A major marketing tactic for air fryers is touting they're a healthier alternative for preparing meals, but one question remains: healthier than what?
When exploring whether or not an air fryer is healthier than an oven, it's important to understand that “health” is not defined by your countertop appliances.
Hippocrates is noted for saying, "Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food."
The truth is it's far less about how you cook and more about what you eat. Processed foods will never be as healthy as natural foods, no matter how you cook them.
Nevertheless, if you're considering a new appliance, let's see how air fryers and ovens stack up.
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Air Fryers vs Conventional Ovens: How Do They Cook Food?
A conventional electric oven broils food from above or heats food from the bottom. Gas ovens have a flame on the stovetop and inside the cavity for baking, broiling, or roasting. While gas ovens preheat faster, electric ovens cook with a drier heat.
Many modern-day gas and electric ovens also feature convection capabilities that utilize a fan for rapidly circulating hot air to cook food faster. In its simplest form, an air fryer is just a mini convection oven.
Both the air fryer and the conventional oven feature a heating element. Therefore, the only real difference is that the air fryer also has a powerful fan that blows hot air.
Thus, from a health perspective, the only differentiating factor between these two appliances is the fan, which has little to no bearing on your health.
Is Air Frying Healthier Than Oven Cooked Food?
Both air frying and oven baking are healthy ways to cook and one is not necessarily healthier than the other. There may be some occasions when using an air fryer can retain more of your food's nutrients, but there may be times when oven baking is more convenient than air frying.
For example, baking is the best choice for batters, meals with sauces, or other foods that solidify during the cooking process. Alternatively, air fryers are an excellent choice when you want fried crispy foods with fewer calories.
Whether you are air frying healthy foods, using a conventional oven, or even deep frying, the key ingredient to healthy is your food selection and not your cooking method.
Is Any One Cooking Method Better Than Another?
If you're seeking a healthier option for meal preparation, you want options that retain food's vitamins and minerals. So which cooking method works best? Well, that depends on what you're cooking.
Meats
The science suggests that roasting or oven baking is a way to cook meats without significant nutritional loss. Cooking meats at 300-425° (149–218°C) for thirty minutes to an hour results in minimal loss of Vitamin C.
However, as temperatures increase and cooking time lengthens, meats can lose up to 40% of B Vitamins.
Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Amine Compounds
You'll find lots of articles insinuating that high-heat cooking, particularly grilling, is hazardous to your health because they are believed to produce potentially harmful compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heterocyclic amines (HACs).
However, PAHs have a long list of origins including cigarette smoke, fumes from asphalt roads, engine exhaust, and wood smoke just to name a few, and HACs are a chemical reaction that occurs with any cooking method utilizing temperatures above 300° F.
Moreover, the National Cancer Institute confirms that there is “no definitive link between HCA and PAH exposure from cooked meats and cancer in humans.” However, if you're overly concerned, some studies reveal that certain marinades and aromatic herbs can help reduce HAC levels.
Advanced Glycation
Another concern with the Western diet is advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which many sources contribute to cooking at "high temperatures" as a result of the Maillard Reaction.
What many don't realize is that the Maillard Reaction actually occurs with temperatures as low as 285° F (140° C) and occurs regardless of the method used.
The true culprit is highly processed food. Industrialized products like juices, soda, caramel production, coffee roasting, candy, cakes, and bread baking, as well as tobacco, are all extremely high in AGEs.
Highly processed foods, including french fries, chicken nuggets, and other convenience foods, are notoriously bad for your health.
These end products are believed to contribute to many age-related diseases such as Type II diabetes, Alzheimer's, kidney disease, and eye disease. When it comes to AGEs, your home-cooked meals are minuscule compared to these industrialized products.
However, studies do show that moist cooking methods help reduce AGE levels more than dry heat. If you're worried about AGE exposure, try braising, boiling, steaming, simmering, stewing, or poaching instead.
Vegetables
Raw vegetables are the healthiest option, but if you don't like your veggies raw, steaming is by far the healthier way to retain their nutritional profile. Sauteeing on a low heat is also a healthy way to maintain nutrients.
Even air-fried vegetables preserve water-soluble vitamins like B and C, but they also lead to the loss of fat-soluble vitamins like A and E.
Slow cooking, soups, and stews are also a healthy alternative because the vitamins lost during the cooking process are retained in the liquids of your broths, soups, and stews.
Acrylamide
Potatoes are one area of concern because of their toxic acrylamide formation and a possible link to cancer. But just like AGEs, this is more of a concern with commercially processed french fries and potato chips. However, many sources also express concerns with deep frying, particularly with potatoes.
The truth is the FDA confirms there is "no consistent epidemiological evidence on the effect of acrylamide from food consumption on cancer in humans."
Air Fried Foods vs Deep Fried Foods
Air fryers have always based their claim to fame on being a healthier alternative to deep fryers. Deep frying typically occurs between 325-375°F, wherein fish, meat, or other food is submerged in hot oil and results in moist fried food with a crisp and well-browned exterior.
Alternatively, air-fried food uses just a small amount of oil to give a deep frying taste. Just like deep frying, air fryers work using the Malliard Effect to crisp food, but without excess saturated fat, which means less oil and fewer calories.
Fewer calories can definitely be a healthier alternative for some.
Eating Out vs Eating In
There's a strong consensus that deep-fried foods are unhealthy and contribute to cardiovascular disease and heart disease, but most studies contribute this to food eaten outside the home.
Restaurant and fast food industries frequently deep fry food by reusing cheap oils that degrade over time.
As oils degrade, they oxidize, causing an inflammatory response within the body that contributes to higher blood pressure, cholesterol, and increased weight gain. Likewise, starchy foods high in carbohydrates cause glycation, which spikes blood sugars.
While deep frying has gotten a bad rap over the years, it's important to remember that fats are essential for energy and supporting cell growth. Fats are also necessary to absorb essential nutrients.
Deep frying at home in moderation is actually perfectly healthy when you combine quality food with healthy oil.
You need oils low in Omega 6, like avocado oil or olive oil, and only use your oil once. Cheaper vegetable oil is predominantly made with genetically modified soybeans and is exceptionally high in unhealthy Omega 6.
Whether you use a deep fryer or air fry your favorite fish and chicken, your cooking oil should remain the same. Although air fryers use less oil and less energy, which saves money, using a traditional fryer shouldn't be considered unhealthy when done correctly.
The Takeaway
So whether it's air fryers, traditional or convection ovens, or deep fryers, there's not really any single cooking method that is better than the other.
When you cook with fresh meats and produce, you can't go wrong. Ovens and air fryers both produce healthy meals when prepared properly.
Now that you have the truth, let's get to cooking!
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