What exactly does the process of frying a food break down to make it unhealthy? Does the opposite happen to unhealthy foods when fried (i.e. an Oreo)?

Question

What exactly does the process of frying a food break down to make it unhealthy? Does the opposite happen to unhealthy foods when fried (i.e. an Oreo)?

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Answer 1

So it isn’t so much that you’re breaking down the food. For the most part you will still get the nutrition from fried food that you would get for baking or other cooking.

The issue is you typically fry food in oil adding a lot of extra calories as well as typically adding flour or some sort of breading which again adds even more calories

So baked chicken would have
140 calories and 21 grams of protein per 100 grams

That same 100g of chicken fried
Has 100 calories from the chicken (smaller since it’s less to equal the 100 grams to make room for breading and oil)
100 calories from breading
150 from the oil it’s fried in
And that 18 grams of protein (again smaller piece of chicken since the breading and oil add weight)

Coming out to 390 calories and still only 18 grams of protein.