CLAIM: Air fryers emit a dangerous electromagnetic field that can harm a person’s DNA and cells.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Experts and appliance companies say the fryers don’t use radiation to heat food, as a microwave would. Instead, it rapidly generates radiant heat that an internal fan then circulates around the food, much like in a typical convection oven.
THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a video that purports to show an air fryer emitting a dangerously strong electromagnetic field, or radiation.
In the brief clip, a man in a kitchen scans an air fryer with a handheld, electromagnetic field meter and takes a series of measurements.
“So you like using air fryers, so did I,” the man says, his comments also appearing as text on the video. “Until I found out what the magnetic field that kicks off can do to your DNA. Ready to have your mind blown now.”
When the fryer is turned off, the meter doesn’t register any readings. But when the appliance is switched on, the numbers on the meter quickly spike and its screen lights up red.
“Oh god we’re cooking our food in that?” he says. “And then we’re eating that food?”
But air fryer manufacturers and other experts say there’s no cause for alarm: the popular countertop appliances don’t produce an electromagnetic field capable of the lasting damage suggested in the posts.
Blaine Chronik, a physics professor at Western University in Ontario, Canada who specializes in applied electromagnetics, says the instrument used in the...
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