Why does frying food make it unhealthy?
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By soaking it in fats, and then adding those fats to the food; making it crispy brown and delicious. It’s not like you’re frying it in water. This is why air-fryers are a thing.
In addition to the consumption of more oils, the high heat of frying can destroy a lot of the good stuff in vegetables (vitamins, enzymes, etc) and also introduce more chemical compounds that are worse for your health (such as free radicals).
Oils can get much hotter than water’s boiling point under regular conditions
It increases the amount of fat in the food, from the oil.
For some time, we were convinced that fat was one of the worst things in food, especially animal fats. We’re starting to wonder if this is actually true (since obesity went up as we reduced fat consumption).
If you believe fats are inherently very bad for you, you will want to avoid fried foods.
There’s also the fact that many fried foods are themselves not very healthy to begin with, so frying just adds more calories to them.
In addition to adding breading and fat to a food that probably wasn’t very healthy to begin with, the crispy brown deliciousness makes you more likely to eat too much of it
The reaction of hot oil with a carbohydrate produces something called acrylamide, which are carcinogens (cancer-causing agents).
Fats are the most nutrient dense of the macronutrients so frying foods adds a lot of calories.
Most fryer oils are also high in omega6 fatty acids which oxidize faster and turn to inflammatory compounds and carcinogens
Heating vegetable oil to frying temperatures causes it to oxidize and form aldehydes which are toxic. All that tar like gunk that collects over fryers is stuff you are also ingesting. When fast food restaurants switched from beef fat in their fryers to vegetable oil, they had to get a whole new class of cleaners to keep the vents from getting clogged. In fact, saturated fats (not trans-fats) are less susceptible to this, so frying your fries in beef fat is actually healthier than using vegetable oil.
It’s technically not the amount of oil itself that’s the problem, but rather the properties of the oils used for deep frying today. These are oils that have been processed/neutralised/oxidised beyond recognition. For profit, accessibility, neutral taste and such.
There’s really no amazing solution for deep frying. Your best bet is probably clarified butter / ghee or tallow but that would end up being an expensive affair.
It’s not. That came from a flawed study back maybe in the 50’s which actually recommended people give up animal fats and switch to shortening, the popular new lard substitute. Those were loaded with hydrogenated carbon chains that were eventually found to be really unhealthy and should be avoided.
I cook mainly with olive oil,peanut oil, butter, or lard. If you are concerned with calories you can fry in very little oil and you should be sure the oil is hot so that not very much is absorbed into the food. Sit the food briefly on paper towels to pull off any excess oil,press another on top if you think necessary. fat is necessary for health and makes some food delicious, but use sparingly, just like protein and carbs.
It doesn’t, the dose makes the poison. The only unhealthy thing people consume regularly, regardless of dose, is alcohol.
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