I have a birthday coming up and I have been given an actifry type appliance, basically you can cook most things in the machine without using any fat! The question I am asking is, is this the right way to go to keep my weight down when I finish the diet, I am thinking about continuing for a few more weeks until I get to the desired weight, then I want to try and do the 5/2 diet and see how I go, just not sure about getting this ‘actifry’? Any ideas or comments please!

My dad has one, he uses a teaspoon of oil (for chips) I have ‘fried’. Onions, courgettes etc with a tspn of oil then added strips of steak or chicken. They do cook incredibly quickly and make a loud pinging when the cooking time is up which is useful if you have things to get on with. You can have more fat in other meals or add a cream or cheese sauce 🙂

I use mine to quickly roast cauliflower. I cut it into small florets and the give it a quick spray of oil. 15-18 minutes later. Yum!

Hi hashimoto and amazedbanana ,
Thank you to you both, I was a bit worried that it would be counterproductive, however now you have told me a bit about them I shall look forward to opening my present. I hope to continue losing weight for a little while after the eight weeks by doing a few more days on the eight week diet. I have more than 28lb to lose, at this moment I have lost 18lb, so I think I am on track than you once again.

What a good idea with cauliflower. Plan to try this for sure😀

Me too! Love my actifry but never thought of doing cauliflower in it. Great idea!

Just tried cauliflower and not sure! Put the cauliflower in with a scoop of oil but after 30 mins was still really chewy !!! Think I may go back to roasting
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I like my actifry very much – I do sweet potato chips with a half teaspoon of coconut oil – food direct from heaven! Too carby for some, perhaps.

I’ve also done chicken thighs in the actifry and they were amazing. I’ve got some celeriac to try making celeriac chips this weekend – will let you know!

I like mine too, although I am not really as creative as I could be, I adore celeriac chips though, particularly with fish.

Love mine!

I make an omelette in it, and it is absolutely delish…. ( ibought an accessory pan tho for this ) well worth it

Can’t decide whether to buy one of these or not. I’ve bough too many kitchen gadgets that have taken up residence in the back of my cupboard 😱

As well as my job, I use my microwave, halogen oven and, occasionally, slow cooker.

What do you use the actifry (or similar) for? When I looked online there were lots of references to using them for chips – but not much else.

My view is that I don’t fry anything now so what would I use it for.

I love my Actifry. Peppers with red onion and garlic are lovely in the Actifry. When we are in need of chips or roast potatoes then out we can have them while only using a small amount of oil.
Sweet potatoes, parsnips, butternut squash are all really lovely in the Actifry.
Can you tell that it gets my thumbs up? 🙂

High fat is good for you, I thought?

Healthy fat is good for you not so sure about the high carbs in potato, parsnip of even sweet potato!!

Suppose it depends on how many carbs your having and if you’re T2 and why you are losing weight!

Parsnip isn’t nearly as high as the other two as long as you watch the quantities you should be okay, I use olive oil in mine, and a variety of vegetables to roast, but will try the peppers, onions and garlic one soon. I bought some lovely looking elephant garlic yesterday, and will try doing some whole cloves. In fact that might go very well with tonight’s trout fillet, and parsley sauce.

I made cauliflower in mine and it was like charred leather scraps! I cooked it for way too long. How long do you cook your vegetables for? What sort of combination of veg to you use ?

Have you made the cauliflower mash, cauliflower steamed with 5 cloves of garlic? That might be a good use for your elephant garlic. Isn’t it milder than normal garlic?

I used some of it for that tonight, with a couple of chillies as well, and some red pepper, it was lovely. The actifry does take different times for different vegetables, and some with higher water content do tend to go spongy rather than crispy. Celeriac is a bit quicker than potato, and I can imagine cauliflower being quicker still, but haven’t tried it yet. If I do I will let you know what I find.