A recent addition to the home appliance world, an air fryer can help you lose weight by eating more healthy, low fat foods. A variation on a convection oven, an air fryer uses a heating element, small cooking chamber, and forced air exhaust fan to cook food faster than a conventional oven can, and at temperatures so high less oil is needed.
A tablespoon of olive, sesame, or vegetable oil is enough to season and cook a pound of food in an air fryer, with no loss of moisture, texture, or taste. Fast food and highly processed foods are made with a lot of animal fats and oils, which the body can’t process very well; it gets stored as fat in arterial walls and in the liver—this is bad cholesterol, which leads to diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and other diseases. When you cook with less oil, you ingest less oil and fat; this results in a healthier heart and arteries. The heart never gets a break, it’s always working; high cholesterol levels makes it work that much harder to move blood.
High cholesterol also depletes the bodies’ energy supply by forcing the intestines to work much harder to process out the fat and oil. After digesting a high fat meal, like a hot dog and fries, you end up depleted, not energized. The immune system is comprised (because it’s not getting what it needs to function properly), and the brain gets sluggish. Excess weight gain is another result of oil heavy diets, along with joint strain and sleep disorders. Too much grease and oil in foods can coat the inside of the intestines, making it harder for the body to absorb good nutrients from food.
But in an air fryer, the circulating hot air—not burning oils—crisps food. Excess cooking oils drip into a catch tray underneath the cooking basket in the fryer. You pull this tray out and empty the oil in the compost or trash (don’t pour it down the drain, it will clog pipes), keeping it out of future meals too. Olive oil is a very healthy compound; it contains Omega-3 fatty acids, which relieve depression, reduce arterial plaque, and increase memory and mental clarity. When you cook olive oil on the stove, it’s easy to burn and denature the chemical compounds in the oil, which ruins some of their health benefits. In an air fryer, olive oil is absorbed directly into the food (most people spray the oil on with a mister), so it retains all its healthful qualities. Ingesting olive oil actually makes it easier to lose weight—that’s another reason why it’s at the heart of the popular Mediterranean diet—because it’s an anti-inflammatory compound and a cardiovascular protector (you have more energy after eating it). Sesame oil offers other positive benefits; with an air fryer, you can play around to find the oil that’s best for your diet.
Another way an air fryer can help you lose way is with the hundreds of healthy new recipes you can try with one. There are entire cookbooks devoted to air fryer recipes (some written by successful chefs), so there’s no sacrifice in taste or presentation with air fryer meals. A quick Google search will yield dozens of easy, healthy recipes. Besides frying, you can bake, roast, grill, or steam food in these
compact ovens. Clean up is quick and easy, as most air fryers have dishwasher safe parts—and, unlike cooking on a stove, foods and oils inside an air fryer are contained, they don’t spatter everywhere.
Leave a Reply