Air fryers are a dream for fried-fanatic people. These compact devices are known to be able to do the impossible – make HEALTHY French fries!

They’ve secured a spot for the homes of many health enthusiasts all around the globe, and its popularity is continuously rising as the surge of fitness-minded constantly grows.

Its demand is no surprise: Americans grab the plate of potato wedges than a serving of vegetables.

Air fryer manufacturers often use the line “Air Fryers: Making your guilty-pleasures, guilt-free” as their sales pitch. It claims it doesn’t give the negative health effects of the oil-fried meal.

But are air fryers all that everyone says they are? We’re about to find out! So, hold onto your bag of frozen potato strips, and get ready to be educated!

Air Fryers Versus Other Methods

While cooking with air fryers all the time may sound like it’s a solution to lose weight for some, it’s not the reason why these devices are created.

The sole purpose of companies developing air fryers is to give the people a healthier method of cooking deep-fried foods. It isn’t here to replace the traditional means of preparing food, like roasting and grilling.

Foods that are deep-fried tend to have more fat content than other food prepared in other methods.

For instance, one-hundred grams of fried and battered chicken holds about 13.2 grams of fat, which is more than the 0.39 grams of oven-roasted chicken. However, people would almost always go for the fried chicken breast due to its flavor and texture.

Here’s where the demand for air fryers started escalating. Air fryers only need a fraction of the required oil that deep fryers require. In this sense, people are able to have a healthier meal with the same flavor and texture.

It does not completely eliminate the use of oil, but it does greatly lower oil intake. Vegetable oil is linked to a number of health concerns, such as heart disease and inflammation, so cutting it down helps.

This, however, doesn’t give you any guarantee that air-fried food is better than roasting or grilling. While there are a lot of appliances available to help you make healthier food choices, none of them can produce a healthier variety of fried goodies.

How Does It Work?

These appliances work mainly by circling hot air around your food, producing the same texture as how fried foods are. During the process, it removes fat and calories as it fries.

Using one tablespoon of vegetable oil is enough to give you the same result as a deep fryer would, but with only a portion of fat and calories.

The heated air used by air fryers holds fine oil drops that work to remove the moisture from your chicken breasts.

And as with other cooking procedures, air-frying activates the Maillard chemical reaction, which enhances both the color and flavor of fried food.

Air Fryers Health Benefits

Weight Loss

Use air fryers to switch deep-fried chicken breasts to air-fried chicken breasts. It reduces the normal intake of harmful oils, promoting weight loss in the process.

Safer Option

Air fryers are generally safer than your traditional deep fryers. Using a deep-fryer involves heating up a large vessel filled with scorching oil, posing a safety concern.

While it’s true that air fryers have the tendency to get hot, it does not pose a risk of spillage or splashing. You need to be more cautious using frying machines than air fryers.

Toxic Acrylamide Formation

It decreases the possibility of the formation of toxic acrylamide. Deep-frying food in vegetable oil may cause hazardous compounds, like acrylamide. It forms in specific meat during high-heat cooking procedures.

Air Fryers Drawbacks

No Guarantee Of A Healthy Diet

Simply replacing your usual deep-fried meat with air-fried ones does not give you the assurance of a healthy diet. To give you the assurance of healthy food intake, fruits, vegetables, and lean protein are essential.

Harmful Compounds

It’s true that air-frying your food lessens the risk of acrylamide, but there are other compounds to look out for.

There’s still the possibility of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons formation as well as the development of heterocyclic amines. These harmful compounds can come from high-heat procedures.

Air-Fried Food Is Still Fried

While it does require lesser oil, the food is still fried! The best air-fryers could do is cut down oil, but it does not eliminate it completely.

Verdict

Since air-fryers are fairly new to the industry, there’s not much research done on air-fried food. However, it’s normally recommended that everyone should restrict the intake of fried food.

If you are going to use an air-fryer, make sure to incorporate other procedures of cooking to ensure optimal health.