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Cooking on gas burners can be harmful to your health
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Gas stoves are an attribute of most apartments, and cooking with them is a completely normal and regular occurrence. However, scientists warn: cooking with gas can be dangerous.
Frying food is dangerous because it increases the production of carcinogenic compounds, according to scientists from Norway.
Experts representing the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) conducted an experiment in which they were able to discover that substances released into the atmosphere during high-temperature frying of products belong to category 2A – that is, they are particularly likely carcinogens, dangerous to human health.
The experiment was as follows. The specialists fried seventeen meat steaks for a quarter of an hour. Each piece of meat weighed approximately 0.4 kg. Then the scientists measured the quantitative content of such compounds as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH for short, these include benzopyrene and naphthalene), as well as aldehydes and heterocyclic amines. In addition, the level of the smallest particles, the size of which did not exceed 100 nm, was assessed.
As a result, the specialists recorded the only polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon in the analyses – naphthalene. Its content was within 0.15-0.27 μg/m³ of air. At the same time, the highest concentrations were recorded when frying a piece of meat on a gas burner, using margarine. In addition to naphthalene, a number of mutagenic aldehydes were detected, the content of which reached 61.8 μg/m³ of air: the highest concentrations were recorded when using a gas stove, regardless of whether any fat was used for frying or not.
Experts point out that despite the fact that the content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other hazardous compounds did not exceed the accepted limit of professional safe concentration, one should still be wary. The fact is that for some clearly unsafe substances, the potential threat thresholds have not yet been identified, and it is unknown in what quantities they cause harm to the body. And the widespread use of gas stoves can increase the emission of such hazardous components into the atmosphere.
Interestingly, the use of electric stoves resulted in much lower emissions of harmful compounds into the air. Scientists have not yet given any explanation for this.
Information about the study is presented on the pages of the periodical Occupational and Environmental Medicine, as well as on the Healthy Style website (http://healthystyle.info/zdorove-i-krasota/item/mediki-podskazali-na-chem-luchshe-vsego-gotovit-edu).
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