5 Health hazards caused by eating fried foods are often not realized

All foods that go through the frying process and soaked in hot oil are certainly very delicious when eaten. Moreover, fried foods usually have a crunchy texture, so it will taste crunchy and crunchy collect when bitten. However, you need to know that there are various risks that lurk if you often eat fried foods. Anything, huh?

Eating fried food is delicious, but …

Before getting tempted and losing control because of eating large amounts of fried foods, first consider the various bad effects behind it.

1. The quality of cooking oil is not always good

Not all the fries you eat are always cooked with new oil or that have not been used before. Maybe you have or even often, you eat fried food from oil that has been used repeatedly.

This oil usually has a characteristic dark brown color that is very noticeable. This is one of the reasons why eating fried foods too often is harmful to health. The reason is, each type of cooking oil has a maximum temperature that makes it produce smoke when heated (smoke point).

When it reaches the smoke point, the quality of the oil usually starts to deteriorate so that it is no longer good for consumption by the body. Not only that. Cooking oil can also be easily oxidized when heated at high temperatures.

As a result, oil residues that enter the body will form compounds and free radicals that are harmful to health. The more often the oil is used, the lower the smoke point level it has, making it easier for compounds that are harmful to the body to emerge.

2. Increase your intake of trans fats

There are two types of trans fats. First, natural trans fats, which are present in small amounts in foods, such as meat and dairy products. Second, artificial trans fats are formed when saturated fat goes through the hydrogenation process, which occurs when food is fried at high temperatures.

This process will change the chemical structure of fat, so that later it will be more difficult for the body to digest. As a result, there will be various adverse health effects due to trans fat content. Starting from the increased risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, to obesity.

However, it is important to distinguish between the types of natural trans fats that are already present in foods, and artificial trans fats that are formed by heating the oil at high temperatures. So far, natural trans fats in food have not been shown to have the same adverse health effects as artificial trans fats in fried foods.

3. Contains a lot of oil

One of the reasons why the fritters you eat taste delicious when eaten, may be due to the seasoned flour used as a coating. But did you know that flour can contribute large amounts of fat to the fry?

Yes, the oil-absorbing properties of flour make the flour part of the frying pan able to store a lot of oil after going through the frying process. In addition, the longer a food is fried, the more oil will be absorbed into it.

This is because when food is exposed to hot temperatures from oil, the water contained in the food will evaporate. The evaporation process will make the pores in the food tend to enlarge, thus providing enough room for the oil to enter and be absorbed into the food.

4. Increase the risk of various chronic diseases

Although delicious and deliciouscollect, but the hobby of eating fried foods puts you at high risk for chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

A study conducted by the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, found that eating fried foods at least once a week can increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus and heart disease. In fact, this risk will increase as the number of fried foods is consumed.

It is often not realized, eating fried foods can increase blood pressure, body weight, and reduce levels of "good" cholesterol or HDL. All of these are risk factors for heart disease.

For example, women who ate one or more servings of fried fish per week had a 48 percent higher chance of developing heart failure than women who ate only one to three servings per month. These results were obtained from the journal Circulation: Heart Failure.

So it is with diabetes. Research from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, revealed that people who eat 4-6 servings of fried foods per week have a 39 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, than those who only eat 1 serving per week.

On the other hand, fried foods certainly contain more calories than those that are not fried. Automatically, the calorie intake that enters the body will increase. More than that, trans fats in fried foods are believed to affect the work of appetite-regulating hormones and fat stores.

That is why, you often feel as if you are very hungry when eating these foods which will then affect your weight because of your calorie and fat intake.

5. High content of acrylamide

Acrylamide is a chemical substance that is formed in food when it is cooked at high temperatures, one of which is fried. This substance is produced from a chemical reaction between sugars and amino acids, called asparagine.

High acrylamide content is usually found in starchy foods, such as french fries, fried chicken, and so on.

A study published in the International Journal of Cancer, found that acrylamide is at risk of causing kidney cancer, endometrial cancer, and ovarian cancer.