#HealthyEating #NutritionTips #FryingFood
Have you ever wondered why fried food tends to be less healthy than other cooking methods? 🤔 Let’s break it down and explore the reasons behind this phenomenon.
**The Science Behind Frying Food**
When you fry food, you are essentially submerging it in hot oil, which causes a series of chemical reactions that can have negative effects on your health. Here’s why frying food can make it unhealthy:
**1. Increased Caloric Content**
– Frying food adds a significant amount of calories to the dish. The oil used for frying is rich in fats, which are calorie-dense. As a result, fried foods tend to be higher in calories compared to foods cooked using other methods like grilling or baking.
**2. Formation of Harmful Compounds**
– When food is fried at high temperatures, harmful compounds such as acrylamide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can form. These compounds have been linked to an increased risk of cancer and other health issues.
**3. Loss of Nutrients**
– The high heat levels involved in frying can lead to the loss of important nutrients in the food. Water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C and B vitamins are particularly vulnerable to being destroyed during the frying process.
**4. Increased Trans Fats**
– Frying food in oils that are high in trans fats can contribute to elevated levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) in the body, leading to an increased risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular problems.
**5. Excessive Sodium**
– Many fried foods are coated in salt or seasoned with high-sodium ingredients, leading to an increase in sodium intake. Consuming too much sodium can have negative effects on blood pressure and overall cardiovascular health.
In summary, frying food can make it unhealthy due to the increased caloric content, formation of harmful compounds, loss of nutrients, increased trans fats, and excessive sodium content. It’s important to be mindful of how often you indulge in fried foods and opt for healthier cooking methods whenever possible.
By making informed choices about the foods you eat, you can promote better health and well-being in the long run. Remember, moderation is key when it comes to enjoying fried treats. 🍟🥗
For more nutrition tips and healthy eating advice, visit our website to learn how to make better choices for your overall health and wellness. Start incorporating more nutrient-dense foods into your diet today! #HealthyEating #NutritionTips #FryingFood
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.
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 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
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
It isn’t as unhealthy as foods high in sugar.
Eating too much of it will increase one’s fat consumption over recommended levels (even on a low carb or keto diet; daily fat is a limit, not a goal).
If the food is breaded, then unhealthy carbs are also likely being introduced.
The reaction of hot oil with a carbohydrate produces something called acrylamide, which are carcinogens (cancer-causing agents).
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.
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
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.
1 cup of russet potatoes is 118 calories.
Frying in oil brings that up to 312 calories.
Add in the fact that fried foods are hyper palatable, making it easy to consume larger portions than necessary, and you have a much higher chance of eating far more calories than your body uses. Those calories are stored as fat. Excess body fat may lead to all sorts of negative health outcomes.
It doesn’t, the dose makes the poison. The only unhealthy thing people consume regularly, regardless of dose, is alcohol.
Because you’re adding ridiculous amounts of grease to it?
Due to how the body metabolizes two products of frying: Glycated End Products and Saturated Fats – this leads to a lot of radical oxygen species in your body which then target DNA and proteins in ways we don’t want them to. Also, saturated fats accumulate in your body but I don’t remember why, I think it was that it clogs vasculature. ELI5: fats and protein changes during cooking are hard for the body to break down, and in the process releases other molecules that damage cells.
Edits: grammar
Edit2 : clarification in eli5
Because most fried foods are now cooked in highly processed, hydrogenated oils such as:
Vegetable oil
Canola oil
Cottonseed oil
Safflower oil
Sunflower oil
Foods fried in tallow, lard, butter, olive oil (at lower temps) are much better for you.
***Coming from a 58kg, fit and healthy female
Good posts so far, but also high temperature cooking, especially frying, creates a chemical called acrylamide. There was a bit of a furor about it in the early 2000’s, it may cause cancer in high quantities. [The FDA doesn’t seem too worried about it.](https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/acrylamide-questions-and-answers)
Okay, imagine food like potatoes or chicken. When we fry them, we cook them in hot oil. That hot oil can soak into the food and make it greasy.
Now, our bodies need some fat, but too much of it can be bad, like eating too many sweets. When we eat too much greasy fried food, it can make us gain weight and raise our cholesterol.
Also, when food is fried, it can lose some of its natural nutrients. So, while it might taste yummy, eating too much fried food isn’t the healthiest choice.
Fats are part of any balanced diet. Unfortunately almost no one nowadays has a balanced diet. We eat too much fat.
Now, when you heat food too much, some or all of the fat becomes saturated. There is some science behind the meaning of saturated here, but for now all you need to know is that saturated fats are much easier for the body to break and absorb. They can also cause cancer in the butt and in the liver.
Frying allows food to reach higher temperatures than regular cooking, so you get more saturated fats. And if you are not using an air fryer, you are frying in oil, which is also made of fats.
…I’m seeing a lot of answers saying “because you’re making it a lot greasier!” etc, etc, etc.
And they’re all wrong.
Fats are not created equal. There are good fats (Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) and bad fats (saturated and trans).
The high heat at which food is fried changes the chemical composition of the fats. So healthy fats heated to these temperatures makes them in to unhealthy fats, which in turn have negative effects on your body.
Furthermore, foods prepared this way have a tendency to already be not great for you. So you’re eating bad food that’s been cooked in bad fats. And that’s why fried food is typically unhealthy.
French fries have twice the calories of mashed potatoes, per ounce.
And potatoes are mainly nutritious for their calories.
Frying just adds an unreasonable amount of calories to your diet. Beyond that, you only need a certain amount of fat. Anything past that could cause issues.
If you need to know if you’re eating too much fat, figure out how much fat is in something, then consider drinking that much olive oil or butter straight. Does the thought make you gag? Maybe go lighter then.
There is no such thing as an unhealthy food, there are only unhealthy diets.
Nothing wrong with having fried food once in a while if you don’t have any medical condition that would make it unhealthy for you.
What can be unhealthy is to have fried food all the time (because you will probably have too much saturated fat).
Sugar industry pushed “fat bad” narrative in 90s to distract from the negative effects of sugar.
It isn’t unhealthy, necessarily. Anything in excess is bad for you, but eating fried food isn’t inherently bad. Oil contains fat and when you fry something in oil, especially if it’s absorbent, it will increase its fat content. If you eat a bunch of fried chicken all the time, it will likely contribute to negative health outcomes. If you eat it a few times a month it likely won’t.
The bigger issue is if you use oils high is trans fats, and you use oil that isn’t meant for high heat. Ingesting trans fat is bad, and ingesting food cooked in low heat oils could increase your risk of consuming carcinogens and free radicals.
Putting aside that oils tend to be high in calories, a lot of it really has to do with the type of oils your food is being prepared with. Vegetable oils and seed oils are cheaper to buy, which is why they are very commonly used in foods, snacks, restaurants, fast food chains, etc. These oils are getting lot of scrutiny based on research showing our bodies inability to break down these oils effectively, which then builds up in our bodies, causing build up in our arteries etc. If you google vegetable or canola oils, you easily find a rabbit hole to go down. However, this is not to say that not all oils are bad, and there are other high-heat oils that you can use that are perfectly fine to use, such as ghee, avocado oil or coconut oil. Extra virgin olive oil also gets a good rap, but more for dressings, not high heat cooking. These oils are more expensive, hence, why someone on a fast food diet may be more prone to heart disease. Fast food chains aren’t using avocado oil to fry their fries, along with other businesses, simply because it’s too expensive. And, not enough studies to show vegetable oils is directly correlated to heart disease.
There are arguments that fried food is unhealthy because people that eat lots of fried food tend to be overweight and have heart disease. But, it may actually relate to the type of oil being used. Dr. Hyman is one who talks about the dangers of vegetable/seed oils, and speaks to legit, published studies. You’d be surprised on how many things contain these oils, and how little we know how it impacts the body.