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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
Nicola Roy & Chiara Pollock

Savings expert Martin Lewis warns air fryer users of unexpected costly figures

Savings expert Martin Lewis, has warned air fryer users that it may not be cheaper to run compared to an oven or microwave.

Air fryers have been incredibly popular since hitting the shelves, as they offer a fast and supposedly healthier way to prepare your food, as well as promising buyers that they're an affordable option.

However, bubbles may be burst as Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis, has said that this might not be the case and users may end up paying more by choosing to cook via air fryer compared to other methods of cooking, reports the Daily Record.

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Martin issued the advice on his latest episode of his podcast, saying: ""The problem with the equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2000W. A microwave I believe, from memory, a best guess explanation, a microwave gives you consistent heat whereas an oven is warming up to full temperature and then topping it up so it isn't running at full power the whole time."

Air fryers are supposedly a quicker, healthier and more cost-friendly method for cooking (Getty Images)

He added: "But if you're doing a jacket potato for 10 minutes it's going to be far cheaper [in the microwave] than doing a single jacket potato in an oven and keeping it on for an hour and a half. However if you were doing a full roast dinner and you were cooking many of them, that is where it's probably cheaper than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave because each additional object you put in a microwave, you need to keep it on longer because a microwave just heats the individual object.

"General equation is, find the wattage of an item, then work out how many kilowatts or what fraction of a kilowatt it's using, then multiply that by 34p per hour of use."

Martin continued: "If you had a 1000W microwave and you put it on for 10 minutes, one KWH for a sixth of an hour, a sixth of 34p is about 6p, shall we say? So it's 6p turning the microwave on for that amount of time. So yes it's a very useful equation."

this comes after research carried out by consumer experts Which? revealed the cheapest cooking method for popular meals. For most of the foods that were tested, the air fryer was found to be the cheapest as well as quickest option.

Emily Seymour, Which? Energy Editor, said: "There has been a surge of interest in air fryers and smaller cooking appliances in recent months, and our research shows that the hype could be justified in some cases, as we’ve found these products cost less to cook certain foods than conventional ovens."

However the energy expert agreed with Martin's point on larger meals: "The cost savings will soon be lost if you have to cook more than one batch though, so it’s still better to use your oven if you’re cooking large quantities."

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