IS AIR FRYER HEALTHY? FIND OUT IF IT’S WORTH COOKING WITH THE ELECTRIC FRYER

Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV on Pexels.com

Known as air fryer, electric fryers (or “air fryer” in its literal translation) are synonymous with health and practicality for many people. After all, they use a mechanism capable of “frying” food without any drop of oil, just through the air. To understand it better, it works more or less like the devices used in electric barbecues, ovens and grills. However, in the case of fryers, it works with very high speed propellers that make the hot air circulate throughout the appliance. But is it really worth cooking with this kind of mechanism?

Without the oil, the air fryer reduces the caloric content of foods
This is one of the main – and best known – advantages of the electric fryer. By not using any type of fat (except for cases where the purpose of using oil or olive oil is to leave the food with an appearance similar to frying immersed in fat), the air fryer considerably reduces the caloric content of the food. Thus, it also helps in weight loss and in controlling blood cholesterol levels.

Due to high temperatures, the electric fryer does not preserve the nutritional value of food

Cooking food in the air fryer is not the best way to preserve food’s nutrients. This is because the higher the temperature (above 100°C), the greater the loss of vitamins and minerals. And the electric fryer, depending on your schedule, is capable of reaching up to 300°C, causing foods to lose a good part of their nutritional values. Remember that this is also true for other forms of cooking, ok?

Foods overheated in the air fryer can produce a malevolent substance known as acrylamide

The high temperatures of the air fryer can also be harmful to health due to a chemical called acrylamide. Produced when foods are overheated during preparation – especially those rich in starch, such as potatoes, cassava and other roots -, the substance is harmful to the human body. In some cases, cancer cells develop.

To prevent this from happening, the safest method is to cook food for a short time and at low temperatures. Therefore, the recommendation is to avoid setting the electric fryer to a very high temperature before preparing the food. That way you prevent it from overheating.