You may have noticed that air fryers have recently been getting a lot of attention on social media. Many recipes on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, feature people showing off their air fryers and all the delicious ways to heat up meat and some delicious sides. From homemade fries, to air fried steak or veggies, people are starting to realize the power of air fryers in offering unique and delicious food that tastes crispier in a shorter amount of time. Honestly offering better results than most ovens can do. The bright side? They offer really crispy and delicious food without all the oil. With air fryers you can say goodbye to drowning all your food in oil in order to keep the perfect fried taste. With that in mind, people are starting to draw attention to air fryers for not only being great at offering delicious food, but for also offering healthier alternatives for recipes. Are air fryers really the healthier alternative? Let’s take air-fried chicken for example. Can you air fry chicken and have it taste very similar to fried chicken but with less of the carcinogen and high oil that is often associated with deep frying? Well, this article will aim to delve into just that!

The Deal with Regular Fried Foods

Before we delve deeper into air-fried foods in order to uncover their true health content, let us delve first into why fried foods are considered to be a delicious but risky option for your health. You probably are no stranger to hearing people constantly commenting about how fried foods are unhealthy, but you may not have a strong sense of why. Traditionally deep-fried foods such as fried chicken are often linked to utilize high amounts of oil that then lead to health problems such type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. This is due to the fact that fried foods are often coated with heavy batter or flour before frying. The flour or batter is often heavy in starch which can be quite heavy for the body. Furthermore, those starchy and heavy batter coated meats or foods are then deep fried in oil that causes the food to lose its water and absorb fat as a result. This inevitably further increases the calorie content of the fried foods. By the natural process of frying, typically anything that is fried will always have way more calories than it would if it wasn’t fried at all. In addition to the high calorie content, fried foods are typically associated with having high trans-fat within them. This is due to the fact that cooking food in really high temperatures initiates a process known as hydrogenation. This process leads to a chemical restructuring of fats which make them even more difficult for your body to break down, this inevitably leads to health complications later down the line, if you consume too much.

The Difference with Air Fried Foods

Upon various measures and research, it has become quite apparent that air frying is considered healthier. Therefore, air frying chicken will certainly be a healthier alternative over regular fried chicken. Air frying is thought to cut calories by almost 70%-80%.  The natural cooking method of air frying also allows your chicken to not be exposed to all the harmful effects that are often associated with oil frying. Since you are not frying your chicken in oil, you can actually expect your chicken to have less acrylamide within it. Acrylamide is often found in starchy foods or foods that are heavily coated in starch and have actually been heavily linked to greater chances of cancer. It is said that research done on fries cooked in an air fryer, stated that acrylamide within the fries decreased by almost 90%. This can then be considered a similar case for air fried chicken as well. So, in a nutshell, what does this tell us? Well, from this research alone, it seems that fried chicken certainly brings upon a lot of adverse health effects that air-fried chicken can greatly reduce. For that reason, air fried chicken receives a stamp of approval for certainly being a healthier alternative!