If you like to cook healthy meals at home, you may own an air fryer or have already considered buying it. An air fryer is a popular countertop appliance that provides a healthier alternative to other cooking methods such as frying pan or frying. They can make healthy meals on the table easier and faster.
However, before investing in these devices, you should know some information about these devices. This article provides a guide to the air fryer, how to use them, their advantages and disadvantages, and some alternative methods.
What is an air fryer?
Despite their popularity in the past few years, air fryer is relatively new-they have only been on the market since 2010. The air fryer uses convective force-or circulating hot air-to cook evenly brown and crispy food on all sides. They contain fans that help distribute hot air throughout the cooking area. This unique method actually helps the air fryer cook food faster than traditional ovens.
Although they are not fried foods in the traditional sense, they are called air fryers because they can be cooked and crispy foods in a similar way to frying or frying-but use very little oil, making them healthier Choice. Food cooked in an air fryer only needs to be lightly sprayed or brushed with oil to get a crisp golden brown final result.
The air fryer is also easy to use. Just set it to the temperature and cooking time you want, but the food in the air fryer basket, then start the fryer, flip or shake the food to promote cooking and even distribution of oil as needed. The cooking time for most foods in an air fryer is 15 minutes or less.
Almost anything can be cooked in an air fryer, from meats to desserts. You can use the air fryer to make your own snacks, such as dried fruit or vegetable snacks, French fries, jerky, or popcorn. You can also use it to roast nuts and seeds, and even make simple baked goods.
The benefits of air fryer
The air fryer has several advantages. They can help you reduce the fat, calories, and potentially harmful compounds in your food, and they are faster and consume less energy than other cooking methods.
Reduce fat and calories
Because they don’t require so much cooking oil, air fryers can greatly reduce the calorie and fat content of commonly fried foods (such as French fries, chicken, and many other dishes).
Traditional fried food can absorb 10% to 60% of the frying oil. Because oil is very high in calories, even absorbing only 10% of the calories will add a lot of calories to your daily intake.
In fact, a study found that people who eat four or more fried foods a week are 40% more likely to be overweight or obese than those who eat less than two servings of fried foods a week.
On the other hand, air-fried food needs to be brushed or sprayed lightly to obtain a crisp golden brown product. Compared with frying, this adds negligible calories. A study found that the moisture content and color of fried french fries and air french fries are similar, but the calories and oil absorption of air french fries are significantly lower.
Fewer harmful compounds
Most fried foods are fried in sub-optimal oils that contain harmful compounds that may harm your health. Ideal frying oils include avocado oil and coconut oil, but most fried foods are fried with cheaper vegetable oils, such as corn oil, soybean oil, or peanut oil.
Frying carbohydrate-rich foods-such as potatoes or roux-can cause the accumulation of acrylamide, which has been classified as a “possible carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
In addition, most vegetable oils commonly used for frying contain large amounts of inflammatory omega-6 fats, which may cause chronic inflammation and increase the risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease.
Old oil that is repeatedly heated and cooled (such as the oil found in restaurant fryers) also contains other harmful compounds that promote inflammation and cell damage and may cause cancer.
Using an air fryer can significantly reduce the accumulation of these harmful compounds in the food. The air fryer can reduce the acrylamide content by up to 90%. And because it uses less oil, it will also limit your exposure to other harmful compounds in the oil.
Shorter cooking time
The convection cooking used in the air fryer can make the cooking time 20% shorter than baking. This is because the air fryer circulates hot air to all sides of the food at one time in a cooking area smaller than the oven, thereby reducing the time required for complete cooking. If you have difficulty enjoying healthy food on the table due to lack of time, this can make the air fryer a life-saving straw.
Less energy use
The air fryer also uses less energy than the oven. An air fryer is smaller than these large appliances and cooks food faster, thus saving energy