Stop going on about your bloody air fryer

There is a scourge afflicting the nation, separating parent from child, lovers from one another, and grinding once-firm friendships into dust. Like many of the gravest threats to humanity, it first seems innocuous, boring even, before its evil reveals itself. It is, of course, the air fryer.

On the surface, there is little to object to: it’s a relatively small counter-top kitchen gadget, it cooks some food slightly faster than an oven and it heats up faster so uses slightly less energy (and so can save a little cash). All of that is surely to the good, and if that was all air fryers were doing to our society they would be a welcome addition.

The problem comes with what air fryers do to the minds of those unfortunates who buy one – almost all of whom start fixating on air fryers with the same kind of monomaniacal obsession that the Guardian has for wild swimming.

Such is the national obsession with all things air fryer that at the time of writing air fryer cookbooks occupy three of the top five of Amazon’s bestseller list. This is intrinsically insane: there is pretty much zero need for specific air fryer cookbooks because the secret of an air fryer is that it’s just a small oven.

If you have a fan oven, there is almost no difference whatsoever between that and an air fryer (other than the latter is probably cleaner and so the air flows a little better). Air fryers are fractionally cheaper to run because they’re heating a smaller space – they use about a third less energy per hour than an oven – and they preheat quicker for the same reason.

But that’s where the magic ends. Everything else is psychological, especially if you’ve put in some greaseproof paper or similar with your food (as many recipes call for), at which point you’ve even shut off the circulation of the fan.

Convincing people to buy slightly smaller versions of appliances they already have in their houses is one of capitalism’s better wheezes, but at least when mini-fridges were the gadget du jour no-one pretended they had revolutionised cooling stuff down. If you’re lucky enough to have the counter space to replicate your oven, go mad.

Just don’t pretend you’re doing anything useful – and certainly not interesting. Such is the need of air fryer owners to defend the amazingness of their new purchase that all sorts of outlandish arguments as to their benefits get made.

Yes, air fryers are cheaper to run than an oven, but the difference is marginal. Microwaves, for the right foods, are much cheaper than air fryers and run for an even shorter period, while slow cookers – even though they’re on for much longer – are cheaper still. Air frying is nothing special here.

Similarly, you would have to use your air fryer a lot to come close to justifying it environmentally, as yes it is fractionally more energy efficient to use, but look at the hefty metal and plastic unit with which you’ve saddled yourself – making it and transporting it to you used a lot of energy. Once it’s languishing in a cupboard it’s doing no-one any good.

The various marketers behind air frying must surely be having their Oppenheimer moment. For a time, it must have been exciting to see that calling a small oven an “air fryer” actually convinced people there was some exciting new cooking technology (helped by the fact people don’t realise baking trays stop some foods crisping properly in the oven).

By now though, the guilt and horror must be setting in as millions around the country are captured by the air frying cult, becoming incapable of conversation on any other topic, losing all interest in anything but air frying recipes, the space in which their soul used to reside now filled only with thoughts of air frying.

Air frying obsession has taken over the soul of the nation. Look upon ye works, Big Small Oven Manufacturing, and despair.