I'm a chef and I'm fucking sick and tired of people telling me "air fryers are better than ovens"

This is my take on air fryers:<br><br>1. They're great tools for lazy people who just want to throw frozen shit in and go about their day. It's just as good as a good oven (not better) but it's faster and doesn't heat the kitchen. This is the only valid use for an air fryer unless you have a REALLY bad oven.<br><br>2. It's not a fryer. It's not deep frying and it's not pan frying. Those two are completely different things, and these "fryers" are nothing more than glorified convection ovens. Frying is literally the process of cooking food in oil, and these devices don't function that way. It's a scam, a lie, and most chefs are fed up with hearing the term "air fryer" when it's just a dumbass oven with a fan on the bottom.<br><br>3. They're not healthier. This is a lie put out by a combination of manufacturers and dumbasses that don't understand how food works. If you cook a piece of chicken by baking it or grilling it, that's healthy. If you cook a piece of chicken fried in oil with an air fryer (with oil) it is just as unhealthy. If you pan fry something with a tiny bit of oil, it's still better than a deep fryer but not as healthy as oven baking. If you air fry something with a tiny bit of oil, the fan is going to blow all of the oil to the bottom of the dish anyway.<br><br>The ongoing discussion of air fryers being healthier than ovens is just ridiculous. If you're reducing the amount of oil you use by 90% then sure, it's healthier. But it's not the device's fault, it's the fact that you chose to use less oil. You can also bake something with less oil (or none at all) and it's far more healthier, because it's not actually fried.<br><br>4. They seem to add some sort of unnatural texture. I've had people literally deep fry a potato in oil and then finish it in an air fryer (a complete waste of time and energy imo) and the texture is just...off. It's the same thing when most people say an air fryer is "better than" a perfect oven. I'd rather have a real oven any day.<br><br>5. They're often just worse than a real oven. I joke that 90% of people can't use an air fryer properly and it's not really a joke, it's not that hard to see. They'll literally put some chicken breasts in an air fryer basket and cook it like they would a baked potato. No marinade, no seasoning, no sauce, no oil, no nothing. If you think air fryers are better than ovens it's probably because you're a terrible cook. Compare the food of an average dumbass air fryer owner to the food of an average dumbass oven user and I'd bet my job the oven food will at least taste *better.* I'd also say it'd be healthier, but that's because people just don't fucking understand how to use an oven.