# Are Wood-Burning Pizza ovens worse than Cigarettes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 19, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wood-burning-pizza-ovens-worse-than-cigarettes/536623 "2010-04-19T13:05:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hankhill911](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@hankhill911](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hankhill911)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wood-burning-pizza-ovens-worse-than-cigarettes/536623/21 "2010-04-22T18:31:28Z")
There are countless studies about the dangers of eating charred meat—smoked barbecue variety… I imagine that’s far worse than any pizza from a wood-burning stove… ---
**Author:** ![dspoet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@dspoet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dspoet)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wood-burning-pizza-ovens-worse-than-cigarettes/536623/22 "2010-04-23T04:52:46Z")
The wood fired pizza ovens I’ve seen burn with no air starvation and a hot fire. For wood this is the cleanest burning situation. The pizza is in the oven but not in contact with much smoke, since the excellent draft in this style oven drags most particulates and vapors away from the pizza. The pollutants from a typical wood stove in a house are far worse. Barbecuing meat creates the possible carcinogens from the heat’s effect on the meat and the fat in the meat. It is not a function of the smoke on the meat, rather a funciton of the heat on the meat. Smoke will not have much effect on a pizza in a wood fired oven because the pizza is beside the fire, not above the fire, in the pizza ovens I’ve seen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wood-burning-pizza-ovens-worse-than-cigarettes/536623.md?page=1)