Someone call Captain Planet.

It seems that cooking lunch at a burger joint causes more pollution in the air than a diesel truck.

According to a study from the University of California Riverside, commercially cooked hamburgers -- made on charbroilers -- create a damaging amount of smoke, water vapor, grease and other "particulate matter" that finds its way into the air.

Bill Welch, UC Riverside's principle engineer on the study, told a reporter that in comparison "an 18-wheeler diesel engine truck would have to drive 143 miles on the freeway to put out the same mass of particulates as a single charbroiled hamburger patty."

Thankfully, the same folks who put together the study were also able to come up a simple device to grab the particulates and keep them from getting up in the air.

No matter where you stand on the whole climate change/global-warming thing, you have to admit that this is the type of science we can all get behind – finding a way to save the environment without creating too much of an inconvenience when it comes to our delicious, delicious hamburgers.



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