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Air fryers cause less indoor air pollution compared to other cooking methods, a new study finds. Here's how to make your kitchen time even healthier.
Your beloved air fryer may do more than whip up crispy chicken tenders in a pinch: It might also be contributing to improved air quality in your home.
That’s the major takeaway from a new study published in the journal Indoor Air. For the study, researchers at the University of Birmingham in England used a research kitchen to cook a chicken breast and measured particulate matter and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) given off by five common cooking methods: pan frying, stir frying, deep-fat frying, boiling and air frying.
Particulate matter is linked to lung issues, heart attacks and premature death, while VOCs may cause respiratory complications, headaches and damage to the liver, kidney and central nervous system.
The researchers discovered that the worst cooking method for particulate matter was pan frying, which hit a peak concentration of 92.9 micrograms per cubic meter of air. That was followed by stir frying at 26.7, deep frying at 7.7, boiling at 0.7 and air frying at 0.6.
Air frying was also the best method for VOCs, measuring at 20 parts per billion (ppb). That was followed by boiling at 30 ppb, stir frying at 110 ppb, deep frying at 230 ppb and pan frying at 260 ppb.
But these levels didn’t just peak and then dissipate; the researchers also discovered that there were substantially higher levels of pollutants in the kitchen for more than an hour after the food had been cooked.
Indoor air pollution has been a hot topic over the past few years thanks to a growing body of research that found that different cooking tools, including gas stoves and Teflon pans, can make you sick.
But what is it about air fryers that makes them a healthier option from an indoor air pollution standpoint? Experts break it down.
Why might an air fryer be good for indoor air?
Researchers didn’t just discover that air fryers contributed the least to indoor air pollution; they found the levels were extremely low. “Particulate matter levels were so low that they were hard to distinguish from background air,” study co-author Christian Pfrang, chair of Atmospheric Science at the University of Birmingham, tells Yahoo Life. “This means that switching from pan frying and stir frying to air frying will substantially decrease indoor air pollutant exposure.”
Pfrang’s study didn’t explore why this is the case, but there are a few theories. One is that the design of the air fryer may help tamp down on air pollution. “Air fryers are typically contained systems so, while heating oil will create particles, most of those particles seem to deposit inside the air fryer before getting out of the air,” Delphine Farmer, an air pollution researcher and assistant professor in the chemistry department at Colorado State University, tells Yahoo Life.
On the other hand, pan, stir and deep frying all involve pools of oil that are open to the air and release more particles, Farmer explains. Air fryers often use less oil, which could lead to less particles being released into the air, Jamie Alan, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University, tells Yahoo Life.
But indoor air pollution researchers stress that not all fryers will have the same response. “This might be a little design-dependent on the specific air fryer. My experience is that some seem to be leakier than others,” Farmer says. Marina Eller Vance, research scientist and associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, agrees. “Work in progress from our research group shows similar emissions of particulate matter using an air fryer and certain pan frying conditions,” she tells Yahoo Life.
Kristin Granero/Yahoo Life
If you’re in the market for an air fryer, Yahoo's Kristin Granero chose this as her favorite. Learn more here about the five others she put to the test.
Why is indoor air pollution a concern?
Indoor air pollution is a growing area of research. “While there is an increasing awareness of outdoor air pollution … we spend on average 80% to 90% of our time indoors,” Pfrang says. “Our exposure to air pollution is very likely dominated by indoor exposure in our homes, which is comparatively poorly understood.”
But cooking is a major source of particulate matter indoors, Pfrang says. “Particulate matter exposure has demonstrated health impacts including respiratory diseases, increased risk of heart disease and premature death, especially for people with lung disease,” he adds.
There’s also no established safe level of particulate matter, whether it’s indoors or outdoors, Vance says. “Because we spend much of our time indoors, it makes sense to try to reduce our exposure to particulate matter from cooking and other indoor activities,” she says.
How to minimize air pollution when you cook
Ventilation is key, according to researchers, meaning it’s best to turn on a vent hood or open a window, if possible. “That’s a great way to bring in outdoor air — as long as it isn’t a smoggy or polluted day outside,” Farmer says.
Cooking at lower temperatures is also linked to less air pollutants, although it may interfere with the flavor, Farmer points out. Particulate matter is more likely to be emitted when the cooking temperature is higher than the oil’s smoke point, which is the temperature where the oil will start to release visible smoke, Vance says. “My recommendation is to use cooking oils with high smoke points and to try to stay below the smoke point,” she says. (These include avocado oil, canola, grapeseed, peanut oil and safflower.)
But while the findings are good news for air fryer fans, Alan recommends taking them with a measure of skepticism, saying that research was done in a lab setting, not in a working kitchen. “If you like using the air fryer, keep using it,” she says. “However, I would not run to buy an air fryer because of this data, nor would I change my daily routine based on this.”