Is There Such a Thing as a Healthy French Fry?

There is a deep prejudice against fried foods that simply is not borne out by research.

A good example is the French fry. In 2001 and 2002 the news services carried stories that Swedish studies with lab rats had found that French fries contained dangerous amounts of carcinogenic compounds called acrylamides, produced by the heat of frying. In 2003 Swedish studies of the actual impact of acrylamides in human health reached publication, only to be ignored by the same media.

Despite predictions that French fries and potato chips (or crisps) would be linked to increased rates of bladder, colon, and kidney cancer, epidemiological studies found that eating French fries had no relationship to bladder or kidney cancer. They even found that heavy consumption of fries was associated with 40 percent lower rates of colon cancer.

Studies that link French fries and other fast foods to risk of other forms of cancer and heart disease note that fries themselves are not the culprit, but that cancer risk is elevated by a pattern of eating red meats, fried foods, stale foods, and sugar without eating fruits and vegetables. In 2004, however, the State of California, paying no attention to later studies, proposed requiring a warning label on French fries.

So, you might ask, is the only thing you need to do to make a healthy French fry, for example, is to use fresh oil?

No, it’s not quite that simple. Intense heat transforms cooking oils into the polymers that induce atherosclerosis, but only after the sixth 10-minute frying. Plant oils contain cancer-protective antioxidants, but these disappear after the first frying. Even though it adds to the expense of making French fries, it is important that you use oil only once. Also, unless you are cooking with coconut oil, you should use oil you have purchased in the last month and stored in a cool place.

Making a really tasty French fry takes some effort. You have to peel the potatoes, and then soak them for up to three days in ice water in the refrigerator. The soaking process hydrates the potato so the fry cooks evenly, but the low temperature keeps the starches in the potato from breaking down.

The result is a tender, tasty, never mushy fry. Soaking also reduces the glycemic index of the fries so that your digestive system releases their sugars into your bloodstream more slowly than the sugars in whole wheat and almost as slowly as the sugars in bran or fresh fruit. If you take the time to make a really tasty and relatively healthy French fry, you will enjoy them more, but because the preparation involved, you will probably eat them less often. A lot less often.