Reported February 20, 2010

PARIS, France (AFP) -- Gas is the professional cook's energy of choice for frying a steak but it may be more harmful for health compared to using electricity, doctors said in a study released on Thursday.

The reason: gas cooking at high temperatures may release more of the fumes which have been rated as "probably carcinogenic" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Researchers at Norway's University of Science and Technology carried out an experiment in a specially-built lab, measuring levels of airborne compounds and fine particles in a western-style restaurant kitchen equipped with a fume extractor.

They cooked a 400-gramme (14-ounce) beef steak for 15 minutes in either margarine or soya bean oil, using either a gas or an electric hob, and analysed air quality in the cook's breathing zone.

Using gas instead of electricity resulted in higher levels of fumes called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and aldehydes as well as "considerably higher" concentrations of ultrafine particles, the investigators found.

This could be because a gas flame is typically hotter than an electric ring, which results in more thermal by- products from the cooking fat and the meat, they suggest.

The researchers note that the levels they were measured were far below Norway's occupational safety thresholds.

But, they said, chefs should be careful, as cooking fumes contain various other harmful components for which there is as yet no clear safety threshold, and gas cooking seems to increase exposure to these compounds.

The study appears in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a journal of the British Medical Association .

Source : Jamaica Observer