Cooking in India

The rural kitchens in India are generally full of smoke due to the use of inefficient traditional chulahs (cookstoves) and burning of unprocessed cooking fuels such as firewood, cowdung and crop residues which ultimately causes Indoor air pollution (IAP). This causes severe health problems especially to women and children who are exposed to pollutants for several hours a day while cooking. Among the indoor air pollutants Carbon monoxide (CO) was estimated using Gas Watch before and after installing an improved chulah in selected households. An intervention programme was also conducted for selected homemakers to create awareness on IAP, health of the homemakers and importance of using improved chulah to reduce IAP. The amount of CO emitted by the improved chulah was much lesser than the CO emitted by traditional chulahs. This book, therefore, throws light on the benefits of improved chulahs. If household members are in better health, there is a potential for the household to be more productive, with household adults missing fewer days of work and children missing fewer days of school. This book is useful for students, researchers and people in general as a whole.