Cooking

Abstract

However little there is to put in the pot, all families have to cook. In many different places all over the world, to braise, broil and boil food, open fireplaces are fueled with some form of biomass: wood, charcoal or dry cow dung. This traditional practice, which seems to define humanity, is possibly one of its most devastating. Close to three billion people spend a share of their daily schedule or income in obtaining this cooking biomass: in India, for example, biomass represents more than 5 percent of household expenditures – and that is not even including the time spent collecting “free” biomass, with women and girls gathering wood for two to three hours each day.³⁵ Worse still, cooking on an open fire creates toxic fumes, causing asthma and other respiratory diseases. According to the World Health Organization, indoor air pollution kills over four million people each year, mainly women and children – more than malaria does!³⁶