Fry It Safe

[Music] millions of gallons of vegetable oil and shortening are used every year in homes throughout the United States to cook chicken french fries and other food products people simply enjoy The Marvelous flavors added to Foods through home frying our diet includes the familiar four basic food groups fruits and vegetables dairy products meats and poultry and Grains but beyond the basic four another group is now recognized and it includes fats and oils which contribute to our overall Nutrition By offering a rich source of energy according to the US Department of Agriculture vegetable oils provide essential fatty acids and certain vitamins and fats and oils contribute a pleasing taste to some foods along with a certain feeling of satisfaction after eating there are however a few important things to remember about cooking and using vegetable oils and shortening above all safe and correct cooking requires your full attention mom mom look at the new uniform coach just got you look terrific can you come outside take a picture of Jimmy and me and our new uniform well I don't know I can't think about it right this second Billy would you get me a fry pin out of the card please okay I have this one oh no not that one it's too big the 10-in one the small one thank you is waiting what are we having for dinner chicken great mom please it only take a second listen Billy I just can't stop now a please Mom look why don't you find out if to make me come back later okay if not ask me again after dinner now go on outside I'll call you in a few minutes when dinner's ready don't get to uniform dirty all right [Music] [Music] hello hi Mary hi mother how's everything dinner time yes it is nearly dinner time I'm just getting it ready now what's on the menu Chicken Fried Chicken CN on the cob and salad just the way you cook it sounds good how's Dad he's doing real well he's outside now I'm glad to hear he's feeling better how are Billy and George Billy and George are just fine in fact George should be home in about half an hour now are we going to see you this weekend I don't really know if we can make it over this weekend or not Mom Mom Mom Mom Kim and his mom want to take the pictures now besides I want to S one to Grandma you want to take a second Billy I'm busy mom can you hold on a second I've got to take a picture of Billy and a neighbor boy in your new baseball uniforms I'll be right back all right oh hi Mary I'm awfully sorry Billy had to drag you out here just not going to be back this way again today it's no problem okay all right boys you ready yeah yeah okay okay all right boy Jimmy's gotten a lot taller gosh so is Billy let's see how this comes out they look so tall in their uniforms don't they they do hello hello Mary I'm still here Mary look at that silly grin on Billy's face they look cute that's really neat Mary I haven't got all day Mary are you there maybe we better take another one anyway yeah be a bad idea Grandma want to see his big blue eyes oh I'm glad you could bring them home today I have been so busy why do people have fires in their kitchen because they just don't give cooking their full attention let's take a closer look at what just happened how did we go from a routine dinner to a fire that could cause extensive damage Mary was in a hurry so she set her stove's cooking temperature too high come on let's go come on she was distracted so she left her cooking unattended [Music] okay boys get ready hold it had she been in the room or in the vicinity of her stove she would have noticed the obvious warning sign of potential trouble smoke vegetable oil will smoke long before it burns had Mary noticed the smoke she could have reduced the heat under the oil in time to avoid the fire to emphasize these conclusions let's recreate Mary's situation but this time under controlled laboratory conditions I'm going to pour two cups of oil in this measuring cup and place the oil in this 10in Skillet the 10-in skillet is equipped with a paramet which is a Dev to measure temperatures of the oil while it's Heating and it's recorded on this instrument this is the timer which will show us how long it takes to heat the oil to fire point we'll investigate three different situations first we'll use a gas flame set to high heat allowing the first pan of oil to heat continuously for several minutes in this presentation we'll compress time through the use of time-lapse photography for reference keep your eyes on the digital thermometer and the clock after 10 to 15 minutes the oil begins to smoke lightly and a fairly strong odor can be detected these are clear and unavoidable early warning signals an alert safety-minded homemaker would reduce the heat immediately eliminating the danger of fire we expect the fire point for oil to occur at a temperature around 690 de f under typical kitchen conditions two cups of oil heating in a 10-in skillet on high setting can be expected to Flame after a total elapse time of approximately 30 minutes now let's change one of the variables of our experiment what will happen if we use an electric heating element rather than gas you'll notice that at normal cooking temperature the oil is not smoking again smoke appeared between 10 and 15 minutes when the burner was left on high the Smoke Gets heavier and the smell stronger the electric burner took a minute less to reach Fire Point this time but the difference is not significant this time the temperature reads 700° and 28 minutes has elapsed how about using shortening instead of oil although the shortening must melt the temperature rises rapidly over a gas flame that at normal cooking temperature there is no smoke on this trial smoke began after only 6 minutes at just over 400° again with shortening the smoke thickened as temperature Rose and time passed Fire Point 71° after 24 minutes we conclude that the basic results are similar for all of our tests oil or shortening left unattended over a high heat Source begins to smoke after 10 to 15 minutes and the oil catches fire only after another 15 to 20 minutes of increasingly Thick Smoke how do we prevent oil and shortening fires from occurring very simply never leave heating oil or shortening unattended take your time use a medium heat Source if the oil gets too hot it will smoke and the smoke is strong smelling and clearly visible turn the heat down or off if the oil smokes cooking can be fun and safe if we give the task our undivided attention remember if we just follow the given warnings on the labels we'll stay out of trouble [Music] if you enjoy frying Foods remember it takes your full attention whether you're frying chicken or potatoes cooking in a walk or in a deep fat fryer When the Smoke gives you the warning reduce the Heat and fry it safe [Music]