Martin Lewis issues warning to families using air fryers instead of ovens

Martin Lewis has issued a warning to those who are fully invested in the air fryer hype.

It is with much regret I admit I am yet to obtain an air fryer - but continue to watch tutorials on TikTok.

Pure torture.

But the age old saying: "If it's too good to be true, it usually is," might apply here.

But before we jump to conclusions over the incredible invention, it's important to work out how much you're spending per appliance.

First thing's first - Martin says you need to work out the wattage of the cooking appliance you're using.

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Your wattage is basically how much energy is needed to run your device.

Now, if we take into consideration that 1,000 watts is a kilowatt, you pay roughly 34p per kW per hour, abbreviated as kWh.

"General equation is, find the wattage of an item, then work out how many kilowatts or what fraction of a kilowatt it's using, then multiply that by 34p per hour of use," Martin explained on his BBC Radio 5 podcast.

"The problem with the equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2,000W.

"A microwave I believe, from memory, a best guess explanation, a microwave gives you consistent heat whereas an oven is warming up to full temperature and then topping it up so it isn't running at full power the whole time.

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"If you're doing a jacket potato in the microwave for ten minutes it's going to be far cheaper than doing a single jacket potato in an oven and keeping it on for an hour and a half," he added.

"However if you were doing a full roast dinner and you were cooking many of them, that is where it's probably cheaper than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave.

"This is because each additional object you put in a microwave, you need to keep it on longer because a microwave just heats the individual object."

He said that the same equation can be used to work out the cost of running air fryers.

This means that if you're cooking a large amount of food, the oven or the hob are likely to be cheaper than chucking it all in an air fryer.

Which? research recently concluded that while air fryers do tend to be cheaper, this isn't always the case.

The consumer choice website wrote: "Often the air fryer used less than half the energy to cook the same food items, and the results were just as tasty.

"However the savings soon drop off if you have to double up on batches, as air fryers don't have as much space as a typical oven or hob.

"So if you're cooking a large amount of food, the oven or hob may still be the best bet."

The key thing to take away from this is that it's 'probably' going to be cheaper to cook small batches in the microwave or air fryer, rather than the oven.

"But if you're cooking something small and simple in there, it's probably cheaper in the microwave and similarly the air fryer," Lewis concludes.