A Better Fry

There's no shortage of depressing news. Gas prices? Up, and look to be that way for quite a while regardless of any settlement between the parties involved. AI? Good stuff, as long as a) you check carefully all its results for accuracy; b) you doubt everything you see lest it be generated vs. real; and c) you don't let it take over your accounts or your security or anything. Politics? Rather than being the art of coming together to improve people's lives it's devolved into cults and blood wars. Sure, we were able to send 4 people to orbit the moon, but that's just 4 people. To paraphrase the immortal words from people as disparate as Peter in Matthew 19:27, and Mr. Green in Guy Ritchie's 2005 film "Revolver," what's in it for us? 

What we need in these times is a feel-good story that cuts across party and class, nationality and ethnicity, sex and age. It has to affect each of us directly and individually, not in some abstract way that merely promises a better tomorrow. Thankfully in that quest there are scientists who are working on something other than Instagram improvements and better bands for your Apple Watch. Their results were just published in the journal "Current Research in Food Science" with the title "Predicting the quality changes during microwave frying of food biopolymers by solving the hybrid mixture theory-based unsaturated transport, and electromagnetics equations." In English they've figured out a way of making French Fries healthier.

We're talking food with near universal popularity, one that a recent 2025 survey reported garners the favorable view of about 82% of Americans. At the same time, there is also widespread recognition that they are not the healthiest item on the menu, as their high-calorie, fat, and salt content is associated with increased risks of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. So forget mouse traps: if you could figure out a way to make French Fries healthier, you can bet the world will beat a path to your door.

The scientists focused on the fact that, when you dunk potatoes in the fryer, water in their pores keeps the oil out for a time. But as that water evaporates the oil starts to soak in. If you could keep the water there for longer, the crisping could continue with less oil being absorbed, making them at least a little better for you. To keep that water in the potatoes longer they experimented with a combination of microwaving the spuds while frying, a method they call, well, microwave frying. According to a review of the study in Prevention magazine "Microwave frying also seems to create a thicker crust with less cooking time, leading to less oil," said Sandra Zhang, a registered dietitian nutritionist at Tufts Medical Center. "Microwave-cooked fries are then thought to be healthier because they will have less time sitting in frying oil and less oil content while preserving similar crispiness."

To be clear, this method makes the fries healthier; it doesn't make them a health food. Additionally, you can argue about the relative nutritional value of potatoes vs other similar starches such as corn or rice. But turn them into a side for a Big Mac, and you lose the battle: a small baked potato has 128 calories, while the same amount of fries has over 400. And that doesn't count the salt and other chemicals that high-temperature frying creates. Still, one has to bow to the reality in the ubiquitous consumption habits we have: Americans consume over 4.5 billion pounds annually, or roughly 17 to 30 pounds per person. And so while they may never rival blueberries, salmon or spinach, any movement in the right direction is good.

The bad news for implementation is that some new equipment will need to be designed and installed in food processors and restaurants. The good news is that the technology already exists, and so adoption is more a matter of desire and economics. As we've seen with the move to sugar-free over regular soda, and multi-grain and whole wheat over white flour, whether or not we push for healthier preparations will be driven by consumer demand. In the meantime, as associate professor Christen Cooper from Pace University says in the "Prevention" article," If you have fries every day, try to switch to baking or air frying them. If you eat fries on occasion, have the real thing."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford prefers onion rings over fries. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.