How to choose an air fryer and best cooking practice

Kya deLongchamps examines the viral chatter surrounding air fryers

Wash all non-stick surfaces with care, avoiding steel scourers. Undamaged and used at reasonable temperatures, modern non-stick coatings are chemically inert and safe to use.

Air fryers have remained our favourite countertop genius for a few winters now. With the days drawing in, and hungry kids falling through the door from school demanding a fast turnout for dinner, their popularity continues to soar. I popped a Swan 4l fryer I found for under €40 into my daughter’s student accommodation this year as she learned to dry vegetable slices in ours. Air fryers use little or no oil and turn the moisture in the basket into a mist of droplets that together with fan-circulated heat in a relatively small cavity, cut cooking times by as much as 40%. 

They don’t actually “fry” food and are really equivalent to small convection ovens.

Using less oil slashes the fat and calorie content including partially hydrogenated trans-fats of most foods, including those otherwise cooked in traditional deep immersion. All that said, worries concerning the use of air fryers have gone viral on social media platforms including Tik-Tok, so let’s dig into what you need to know to let you and your family use your air fryer without worry, most of which is plain, commonsense common to all cooking methods.

Cooking in oil at a high temperature whatever method you use releases a chemical present in some foods called acrylamide. It’s a neurotoxin, so obviously not welcome in our kitchens and it has been under scrutiny for 20 years. With the reduced amount of oil (down as much as 80%) and less time needed utilising an air fryer, the amount of acrylamide is far less than that produced during deep frying and repeatedly reheating large batches of relatively dirty oil. 

It’s important to realise that acrylamide is produced in a known reaction (termed the Milliard Reaction) every time you heat food to over 120C. For this reason, health professionals have warned against charring food as a regular practice, as this is proven to release more acrylamide. This is not specific to air fryers.

Keep in mind that this chemical though being heavily investigated is yet to be firmly linked to cancer in humans — but it is classed by the WHO as a “probable cause”. Starchy, plant-based foods like chips release more acrylamide during the cooking process than say chicken and other vegetables. 

When cooking foods like these delicious Asian dumplings, avoid charring or burning food to reduce the release of neurotoxic acrylamides, put on your kitchen extractor, and don’t breathe in the fumes form the pan as its withdrawn. File picture

Air frying food without charring, together with mitigating acrylamide release, is also known to reduce the amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in fumes from cooking, which breathed in can be counter-productive to our health. The message is — don’t blacken food however you cook it, use a small amount of oil, and don’t hang over the basket of any oil-based appliance deeply inhaling hot fumes when removing the basket. Pretty obviously — best practice.

Now, getting back to the cavity and basket — the components of the air fryer that are causing concerned chatter online. Used correctly and cleaned correctly — intact, non-stick coatings in air fryers are safe to use, and they are identical to the ones we use in and around a traditional oven. The difference is, most of the time we are cooking right down on the coating of the air fryer, so it’s vitally important that the surfacing is intact and undamaged just as you would with any non-stick coating you’re using in the kitchen.

There have been investigations into the dangers of non-stick coatings used in cooking ware and appliances for decades, and in the early days, these suspicions around what some termed Teflon-flu were very well founded. 

Today’s batterie-de-cuisine should only include safe, modern materials labelled PTFE, PFOA, PFOS, and BPA, Teflon being the most popular. Non-stick coatings still contain fluoropolymers, and they have to be respected. Any non-stick coating can be damaged with the wrong use, and when a non-stick coating is sufficiently gouged or scrubbed with the wrong materials, it will start to shed particles, sometimes right back into the food. 

Added to this, cooking in extremely hot temperatures for long periods is not recommended for an air fryer or most roasting gear, as it can overwhelm the coating, causing it to subtly, break down. 

If you don’t want to grapple with the idea of a PFOA coating or Teflon, choose a model of air fryer with ceramic and aluminium coatings and components; 3.8l Ninja AF from €120.

There are brands of air fryers with crisper plates and baskets that are both Teflon and PFOA-free including models by Ninja, Russell Hobs and Cosori which utilise ceramic and aluminium coatings and components instead of standard non-stick black coatings. These do not eliminate the issues surrounding over-cooking food, so still treat these and any oven or grill with respect.

Safety

To ensure your air fryer is safe to use and safely used, read the instructions carefully and follow these basic practices for non-stick coatings.

Whatever method you use, don’t overcook foods and avoid charring foods. Together with protecting you from releasing high levels of acrylamide, it means any undamaged Teflon coating in your oven or fryer remains chemically inert.

Always replace anything in your kitchen with a non-stick style coating immediately when it is dinged, scratched or shows signs of flaking. We have little knowledge of the impact of ingesting even modern coatings on cookware, so don’t hesitate.

Wash your air fryer components and wipe out the non-immersible cavity gently. Soak the removed baskets in warm soap water to remove debris and oil residue and use a non-abrasive nylon or silicone tool recommended by the maker. Steel pot scrubbers are incompatible with non-stick surfaces.

Only use wood or silicone-coated grabs and scoops for your air fryer. These will not damage the coating.

When using your air fryer, put the kitchen extractor on to reduce born fumes and anything they may be carrying.

Don’t use vintage non-stick ware that may include hazardous perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) banned in 2013. Don’t buy a second-hand air fryer. You have no idea how it has been used or abused.