Friday, June 15, 2001 [by:Eldorkio]

Cooking is the process of creating chemical and physical changes in food by applying heat to the raw or precooked food. Cooking improves edibility, taste, or appearance or delays decay processes. As heat is applied to the food, effluent is released into the surrounding atmosphere. This effluent includes heat that does not transfer to the food, water vapor, and organic material released from the food. The heat source, especially if it involves a combustion process, may release other contaminants, which must be removed.

All cooking methods release some heat, some of which radiates from all hot surfaces; but most is dissipated by natural convection via a rising plume of heated air. Most of the effluent released from the food and the heat source is entrained in this plume, so primary contaminant control should be based on capturing and removing the air and effluent that compose the plume. A quantitative analysis, or even a relative determination, of volumetric plume flow rates and combustion product flow rates is not available at present, although research is in progress.

© 1995 ASHRAE Handbook, HVAC Applications, Chapter 28

Yeah, but what the hell is this "food" thing you keep referring to? — SpaceBass