Do we know what we breathe while cooking? A system to analyze volatile organic compounds emitted during cooking

The cooking processes like frying, roasting, grilling, boiling, contribute to emissions of pollutants, in particular in closed areas where air quality is influenced by their presence1. The substances remain in the air and after prolonged exposure, they can accumulate in the human body causing several health problems. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are the main components that generated bad smells and that increase the presence of pollutants in the air2. Air pollution is now the world’s largest environmental health risk, and even if low emission levels of VOCs for safer indoor air quality might sound like a simple task, unfortunately cooking processes produce many harmful chemicals. As known from the literature, acrolein and many other substances, are responsible for the development of several diseases and bad odors 3. Thus, the removal of these substances from the air is of great importance for health and for the pleasantness of the indoor environment. To address these problems it is first of all needed to know the detailed composition of VOCs emitted during cooking and then to have a proper and reliable system to analyse them. To this purpose, solid-phase microextraction coupled to gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) has been applied in combination with a previous sampling of the air in olfactometric bags. The system was used to extract and analyse VOCs from air produced during frying assessing the extraction time needed to have a sufficient sensitivity and the reproducibility of the method. Results will be presented and discussed. References: 1) Kim, K.H.; Pandey, S.K.; Kabir, E.; Susaya, J.; Brown, R.J.C. Journal of Hazardous Materials 2011, 195, 1-10. 2) Wang, S.; Ang, H.M.; Tade, M.O. Environment International 2007, 33, 694-705. 3) Harinageswara R. K., Andrés F., Sukh S., Ángel A.C.-B. Food Chemistry 2010, 120, 59–65.