Are Air Fryers Healthy? Here’s What Registered Dietitians Say Jackie Newgent, RDN, CDN
The rising popularity of the air fryer
There s a lot of talk of air fryers these days. It seems like nearly everyone is hopping on the trend. But if you re skeptical, you re not alone.
Air frying seems too quirky for some. Others have no idea what it is. I didn t understand the hype for a while, but now I m obsessed with my air fryer, says Sammi Haber Brondo, a registered dietitian and founder of Sammi Brondo Nutrition. It s a fast way to cook almost anything and always yields good results.
Every spring, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases its “Dirty Dozen Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce.” It is received with much fanfare and is ripe for the picking for media outlets across the country. To get an idea how much buzz it generates, I Googled “dirty dozen food.” It yielded about 30 million results. I filtered those results to news stories and about 30,000 featured the subject.
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It is easy clickbait for the media, so it’s no big surprise the dirty dozen gets so much play. But, with Americans not eating enough fruits and vegetables to begin with, it is too bad the message to avoid them garners the attention it does.
Plopping down in front of the TV with a bag of chips or a pint of brownie fudge ice cream sounds good to us right about now. Amid the months of pandemic isolation, it’s no surprise that millions of Americans turned to bad-for-you foods, snacks, and sweets as a source of comfort, and gained their COVID-19 pounds in the process. But now is the moment to turn it around. Below, nutritionists share their best strategies to avoid unhealthy eating and get back on track.
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1. Cut out all refined carbohydrates
This means cut out chips, pasta, bread, cookies, crackers, and any carbs that you couldn t grow in your garden (theoretically). Leave them out of the shopping cart and fill up on whole grains like quinoa or oatmeal instead.