French Fries' Oil Content: It's Lower with Infrared Heat
French fries typically soak up a lot of oil while they're in the deep-fat fryer. But U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist Zhongli Pan and his colleagues have shown that prepping the raw fries for three minutes with infrared (IR) heat, before the fries are dunked in the fryer, can reduce oil uptake by about one-third, as compared to raw fries not treated with IR.