Healthy/unhealthy depends on so many things....deep fried Twinkies are less healthy than deep freied broccoli.
also the oil you use figures into the picture, the size of the pieces of stuff you are frying (more surface more oil soaks in) the heat at which you are cooking....too hot the food burns on the outside before the inside is cooked, too cool the food spends too much time in the oil and absorbs a lot, the amount of breading. Breading absorbs oil better than say unbreaded broccoli. AND the age and condition of the oil. As oil is heated it deteriorates and contains more free radicals than un used oil and the more you heat the oil and the higher the temperature, the more free radicals it contains. Free radicals are thought to be components in causes of cancer and degenerative diseases.
so the answer you have found is correct....no one can really measure healthiness of fried food.
Linda C

Google on Alton Brown's experiments. You can deep fry the right way and get a lot less oil into the food than if you do it the right way and get very little oil absorption.

Everything on the American Heart Association's nutrition and diet pages says that fried foods are NOT healthy for a heart patient, anyone on BP meds, or anyone trying to keep fat intake down, for whatever reason. Just how unhealthy, I don't know. I know "faux fried" (baked with a coating) is pushed.

Donna

Your question is timely for a partial answer from me. I was alone at home for dinner last night and I made a single Yukon gold potato into French fries using the Cooks Illustrated "Easier French Fries" recipe. If you have an online CI membership you can look this method up, if not I've posted a link to blog that pretty well summarizes the method and has helpful photos.

Their recipe has you start the potatoes in room temperature oil. One point that the blog did not mention is that you use just enough oil to cover the potatoes in the pot. I used a cast iron sauce pan that probably holds one and a half quarts. I cut one medium large potato into about fries that were a little less than half an inch thick. With the shape of the pan I used, it took one and a quarter cups of oil to just cover the fries. I did not cover them quite as much as the photo in the blog shows because when you bring the oil up to boiling it will bubble up over the potato. I used extra light olive oil from Costco.

This cold start method does take more frying time. My one potato took about 18 minutes and CI says about 25 for two and and a half pounds of potatoes. The fries were very good, crisp on the outside, soft, smooth and well cooked on the inside. CI said their oil never got above 280 degrees, mine at a fast boil got to 260 degrees, perhaps due to my altitude. Another plus is there is almost no splatter. Even though I used a small pan that at full boil had the oil only about an inch and a quarter down from the top, I had just a very few tiny droplets of oil to wipe up.

I poured the cooled oil back into the jar I had used to measure it originally (a mason jar with quarter cup markings) and it came to the bottom of the one and a quarter cup mark, when I started, I filled it just to the top of that mark and of course some still clung to the inside of the pan. CI says:

"Our cold-start spuds contained about one third less fat than spuds deep-fried twice the conventional way: 13 versus 20 percent."

The blog link says she used a quart of peanut oil and shows a photo of how little was lost when she strained it back into the bottle.

So I used a healthy oil and to quote your response to me, concerning the lack of cholesterol in marrow on the bone thread that Dcarch posted "Hell, that's your ticket to eternal salvation right there." You thought applies to olive oil too! I've chuckled a lot thinking about what you said.

Lee

Here is a link that might be useful: Easier French from CI

For some reason the link I posted is not working for me, but copying and pasting the address does, so if you have problems, use this:

http://www.rvgoddess.com/BLOG/2009/JUNE/060309.aspx

Well, trying again the link seems to work, maybe her site had a momentary problem.

Here is a link that might be useful: Easier French Fries

If your cholesterol, bp, weight and general health are fine, I wouldn't worry about too much. Use good oil, change it often and go fry something.

If not, then don't fry at home. Order something small when out and eat half of it or split an order and don't do it too often.

You don't have to ask any questions, do any research or read any publications.

Any fried food is safe to eat in any quantity, at any time provided you wash it down with beer.

Same rule section where having a salad for lunch removes the calories in the cheesecake you have for dessert.

Next time I deep fry, I will carefully measure the oil at the start and the end of the process, and capture and measure the oil accumulated in the draining tray. The net change is what's going into the food. I'll report back.

John, you have forgotten one thing.

What about all the oil that is splattered on the stove, the floor and on the walls?

Actually, have you inspected the grease filter in your exhaust fan? the inside of the duct? A lot of oil goes there.

dcarch :-)

I like Metaxa's version!

Comfort food for sure...but I think this book scared me off fried food for good.

Here is a link that might be useful: Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food