Oil, we all use it every day to sauté vegetables or pan-fry chicken. Which is all good until you have to deep fry. I'll be telling you why deep-frying is bad for you as well as some cool cooking techniques to still get that crispy taste we all know and love.
Why is deep-frying bad for you?
Calories Calories Calories.
Deep frying anything, automatically increases the calorie content. To put this into context for you, an oven grilled chicken thigh (100g) has about 177kcal, this is compared to deep-fried chicken thighs (100g) which has about 360kcal. That is just over twice the amount of calories. Why is this bad you may ask? Well, calories can creep up on you, the average male consumes about 2000kcal a day and the average woman consumes about 1500kcal a day. Deep frying means your calorie goal is achieved much quicker. This means you could even put on weight, especially if you are consuming more calories than you are burning (calorie surplus).
Fats Fats Fats.
When deep frying you end up with foods that are high in the two types of fats that are bad for your body, trans fats, and saturated fats. These types of fats automatically raise the amount of bad cholesterol in your body and can lower the good cholesterol which in turn can cause fatty deposits to build up in your arteries which can cause heart problems, and let's face it, after the year we have had, no-one wants to end up in the hospital!
Splash Splash Splash.
Let's be honest, we have all been in the kitchen, ducking and diving from that splashing oil whilst frying. Well if a large amount of it did end up on your skin it could potentially burn you and cause you harm, and we definitely do not want that to happen!
So you love the crispy taste but now you hate deep frying, even more, Well there is a saviour for your tastebuds as well as your health, read on!
What are the alternatives to deep frying?
There are two main alternatives to deep frying, these are oven-baking and air frying.
Let's start with oven-baking, you can still get that crispy texture from cooking in the oven as long as you know how to. Oven baking is a lot healthier than deep frying because it uses considerably less oil. All you have to do is coat the food in the same batter as you would when frying but place it on a piece of grease-proof paper to prevent it from sticking (make sure the paper is sprayed with a little oil), give the food a quick spray with oil and let it sit for 10 minutes before you put it into the hot preheated oven. This will still give you all of that crispy texture but without the extra fats or calories!
Air frying is another technique that uses a lot less oil but still gives you that amazing texture. To be able to air fry you would need to invest in an air fryer but they are well worth it. To give you some context on how they would help you, deep frying potatoes to make chips use a lot of oil, however, using the air fryer you can make crispy chips with as little as a tablespoon of oil (depending on quantity). Who doesn't love crispy chips without all the bad stuff?
We now know that deep frying is terrible for you, but if you have it very rarely as a treat, then there is no harm in that at all as long as it is in moderation. We are all a sucker for a cheat day, but there are other ways to get the same texture as shown above!
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