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October 15, 2004
Cooking, the New Silent Killer
First we were told going out to eat will kill you because those evil fast-food companies will sell you all kinds of stuff to make you fat and give you a heart attack. Now it turns out it's not safe to cook your own food, either.
Some 1.6 million people, mainly small children, die each year from a “kitchen killer” -- disease brought on by inhaling smoke from cooking stoves and indoor fires, the World Health Organization said on Friday. . . .
“The amount of smoke from these fires is the equivalent of consuming two packs of cigarettes a day,” WHO said, adding one life was lost every 20 seconds to the “killer in the kitchen.”
They're referring to the burning of solid fuels in the kitchen, including the ever-popular dung fuel. Of course, if people who currently burn solid fuels for cooking were to stop cooking, then they'd get other food-borne diseases from uncooked meats. On the other hand, they shouldn't eat meat because it's a carcinogen and contains fat and cholesterol. Aw, let's face it: everything's a killer. We might as well just "roll [ourselves] up in a big ball and die," as Frank Sinatra sang in "That's Life."
Posted by Mike Tennant at October 15, 2004 11:33 AM