Air fryers – also known as Airfryers or oil-free deep fryers – have quickly become popular in the 2020s as they offer cooks a quick, easy, tasty and healthy way to cook their food without the dangers of deep-frying. With energy bills skyrocketing in many parts of the world this winter, it’s a fact that consumers looking to keep their bills low are increasing their sales of air fryers.
Whether these mechanisms really do what they promise is an open question. A number of different studies show that air fryers are healthier than some other cooking methods, and may also be more energy efficient.
What is an Airfryer?
An air fryer can be defined as a super powerful convection oven small enough to sit on your counter. But despite its name, it doesn’t actually fry. It works by using the convection mechanism and circulating hot air quickly around the food. It needs very little oil, but mimics some of the delicious properties of fried food by creating a nice brown crisp on food through a method called the Maillard reaction.
The Maillard reaction is a series of chemical reactions between amino acids and reducing sugars that simultaneously browns food to form flavor and flavor compounds. This reaction is the main reason why charcoal grilled burgers, fried onions and crispy fries are delicious.
Air fryers are generally considered a healthy cooking method, as they perform the Maillard reaction without using too much oil.
Is the Airfryer healthy?
Deep-fried foods are not good for your health as they contain high levels of trans fats, which are unsaturated fats that go through a process called hydrogenation. Many studies have shown that trans fats are closely linked to an increased risk of many diseases, from heart attacks and strokes to obesity and diabetes.
A 2015 study examined the differences between deep-frying and air-frying and cooking french fries, concluding that air-fried food had a significantly lower fat content but retained similar moisture content and color. However, the “air fried” product had less starch gelatinization, which could affect the flavor and also caused it to have a slightly harder and drier texture than the deep fried product.
The research concluded, “Overall, the air frying process allows the production of products with lower fat content, although these products may have different sensory properties.”
There is also some evidence that air fryers can reduce the formation of harmful compounds. As mentioned, browning of food is due to the Maillard reaction. Cooking starchy foods at high temperatures may cause the formation of acrylamide. This chemical gives food its characteristic brown color and delicious flavor, but some studies claim it can contribute to cancer.
Yet another study in 2015 investigated how air frying affected the formation of acrylamide in french fries. Hopefully, air frying has been found to reduce the acrylamide content by about 90 percent compared to conventional deep frying.
But while frying in air fryers will continue to produce acrylamide as well as other potentially dangerous compounds, other methods such as boiling and steaming will not.
Evidence shows that, in general, air fryers can produce healthier food than deep frying. However, for now, there is little research examining how air fryers work, particularly compared to other cooking methods such as grilling or baking.
Does the Airfryer use less energy?
Another reason people are switching to this type of fryer is for energy efficiency, which is said to help reduce energy bills. Because the cooking chambers are smaller than a conventional oven, they are said to need less energy to heat up.
There isn’t a lot of official scientific research on this, but you can take a look at the different tests people have done about it. The BBC, for example, put this question to the test by comparing the ability of an oven and a deep fryer to cook chicken legs of the same size. During this test, they found that it takes about 35 minutes to cook the chicken in the oven and requires about 1.05 kilowatt hours of electricity. The air fryer took 20 minutes to cook the chicken and used only 0.43 kilowatt hours of electricity.
That’s why air fryers appear to be more energy efficient, at least according to this small and controversial experiment.
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