Expert Martin Lewis has advised people to do a simple calculation before cooking with an air fryer. Air fryers have been around for more than a decade, but it’s only in the last few years that they’ve really become popular. The air fryer brand was introduced by Philips in 2010, but the term began to be commonly used around 2018. Two years later, they suddenly started popping up everywhere.
Air Fryers: Not Always Cheaper and Healthier
Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis is not convinced that air fryers are much cheaper and healthier than traditional ovens, IGV reported. In an episode of The Martin Lewis Podcast, the expert explained that while a microwave provides constant heat, an oven heats up to a temperature and then refills, meaning it’s not at full power all the time.
The Heating Efficiency of Different Appliances
“A microwave gives you constant heat, whereas an oven heats up to full temperature and then peaks, so it’s not at full power all the time,” he said. “If you’ve made a whole dinner and cooked a lot of baked potatoes, it’s probably cheaper to put them in the oven than to put five or six baked potatoes in the microwave, because each additional item takes more time because a microwave only heats the single item.” However, if you only wanted one baked potato, which would take about 10 minutes to cook, Lewis recommended that it would be “much cheaper” to use a microwave.
Calculating the Cost of Cooking
With a little math, you can figure out whether it’s best to use an oven, an air fryer, or a microwave for each meal. The equation involves finding the power of an appliance and then calculating how many kilowatts, or what fraction of a kilowatt, it uses before multiplying it by the kWh price, IGV reported.
Comparing Running Costs
The Money Edit supports Lewis’ advice, noting in a February article that air fryers are generally cheaper to run than an oven. However, as a caveat, it notes that if someone has a more powerful air fryer, it can use the same amount of energy as an oven. For example, cooking the same food twice in an 800W air fryer can be more expensive than in an oven. Lewis has previously warned that his advice on using air fryers has been misrepresented in the media, and that he was merely giving a “straightforward explanation” of the cost of consumption.
