Hello!
I know that unhealthy is a term that is very very wide and means different things to different people. But why usually for athletes it is recommended not to fry food or to eat food that is not fried? Is it still unhealthy if i were to fry without butter or any kind of oil? Thanks for answering!
When I think of the words fry and frying I think of submerging something in hot oil until it’s completely cooked. Cooking something in a small amount of oil or butter in a pan should be fine if you don’t overdo it
It’s not even remotely unhealthy. It’s because people believe in whatever nonsense they’re told by mainstream.
Unless you’re cooking with omega 6 oxidised oils, it’s not bad for you at all. Overlooking your food can be an issue to.
At the end of the day, it’s simple thermal transfer just like boiling and roasting. Use a pan that isn’t coated in toxic chemicals (you can find them easily). Cook with stable fats (virgin olive oil, coconut oil, ghee, butter at low temperatures… a few others but not many I care to recommend). Don’t over cook your food too heavily (not the end of the world if you do).
It’s the fats and oils that are not desired in pan frying (and possibly combustion products if you’re letting it burn). There isn’t anything inherently unhealthy otherwise. Besides athletes continuously cook in pans..
I’d say it’s because of the oil/butter/etc that’s used to fry food and because of the heat. When frying something then the food turns brown (by boiling it it doesn’t because water reaches only a certain temperature while liquid). This makes the food taste good but when you fry it for too long or with too much heat, there will be acrylamide in the food which is said to be carcinogenic.
Don’t worry too much about it though, it’s not really researched well. No one can tell you how much acrylamide is actually damaging for your health. Just try to use only little oil or other fat if possible and don’t use too much heat for too long when cooking your food. Worrying too much about your health is unhealthy too.
There’s literally nothing about a pan that is unhealthy unless you are using something with a nasty nonstick coating that causes cancer.
If you use butter in your pan the issue might be your butter, but a little bit in the pan is pretty negligible.
“Frying” often means submerging in hot oil. THAT really amps up the calories (and deliciousness) of food.
The quality of the oils you are using will be key here. Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils like vegetable oils oxidize easily in cooking. They may already be on their way to rancid when we get them home from the store. We then eat these degraded, rancid, inflammatory oils and they become part of the membrane structure in all of our cells.
This can compromise communication between cells, the integrity of the cell membrane, and can wreak havoc on our gut health and obstruct the body from properly absorbing the beneficial fatty acids we actually need.
I like the book The Big Fat Lie for an accessible introduction to these concepts. Nourishing fats are beneficial, tasty, and satiating!
No preparation method is inherently unhealthy. Frying in oil adds a lot of calories and fat, and can remove some nutrients from foods, but if you’re getting all your nutrients and managing your calories around a pan-fried dish, then you’re fine.
This wasnt what you’re referring to probably, but many non stick pans are coated with very toxic chemical coating that leeches onto your food and absorbs into your body.
Stainless steel and cast iron are your best bet.
Other than that, its probably the alleged phobia of fat that was mostly linked to bad research in the 1950’s that has since been debunked. As long as you don’t use toxic seed oils, you’re pretty much fine with pan frying.