events didn't register as a bad day on the official air quality reports because the particles were too big. But it was the only time where I actually had to stop and take a taxi 7 blocks because I just started coughing uncontrollably and couldn't carry my groceries home.
I have a sensitivity to certain cooking fumes. I've tried to assess it objectively like it's a nocebo, which would be great if it were.
There are two cafes in SF I used to frequent who do their cooking in the same main space as guests, do not have much if any ventilation, and, if I was there hacking on my laptop around lunch time, I would always get headaches and need to leave. (one is a trendy workspace cafe, that I feel bad naming). It has not happened at other SF cafes despite a lot of working-in-cafes. I also used to have a roommate who didn't like the sound of our ventilation fan and wouldn't open the kitchen back door (to the outdoors) because of the cool air. Anytime she cooked with the oven I would get a headache and need to leave the apartment, while having no problem with the third roommate's cooking who preferred to ventilate.
If you got an air quality monitor you'd likely see shocking levels in those scenarios. I got a laseregg two, and normal frying can send indoor air quality to unhealthy levels if something gets a bit browned. Even with a fan on.
It's portable and has a battery. Quite eye opening to test it in various scenarios.
I'll second the LaserEgg 2. Great product and I've also had some eye-opening experience with cooking and indoor AQI. These used to be tougher to find in the US but I think you can get them on Amazon, now.
The dominant source of air pollution for almost all of human history has been smoke of one sort or another (see: historical dramas that show indoor light/heating with candles and fireplaces, https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/), to the extent that I personally doubt banning secondhand smoke indoors would have made much difference to non-smokers' health before open wood fires and coal fires were phased out.
I suppose it's a notable achievement of our society that both industrial pollution and domestic smoke has been reduced so much that VOCs from other sources indoors are our greatest worry.
I've found many houses I've been in to be extremely stuffy and stale inside...I think most American homes fall into a bad middle ground for indoor air quality: well enough sealed to trap indoor pollutants, but lacking the more sophisticated HVAC systems that can efficiently exchange fresh air.
Additionally, it seems that many Americans also really hate opening their windows (and indeed the climate often doesn't really lend itself to opening the windows, in some places ever). I grew up in a drafty old house with no A/C, and even as a kid felt other people's–newer, not drafty, air conditioned–homes had an airless feeling.
It's been interesting to follow the recent studies on indoor CO2 and other air pollution...I don't feel quite so crazy for wanting to open the windows all the time when visiting family.
Agreed, but many houses in the Bay Area were built in the 1920's (both the houses I've owned were). The windows in my house are not sealed well. The double-hung sash windows have space for the rope and I can feel a draft on windy days.
All this talk of CO2 recently has made me value that my house is drafty.
It would be nice to have a house where you can regulate the draftyness better. In some seasons, draftyness is a feature, not a but, in others, not so much.
I have used 3M Filtrete room-air purifiers as white noise generators for my kids since they were born > 7 years ago. It’s amazing how much is in the air...
I believe growing up in a dusty environment contributed to my asthma...
A lot of students benefit from this unpaid labor. I know many people who volunteered in labs to get real experience that they translated into high paying jobs else where.
Those people would not be able to get the job if it was paid
The narrative in this article is heavy, but basically if I understand this right..cooking food indoors pollutes the air, and because you are in your kitchen indoors, you're polluting your own living space's air?
The kitchen exhaust fans in American homes are very weak (at least, every one I've lived in, and visited...). When cooking, you can smell what people are cooking, so it's not really doing its job of pulling the air out. I upgraded begrudgingly to a Chines brand called Fotile. It's expensive and I fought tooth and nail with my wife because my natural instincts was not to trust Chinese brands I never heard of. Admittedly, it's one of my best purchases. We can be frying stuff on the stove and standing 5 feet away, you won't smell it.
And like the link below says...it's the biggest appliance company I've never heard of. I have the one pictured on the left.
God I fucking hate the nonsense "range vents" on the bottoms of microwaves that is typical of many American homes (mine included). They do literally nothing. It's infuriating that in my new-construction, rather nice, home I get this pretend bullshit in my otherwise lovely kitchen.
I'm tempted to get a proper range hood just because this infuriates me so much, but the cost of redoing the whole cabinet above the stove is steep.
Lol I was in the same boat. House is new construction, GE appliances... I took down the microwave and replaced it with the Fotile hood. The microwave (its huge...) sits on my counter.
Needed to do minor custom wood work to mount and make it look nice, but it's doable. My dad was a carpenter so it was easy to get done.
Thanks, I wondered about that. Just moved to a new place that has one. Noticed that air pollution levels as measured by my laseregg still stay fairly high if I'm frying and have the fume hood on. It indeed seems to do little, which is unfortunate.
That's my take home. I hate being in a room that has no ventilation. I even get pains in my chest quite quickly. So have learned to always throw open windows if possible. All year round I have the kitchen window open when cooking. We don't bother heating the kitchen or bathroom (south UK rarely below 0). And I like to replenish stale air periodically by creating a deliberate draft for a few minutes throughout the house. If not it soon stinks. I am totally repulsed at the smell of burnt toast and lingering cooking smells, so wonder if that's a natural gagging response.
I am on the fence about research like this. On one hand, as an engineer by training it's hard for me to countenance the idea that any research (properly conducted) could be bad. On the other hand, people have been cooking indoors since time immemorial, and even things like toasters are more than a century old. If they were dangerous, we'd know by know. The risk is that such research gets oversold by the media into a panic, as we have seen time and again. Look at what "science" has done for nutrition in the last few decades--upset a bunch of traditional norms, without offering any meaningful advance. Are VOCs (for the most part, "smells") going to be the subject of the same circus as salt and fat?
People in some countries have been cooking with indoor wood-fired stoves forever, yet we know for sure that these stoves are bad for respiratory health. That doesn't mean all the research is wrong!
I think the big take away is that you should pretty much always turn on the exhaust hood over your stove top when you cook. Doing so removes many of the particles generated by cooking.
For the same reason, the evidence is clear that indoor fireplaces are harmful to health ("It is at least as bad for you as cigarette smoke, and probably much worse."), yet most people refuse to accept implications of the findings.
But there is no connection to an actual outcome. Is this reducing my expected lifespan by a year? Two years? Or ten years? I might care about the latter, hard for me to get worked up about the former.
The fact that we’ve been doing this a long time means the effect couldn’t be all that large, or else we would’ve noticed something (e.g. a stark difference between those who cook at home and those who eat out).
I don't know why you're getting downvoted so much. People should be more concerned of sensationalism than VOCs for now. Stress kills far more people than this potentially broad category of compounds which could include harmless and vital smells. Is the media now going to try to sterilize our sense of smell as well as our sense of taste.
Ban salt, fat, (but not sugar, just tax it even more), flavour and smells! The hysteria over how to eat and what to eat has killed potentially hundreds of millions of people at this point. Sensationalism motivates culture and is absolutely to be feared.
Of course we shouldn't live in sealed up caves with no vents. We shouldn't live in moldy apartments either. Tell us something we don't know.
In most homes the "exhaust hood" doesn't vent to outside. It filters the big particles out and mixes the rest. I'm not sure if this is better or not, but the difference isn't much, and after a short time they are the same.
The big particles are not what is most dangerous. Range hoods that recirculate air are not helpful. All kitchens should have externally-exhausted vent hoods, and it's even more important when using gas ranges, since a lot of harmful combustion byproducts are also being created (NO2, CO, etc). Sadly as you point out, this is far less common than it should be.
In my experience [in the US, particularly the PNW] most single family homes vent outside, but it isn't uncommon for dinky apartments with retrofitted exhaust hoods to simply filter and recirculate.
science isn't easy. if we could just trust our intuitions there would be no point.
your sentiment reminds me of the surgeon mentality before germs were discovered. "ive been operating on people for years and saving their lives -- no way could i be giving them an illness just through my hands!", and yet that turned out to be true.
the low hanging fruit are gone but there is a lot left to explain in terms of health. for example millions of people die from many kinds of cancers every year for which we have no idea why.
Why would we "know by now"? If the symptoms aren't immediate and highly specific, couldn't it have gone for millennia unnoticed? Maybe this is the by now.
I've always tried to air my home out as much as I can while cooking. Pretty much all windows are open. Article reaffirms my core avoidance of things like toasters/microwaves.
The article does mention toasters as a particularly bad culprit, but the word `microwave` doesn't appear anywhere in the text. Curious how you have arrived at this connection between two very different devices.
Erroneous jump to conclusions from my side, I think I naturally group electric appliances in the household in the same 'bad' category. I admit that is an error on my part.
It took me a while, but I eventually ended up getting a indoor air quality monitor. I'm in California, and when the fires happened, I expected my brand new condo building to have decent filtration. According to my Awair monitor (http://getawair.com)... my indoor PM2.5 (Fine Dust) went up to 150 ugm3. 150! We definitely had a chat with the building after that.
But yeah, cooking, cleaning, air fresheners... all of them negatively affect my home air quality. Just need to ventilate at the right times. After the DHH video about this topic, I pulled the trigger and got the monitor, which fortunately also tracks CO2 and chemical (VOCs).
I'm glad to see 2 topics about air quality trending today. I had to finally register to get in on the one topic I actually know about.
My house is a bit drafty, and I couple that with a very effective air cleaner on the HVAC system, and convince myself that it pays off with breathing cleaner air.
In NASA research[1], common house plants were found to remove toxic agents such as benzene and formaldehyde from the air.
Some of the best air purifying plants: Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant), Dracaena reflexa (song of India), Nephrolepis exaltata (Boston fern), Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant), and Chamaedorea seifrizii (bamboo palm).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study