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Cool, where can I trade in my air-fryer for a capitalism-free world that isn’t ai-enhanced descend into fascism while the planet is burning?
The first commercial convention oven was released in the 1940s. The first prototype of the general concept happened in the 1910s.
Even if you mean the modern household tabletop convenience version, the Nuwave convection oven was already an informercial staple by 2003.
Air fryers, and to a lesser extent fan ovens, use a fan to move the air rather than just using air convection currents.
To put it in perspective, that’s just over 100 years out of 4.5 billion the earth has existed. Or 300 million years or so complex life existed (that mostly wouldn’t be able to fathom the core concepts you’d need to know to even understand what having an air fryer means, where I’d consider “figured out that forest fires can contain more delicious food in some places (where intensity is high enough to cook plants and animals but not enough to turn them to charcoal)” to be pretty smart). Or several million that hominids have existed and using stone or better tools. Or several thousand since we figured out how to manage our food production rather than depend on always finding it. Or several hundred since we got much better at harnessing energy.
Also, I’d push back on a) the invention date being more relevant than the mass release date, and b) early convection ovens counting as “air fryers”, so that 100 years should probably also be reduced.
I prefer to fry potatoes, but you can fry shit if you like. Just keep it in your air fryer.
You’ve heard of boiling shit in a kettle, now get ready for frying shit in an air fryer
why do people like air fryers more than toaster ovens? i don’t get it
Most toaster ovens, even ones with strong convection for “air frying”, are not quite consistent enough in their heating. You have to pay far more than you would for an air fryer to get even heat coil distribution and a good door seal for that. The specific kind of rapid cooking that dessicates and browns the surface you get out of air fryer devices is just kind of hard to replicate outside of them.
If you ever look inside an air fryer you can kind of immediately see why – the heater-to-volume ratio is absurdly close. You have the equivalent of the biggest coiltop stove burner directly above a few quarts of air volume with a fan forcing air from it to circulate. It’s just kind of unfair of a comparison for both toaster ovens and even full-size ones that advertise an “air fryer” mode by comparison for that reason.
I have an old toaster oven that has a really weak convection fan but it moves so little air it is nowhere near an air fryer. The timer doesn’t work anymore and it’s ugly but I have another timer and it just works. I don’t own an air fryer and I’m not going to buy one until my toaster oven dies.
I got a ninja air fryer for 50 bucks because the old Philips one needed internal cleaning to stop it smoking
I’m all for reducing waste, this was the first time I threw something out that technically was functional
I didn’t lose any sleep. And I fry free of smoke. Can recommend new stuff sometimes just because we don’t live that long anyway
I’d like to not be reliant on a small handful of corporations and cheap plastic devices, tbh.
What if I want to fry food with the fires of 7 Hells
I hope that’s real brick behind that. I’ve seen some pretty gnarly damage from people using their BBQs too close to the side of the house.
Weren’t we frying shit in the air with old cast iron stoves as well?
We probably did in old Mesopotamia with clay ovens or something.
And breathing in fly ash from the coal, which contains increased concentrations of uranium and thorium.
Compared to that an airfryer is a god send.
Is an airfryer just a small fan oven?
Its a small convection oven, that works more efficiency because the heating element is like an inch above the food, and heating a very tightly confined area, so intense temperatures can be more concentrated and easily achieved.
Yes, they’re countertop convection ovens.
We can fry shit with the air, so nice
Alps look ok!
The glass is half not boiled kinda guy
The first night I owned an air fryer, I tossed in some shitty frozen tater tots that had been in my freezer for way too long, and they came out so delightfully crispy that I cooked two more servings.
I realized immediately that this would be a problem. It’s a bit too easy to make delicious stuff that’s pretty bad for me. I nearly made myself sick of wings within like 2 weeks. That was a close one. Fuckin love wings.
I got rid of my home deep fryer for health reasons. It is dangerously easy, cheap, and quick to make quality fries…
But it’s also quick and cheap to make absurdly-delicious roasted veg.
My favorite: take a bag of frozen broccoli florets, mist it with some oil (it’ll harden on them), sprinkle with some salt and pepper and toss in it at 400 degrees F for like, 15 minutes. Halfway through I pull the basket and drain the accumulated water in the bottom to increase browning.
Delicious, crispy, I can devour an entire pound of broccoli that way in like 5 minutes.
They’re literally small convection ovens rebranded. They’re not magic.
Look up how microwaves work. Those are way, way fucking cooler. The way they generate the microwaves is cool as hell.
Microwaves are cool in theory but in practice the food is almost always soggy and mushy. Maybe I just don’t know how to use them, but I’m rarely happy with the result. Even reheating leftovers, I’d rather do in a saucepan
Great for vegetables, IME.
I almost never use my microwave or oven because of the air frier.
A more efficient and quicker small convection oven you can easily buy for 30 bucks and pop in a cupboard when you’re not using it.
The price really depends where you live, eg: where i live an air fryer can cost 20-40€ , a microwave is often on the 50€ price range
Same here.
Meanwhile a reliable full size oven can easily cost 1000$/€ and consumes much more energy. Not always cheap/easy to install either.
For people on a budget, who often live in a small/rented place, an air fryer’s a life saver. Plug it in, cook something, pop it away if you need some more space. Don’t even need a kitchen. Just use it next to an open window or vent.
A rice cooker is similarly useful. Cheap, but you can use it to cook far more than rice, keep stuff warm, and largely replace a stove top. Once again, often without the need for space or installation.
Microwaves are cool, sure, but they have a completely different utility. If I want a small amount of food hot, it goes in the microwave. If I want a small amount of food crispy, it goes in the air fryer. If I want a large amount of food hot or crispy it goes in the oven, with convection on or off depending on the end goal.
If you want crispy, heat with the air fryer.
If want moist and hot, use a microwave.
Don’t cook soup in the air frier or toast in the microwave.
Things don’t need to be revolutionary to be life changing. Could I have used the convection oven for this one slice of pizza? Sure. Would I ever? Hell no.
But yeah, microwaves really are neat. We’re going to fling these electrons around in these very specific magnetic fields and out pops light you can’t see.
When I was working in repairs, we got orders sometimes to repair those microwaves. And the only thing that I learned is that if magnetron (coolest technology name in my opinion) died, then it similar to TVs with dead display — price of repair would be basically close to price of whole device.
Meh.
I have an old NEFF microwave. Fixing that involved popping in some new mica paper for a few bucks.
They’re closer to impingement ovens than convection ovens.
Convection ovens (or “fan forced ovens” in some countries) use a fan to gently and evenly circulate the hot air, whereas impingement ovens and air fryers use higher velocity fans to blow the heat directly onto the food.
So it’s an overkill blowdrier, got it.
And a blow dryer is just overkill evaporation.
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Just saying it’s not new or miraculous technology 🤷🏼 it’s just a clever and convenient consumer product.
The better we can differentiate consumer trends and marketing from actual technological innovation, the better off we’ll be. cough AI cough
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AI is more of a drug than an innovation, IMPO.
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Ah, you’re a marketing drone, that explains a lot.
I use AI often enough and it’s just a shiny turd for anything complex. Good thing it’s good at stealing art, so that’s a big boon for marketing people.
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Alright but hang on, let me preheat the oven first
you know what would be a lot cooler? same thing not needing electricity (concentrated solar can get hot enough and heat can be stored in hot oil)
But it wasn’t sunny today and I wanted fries and don’t have space to store hot oil :(
skill issue
For a rain enjoyer, you sure like spreading pro sun propaganda
There would be no rain without sun
That doesn’t sound right. But I don’t know enough about rain to dispute it…
skill issue
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Just power it using solar panels?
concentrated solar heating gets you there using 1/4 of that space and allows for simple energy storage
“simple” storage of burning hot oil mmhm
yeah you put it in a barrel, pump hotter oil through coiled pipe, hot (storage) oil floats to top, when you draw heat through another coiled pipe cold oil falls to bottom. just put mineral wool around it. much cheaper than batteries
solar water heaters work the same way except they use water
So now to cook something I need:
- A solar collector
- Hot oil storage
- Heat exchanger (unless I’m deep frying I guess)
- Hot oil piping between collector, storage and cooking appliance
I’ll take the solar panels which I already have wiring for, are useful when there’s a surplus (because I can sell the electricity) and which also power my computer. Not that I have panels at the moment.
affordable housing and healthcare
Best I can give you is corporate pittance for menial labour.
I’ve never tried an air fryer. I don’t have the counter space for one and am concerned I’d eat more unhealthly more often if I owned one but it’s possible that’s not true.
It’s a little more complicated than this, but basically it’s just a smaller, faster convection oven. They’re cool but not lifechanging IMO
I toss sweet potatoes in there for a good snack. Roast veggies. Mostly the air fryer cooks healthy foods fast which is nice.
Nah we cook fish in ours.
Losing weight is easier (less oil) and cooking times are faster.
It’s just a more compressed oven. You can eat healthy or unhealthy with it
Breaded fish or grilled fish?
Can it toast bread?
If you can do it in an oven, chances are you can do it in an air fryer. Just be careful not to burn the outside.
Healthcare
Airfryers make me feel old because I don’t know how to use one.
It’s just an oven optimised for airflow.
Even fan-forced, a normal oven recirculates the same air around, which carries moisture evaporated from whatever you’re cooking.
Air Fryer is just a much smaller oven, with a similar sized element and a bigger fan, that also has an exhaust, so moisture-laden air is expelled from the unit and the air hitting the food is always hot and dry.
But all-in-all it’s just a type of oven and you can absolutely use one as a regular little oven or if you crack the door a little and turn the heat up a bit, you can use regular fan-forced oven as an ‘air fryer’
I used to hate air-fryers. “They still need some oil, it’s not really FRYING ANYTHING WITH THE AIR”.
My parents got me one for Christmas and I didn’t show it, but I was livid. I do t need this shit.
Then I realized it’s just a small oven. And now I love my small, really quick heating, slightly less easy to clean oven that can make passable fries.
Tbh the name is very bad 😂
Use it like a regular oven but reduce temperature by 25°F or 15°C and reduce cooking time by 20%.
Turn dial to set temperature
Turn another dial to set time
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One of my best investments in the last few years.
