Stop cooking roti directly on gas flame. When dough hits the flame, it releases benzene and formaldehyde at concentrations up to 50 times safe limits. These chemicals linger in bedroom air, so use a tawa or griddle instead.
Chapters
Do you make rotis on your tawa or your gas stove top directly on the flame? If you make rotis on the gas flame directly, I want you to stop now. When I first heard about this, I honestly thought it was absolutely baseless and the worst kind of fearmongering. We know the dangers of burning the roti and producing cancer-causing acrylamide, but what we missed is the amount of benzene and formaldehyde that is produced in that blue flame. These hazardous chemicals are up to 50 times more than the safe levels and are detectable even in our bedrooms. Personally, I love a nice puffed up soft phulka made on that blue flame. It's a fond childhood memory for me, making rotis with my mother. Now it makes sense to me why our rural kitchens are outdoors or semi-outdoors, because exhaust fans, they are not adequate to remove these chemicals from our kitchen.