Air Fryers Could Be Secretly Boosting Your Health, New Study Reveals

With over 51% of homes in the UK now having an air fryer (according to Leatherhead Food Research), and 62% of people who have them using them at least once a week, air fryers are fast becoming the go-to kitchen appliance.

Quick, energy efficient and versatile, there’s no denying that air fryers have become the must-have kitchen gadget of the last few years, spawning a whole new market in cookbooks, dedicated social media channels and even a tv series (cheers Jamie).

But on top of all that, new research has suggested that there’s another benefit of your air fryer that has been previously overlooked in terms of your health - and it's not about the kinds of food you can cook in it.

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Researchers from the University of Birmingham found that when it comes to indoor pollution, the air fryer is the least hazardous of all cooking methods.

With people spending as much as 80% of their time inside, indoor pollution can be a very significant contributor to your overall health. The team found that cooking is one of the main sources of indoor pollution, leading them to examine the pollutants produced from different methods of cooking a chicken breast.

They tested five popular methods; pan frying, deep fat frying, air frying, stir frying and boiling and for each one measured the particulate matter and volatile organic compounds that were released into the air.

The results showed that in terms of particulate matter, pan frying was the worst offender by some distance, releasing 92.9 micrograms per cubic metre of air. Stir-frying was next on the list with 26.7 micrograms, followed by deep frying at 7.7 micrograms. Boiling released just 0.7 micrograms but the air fryer beat them all with a score of 0.6 micrograms!

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To measure volatile organic compounds, they did it in parts per billion (ppb), with pan frying once again being the biggest polluter with 260 parts per billion, followed by deep frying at 230ppb, stir frying at 110ppb, boiling at 30ppb - and the air fryer once again winning at 20ppb.

The results indicate strongly that pan frying is the most polluting way of cooking something in the kitchen with the researchers also finding that although each cooking process only lasted for roughly 10 minutes, the pollutants remained in the air for over an hour afterwards.

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The study’s lead author, Professor Christian Pfrang, said that besides the cooking method, there were a number of other factors which would affect indoor pollution from cooking, including the 'amount of oil used' as well as 'the temperature of the stove'.

Professor Pfrang added: “It’s also really important to understand that particles will remain in the air for quite some time after you have finished cooking, so continuing to ventilate, or keeping extractor fans turned on for a period of time will really help to avoid the build-up of this indoor pollution and reduce the potential for the pollutants to be transported and distributed throughout the house with the associated higher personal exposures.”