From the popularity of a whole range of low-carb diet plans to the increasing prevalence of diabetes in Americans of all ages, there are numerous reasons why we are paying more attention to carbohydrates in our diet. If you’re one of the many people counting carbs, you might be wondering whether the way you prepare food is as important as what you eat.
Does deep frying add carbohydrates? Since deep frying involves cooking food in hot oil, it doesn’t add carbohydrates to that food—it adds fat. At the same time, it is worth noting that any cooking process can affect the digestibility of carbohydrates that are in that food, and deep-frying is no exception.
But it is more important to understand how deep-frying food impacts blood sugar.
If you’re following a low-carb diet, you might be wondering whether you can treat yourself to a deep-fried snack without getting off track. While occasional fried goodies aren’t the end of the world for most of us, it would be a stretch to say that fried food is “healthy” or “good” for you.
Knowing more about what deep frying does to your food – and to you when you eat it – is important to making good choices.
What Does Deep Frying Do to Your Food?
Like most questions related to diet and exercise, whether you’re looking for advice on how to lose a few pounds or need guidance on how to eat better in relation to a specific health issue, you’re going to find a lot of contradictory information.
Figuring out who to trust and which advice to follow not only depends on finding trustworthy sources but also on your specific reasons for looking in the first place.
The question of whether deep-frying food adds carbohydrates has a pretty straight-forward answer—No. We realize that you are probably looking for that answer in relation to specific diet plans or health needs. So, we want to provide a little bit more information to help you put that answer into a context that will help you make better choices for you and your family.
The two most common reasons for watching carbs in your diet are to stay on track with a low-carb diet or to try to manage pre-diabetic conditions or diabetes. We don’t want to be misunderstood as offering medical advice, but we can talk a bit more about what deep frying does to food so that you understand the choices you’re making.
For readers that are following Keto, Atkins, or one of the other low-carb diet plans that have become popular, the good news is that there are lots of low-carb friendly recipes for deep-fried foods available on the internet.
We wouldn’t recommend making deep-fried treats an everyday part of your diet, but you can treat yourself without getting off track. For readers concerned with diabetes, there’s more to it than just the carbohydrates.
Disclaimer: Dietary science is complex, and the overview provided in this article should not be treated as medical advice. Before you start or alter any diet plan, you should consult your physician and consider working with a professional dietician.
Deep Frying Starchy Foods
Any time you cook a starchy food, the heating process breaks down starches into other carbohydrates that are easier to digest. So, when you turn potatoes into French Fries, you increase the number of carbohydrates that your body will absorb when you eat them. This is the case whether you bake, air fry, or deep fry them.
In contrast, when you deep fry food that is high in protein and low in carbohydrates, it will have no effect on the carbohydrates your body gets from that food. So, when you order a plate of deep-fried hot wings with no breading, you get protein and fat but no carbohydrates.
For the record, we’re not sure exactly what happens when you deep fry an Oreo or a Twinkie.
Fat Slows Digestion
Most fried foods contain carbohydrates. Deep frying food adds fat, which slows digestion. The more slowly that your body digests the food, you eat, the more slowly that your glucose levels will rise in response.
Simple carbohydrates like sugar are digested quickly. So, sugar will lead to rapid spikes in your blood sugar levels. When your glucose levels rise too rapidly, your body procures too much insulin in response. This can lead to a cycle of spikes and crashes in your blood sugar that will lead to insulin resistance over time. Insulin resistance is a precursor to Type 2 diabetes.
Complex carbohydrates like fiber take longer to digest and lead to more gradual increases and decreases in blood glucose and insulin production. Fats and proteins slow digestion the same way that complex carbohydrates do. So, a deep-fried protein like chicken wings can be consistent with the goals of a low-carb diet.
While deep-fried foods can help you cut carbs for a diet, deep frying isn’t without its issues. Some of those issues make deep-frying a potential problem for people with medical issues that require a special diet.
Deep-Fried Foods and Trans Fat
We’ve already pointed out that deep frying foods adds fat, but the specific type of fat that deep frying adds deserves some additional discussion. Trans fats lead to elevated cholesterol and raise the risk of cardiovascular disease.
In addition to the specific risks associated with trans fats, you need to consider the general risks that apply to all fats. More fat in your diet can lead to weight gain. Excess body fat can further complicate your body’s ability to regulate insulin. When your body has problems with insulin levels, you can develop chronic high blood sugar.
“Substituting unsaturated fats for trans fats lowers your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 40 percent and reduces your risk of heart disease by 53 percent.” (source)
So, while it is true that deep-frying food does not add carbohydrates to those foods, there are other issues to consider when deciding whether to eat fried foods and how much-fried food to include in your diet.
Of course, the presence of any health concerns makes these decisions both more complicated and more important. For those reasons, it’s important to consult professionals as part of your decision-making process.
Have You Tried Air Frying?
One of the most popular new trends in cooking is air frying. It can give you the same combination of crispy outside, and juicy inside that deep-frying delivers without the added fat or the specific concerns associated with trans fats.
If you’re counting carbs but want to treat yourself to tasty foods, it might be the way to get the best of both worlds for you and your family.
Because of all the downsides that come along with deep-frying, it should be a special treat in your diet, not your primary method of cooking.
Fortunately, new cooking technologies give us some options that allow us to enjoy the parts of deep frying that we enjoy with fewer long-term risks to our health.
Summary
There is no denying that deep-fried foods are tasty and that they can be a delicious treat when enjoyed in moderation. For some of us, health concerns mean that deep-fried food is never a good idea and that we should avoid it entirely to avoid the problems that it can cause.
For the rest of us, it’s important to limit the amount of deep-fried food that we eat to ensure that we don’t develop the kinds of health issues that can have lasting negative effects on our well-being.