Air fryers are lauded as the healthier alternative to deep frying, and they are in many ways much healthier than the deep fryer and many other methods of cooking, the primary reason for that being the fact that the air fryer can cut fat content by up to 80% by not using oil, secondly, it does a great job retaining the nutrients in food when cooking.
However, since fat doesn’t affect blood sugar the same way that carbohydrates do, I started to wonder what kind of effect air-fried food would have on a person with diabetes. Of course, anyone, no matter the circumstance, would benefit from replacing their deep-fried meals with an air-fried equivalent. This led to the question.
Are air fryers good for diabetics? Because the air fryer only cuts fat content, it won’t have a special effect on diabetics. Fat doesn’t raise blood levels as carbohydrates do, therefore, anyone with type-2 diabetes should be able to eat air fried food as long as the food itself doesn’t contain carbohydrates and still maintain stable blood sugar levels.
However, the general consensus seems to be that anyone should control their daily intake of sodium and fat as high levels may lead to heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure, and swaying blood sugar levels. Therefore, a diabetic would benefit from cooking in an air fryer where fat and salt levels can be minimized.
Instead, use the air fryer to prepare meals rich in protein and vitamins.
With an air fryer you can prepare vegetables, meat, chicken, fish, nuts, soups and more (pretty much anything that can be cooked in a deep fryer, an oven, on a stovetop or a grill). In fact, the air fryer has proven to be a nice tool for those who decide to approach low-carb diets, “keto” and blood sugar diets.
Traditionally, both air fryers and deep fryers are used to prepare crispy french fries, either frozen or homemade potato cut french fries. However, as an alternative to potato french fries which contain plenty of carbohydrates, you can enjoy similar results with vegetables, more specifically: celeriac,
Air Fryers May Prevent Type-2 Diabetes
It has been shown that overweight and obesity increase the risk of type-2 diabetes, along with many other metabolic diseases. To prevent the formation of such diseases, one has to reduce the daily intake of calories. In this endeavor,
Here’s why.
Deep fried foods contain excessive amounts of fat because they are bathed in a tub of hot oil, which is absorbed into the food under the process. Each gram of fat contains 9 calories, as opposed to a gram of protein or carbohydrates which contains 4 calories, that’s less than half the amount of calories per gram. The air fryer cuts the fat content of food by up to 80% in some cases.
Reducing fat content by such drastic numbers would reduce the number of calories in every meal cooked in the air fryer by a significant amount.
In comparison to deep fried chicken wings, air fried chicken wings will mostly contain protein. Chicken meat is very lean meat, unless it’s deep fried, then it’s actually extremely fat.
With this in mind, you may understand how the air fryer could benefit anyone who’s trying to lose weight or eat healthier, which are great ways to prevent diseases such as type-2 diabetes.
The Blood Sugar Diet, Air Fryers And Diabetes.
The blood sugar diet is a scientifically based plan developed by Dr. Michael Mosley to help people who want to lose weight, balance their blood sugar levels and take care of their health. Mosley himself says that the BSD way of living is an alternative for anyone, not only those who are in the risk zone.
The blood sugar diet focuses on low-carb Mediterranean style dieting, which translates into eating healthy fats rather than large amounts of carbohydrates. The diet may include olive oil, nuts, vegetables, and from time to time, a glass of wine.
The blood sugar diet should, allegedly, improve your blood sugar levels by strictly limiting your caloric intake in order to oxidize internal fat that may be clogging up your liver.
By restricting your daily caloric intake to about 800 calories, your body will have to use fat collected around vital organs to harvest energy. The diet is either adapted fulltime or slowly progressed into with the help of a 5:2 template. The 5:2-method is used with many other diets, most popular in intermittent fasting, it also comes in a 16:8 version.
What these numbers tell us is that you may eat like you use to 5 days of the week and then restrict yourself to 800 calories 2 days of the week to create a caloric deficit on a weekly basis. This method offers much more flexibility than embracing the diet fully would, however, with more dedication comes faster results.
When restricting yourself to 800 calories, the air fryer can make delicious snacks out of any vegetable. Great, right?
Put brussel sprouts, carrot sticks, broccoli, carrot chips, or just about any other vegetable you desire in the air fryer and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Open up the air fryer and sprinkle your favorite spices over the vegetables. It’s as easy as that to prepare a batch of diet-friendly snacks.
Vegetables are often very low in calories, which means you’ll be able to eat great volumes before you actually come close to the 800 calorie limit. In combination with a chicken breast, tuna, or turkey breast, the vegetables will most likely provide enough volume to give you the feeling of being full.
However, at 800 calories, your body will be lacking energy and nutrients. Performance, humor and energy levels may slide, therefore, the 5:2 approach is more realistic.
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Conclusion: Can Diabetics Use An Air Fryer?
Yes, a person with diabetes can, without a doubt, use the air fryer on a regular basis. How suitable an appliance
With the air fryer, you are provided with a great platform to cook healthier food with fewer calories, reduced formation of acrylamide, fewer trans fats, and improved nutrient retention.
With that said, the air fryer doesn’t magically transform unhealthy foods into nutrient-rich wonders for our body. The options you make may still have an effect on you, therefore, it’s important to do research on the food to find out what it contains.
Related Questions & Articles
Where can I find diabetic friendly air fryer recipes? Google and Pinterest both have a plethora of recipes available, no matter the diet. For the sake of browsing through visually pleasing images, I suggest Pinterest.