Baker’s Lung: The Hidden Risk in Home Baking (And How to Prevent It)

August 27, 2025

Behind the Bakery

If you’ve ever tipped a big bowl of flour into the mixer, you’ve seen it… a little cloud that floats and catches the sunlight. It looks harmless, and so pretty! But if you bake often (hello, cottage bakers 🙋‍♀️), you’re actually breathing in that flour dust day after day.

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Over time, that irritation can build up and lead to allergy or even asthma. In the trade, it’s called baker’s asthma (sometimes baker’s lung). It’s well-documented in professional bakeries, and it applies to home bakers, too. The good news? With just a few mindful habits, you can protect yourself (and your family) for decades of happy baking to come.

What is Baker’s Lung?

“Baker’s lung” is the informal term for respiratory irritation and asthma caused by flour dust exposure. According to the CDC, symptoms can take months or even years to show up, and risk increases the more you’re exposed.

Symptoms include:

Persistent nasal irritation (often mistaken for seasonal allergies)
Wheezing or coughing during/after baking sessions

Shortness of breath with heavy flour handling

Why Flour Dust is a Real Hazard

Flour dust isn’t just finely ground wheat. It can also contain additives like fungal alpha-amylase (a common enzyme used in some commercial flours). That’s one reason I personally stick to organic flour in my bakery.

The UK Health & Safety Executive has even set official workplace exposure limits:

10 mg/m³ averaged over an 8-hour day
30 mg/m³ averaged over 15 minutes
And they recommend aiming for less than 2 mg/m³ when possible

Those numbers can feel abstract (and honestly I didn’t know at first what they really meant), so here’s the picture:

mg/m³ means “milligrams of dust per cubic meter of air”. Basically, how much dust is floating in the air you breathe.
10 mg/m³ over a workday is like having the weight of two grains of rice’s worth of flour dust spread through a wardrobe-sized space of air, and breathing that all day.
30 mg/m³ is about three times dustier, and is only allowed for short bursts (like dumping a giant bag of flour).

Now, none of us are running air monitors in our cottage kitchens, but the fact that there are legal thresholds tells you this is a real, measured hazard.

My Personal Experience with Baker’s Lung

Not long into my bakery journey, I started noticing nasal irritation. At first, I brushed it off as allergies… but it was November, so… not likely. 😅

When I dug deeper, I realized what I was experiencing was exactly what professionals call baker’s asthma. And as much as I loved baking, I wanted this to be sustainable for the long term, without harming myself or my family.

That’s when I started adopting some low-dust baking habits that changed everything.

How to Prevent Baker’s Lung at Home

Here are the exact steps I take in my cottage bakery to reduce flour dust:

Mask for the Dusty Jobs
I wear an N95 mask when measuring big batches, refilling bins, or dusting benches.
HEPA Air Purifier
I run a HEPA air purifier right in my bakery nook. It makes a huge difference.
Gentle Flour Handling
Pour flour slowly, keep lids on bins, and avoid “dumping” flour from high up.
Smart Cleaning Habits
Skip aggressive sweeping (that just kicks flour back up). Instead, mop, use a damp cloth, or a HEPA vacuum.
Nasal Rinse After Bake Days
A gentle saline rinse clears lingering flour dust from nasal passages. I notice the difference immediately.

Quick Takeaway

Flour dust might look dreamy floating in the sunlight, but breathing it in day after day can be rough on your lungs (and can even lead to asthma). The good news is that a few small habits – masking up for the dusty jobs, keeping a purifier nearby, pouring flour gently, cleaning with care, and giving your sinuses a rinse – make all the difference. Little changes now mean you can keep baking (and breathing) happily for years to come!