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Study: Fried food* is OK* for you

By Jonathan Anker
updated 5:14 PM EST, Fri January 27, 2012
NEED TO KNOW
  • Good news for folks who like things crunchy and cooked in oil
  • Study doesn't note if foods were lightly sauteed or deep fried
  • This is not a free pass to pound fried Snickers bars

Want to live in a fried-food wonderland where you can pound french fries all day and snack on calamari while awaiting your cannoli?

Not so sure I do -- BUT, if you do then this may be the most important health study you and your coronary arteries ever read.

An 11-year study of 40,757 people published in the British Medical Journal found consumption of fried foods did not contribute to any significant increase in heart disease or mortality rate. So how about that!

"Yeah, yeah, but where's the catch?" you find yourself thinking. Well there is no ca ...  oh, wait. Yes there is.

Here we go: The study was conducted in Spain, where foods are not fried county fair-style in buckets of saturated fats, but rather in much more heart-friendly olive and sunflower oils.

And there's also this Spanish lifestyle note, pointed out in Britain's Daily Telegraph by a Spanish foods expert: "They use a lot more oil than we would. But the portions are much smaller. We’ve gone all American with vast portions over here."

The average study participant consumed four ounces (or 1/4 pound) of fried food per day.

So there we go again with all this talk about the Mediterranean diet and how the right kinds of oils and the right portion sizes help make all the difference. All true, apparently.

Also true is that the study didn't account for which fried foods were being consumed, just that they were being consumed. There's a large difference when discussing mortality and heart disease when it comes to sauteing fish versus deep frying a Twinkie. And the food's salt content weighs heavily as well, as the study points out. "Consumption of fried snacks high in salt is fairly low in Spain," researchers write. "Whereas in other countries such as the United States they provide an important percentage of energy intake."

So the study's essential findings that "the consumption of fried foods was not associated with coronary heart disease or with all cause mortality" is true. And that fried-food wonderland is within reach.

Just check your portions, ditch the deep fryer -- as well as oils high in saturated fats -- and, if possible, move to Spain.

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