Is Deep Fried Food Bad for You?

Is Deep Fried Food Bad for You?

Wondering if deep-fried foods are bad for you and whether or not you need to cut out your favorite crispy fried fish, french fries, fried chicken, and potato chips from your diet altogether? The answer may surprise you! Based on the current scientific literature, the truth is, it’s unclear!

Some big studies show that eating fried foods increases the risk of coronary heart disease, while other big studies show no impact at all. Curious as to why that might be?  Let me break it down for you.  Here’s what is going on.

The results likely have more to do with the types of cooking oils being used to deep fry as well as the quality of the diet as a whole, rather than deep frying itself being problematic.

For instance, a large 2012 study out of Spain, where olive oil or sunflower oil are more commonly used for deep frying, followed over 40,000 adults during a 8-12 year follow-up, and concluded that the consumption of fried foods was not associated with coronary heart disease or all cause mortality (a general marker of health and longevity).

In contrast, a 2014 study showed that Americans who consume deep fried foods daily had a 21% increased risk for coronary heart disease compared to people who consume deep fried foods once per week or less. In addition, there was an increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Does that mean that the vegetable oils used to deep fry foods in America, commonly canola oil, peanut oil, and soybean oil, are not the healthiest? It’s hard to say. There are 2 confounding factors at play here.  First, this data was collected before the FDA banned trans fats. The observed results could be explained by the presence of partially hydrogenated oils in deep fry oil prior to 2015. The other confounding factor is something called healthy user bias. This refers to the fact that healthy dietary patterns and lifestyle choices tend to stack.  The more of those healthy choices are stacked, the harder it is to fully account for in the statistical analysis. In the study in question, the people who ate the most fried foods also had the overall lowest quality diets, the lowest vegetable and fruit consumption, the highest sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, and they had the lowest physical activity and were the most likely to smoke. While sophisticated statistical analyses try to account for as many confounding factors as possible in their analysis, when so many health behaviors are associated with what it is we’re evaluating, it’s close to impossible to fully account for all of the other contributors to health, meaning that the people who ate less fast food had many other healthy behaviors that we can’t fully account for in the math.

So, what’s the take-home message?

Based on the data currently available, a case can be made that the overall quality of your diet matters a whole lot more than whether or not you ever eat fried foods. A case can also be made to only consume deep fried foods occasionally. The good news is if you are trying to limit fried foods in your diet, there are lots of other cooking methods now available to experiment with such as air frying, which cooks food by circulating hot air throughout the air fryer.

If you’d like to hear my thoughts on deep fried foods, check out my video!

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