Infra Red Tabletop Ovens (2016)-Roger Mason

Infra red (halogen) tabletop ovens are still the best way to cook in 2016. Every claim  made about them is accurate. The TV infomercials mostly use these to cook meat and poultry, but they will cook most anything that needs to be baked or broiled. You can do a fine job of roasting vegetables with infra red. This is an ideal way to cook low-fat foods. They reheat foods much, much better than microwave or convection ovens. There are now a variety of "air fryer" ovens for about $120 for the 3.2 quart size. These are very good, but are NOT halogens. They do very well, but are just better convection appliances.

What does “infra red” radiation mean? This is the natural electromagnetic radiation just above visible light, measured at 750 nm to 1 mm in wavelength. This is shorter than microwave radiation. Humans radiate about 10 microns of infra red. This is used in military night scopes, and on planes and helicopters for night spotting devices. You will see big, expensive infra red grill ranges in top restaurants, and on TV shows such as Top  Chef, Iron Chef, and Food Network.

You can go easily find these on the Internet, at Walmart and Target, and sometimes at Costco and Sam’s Club. You can get them for about $60 online with free shipping. Yes, they have real glass domes. The plastic domes crack. The brands come and go constantly. Right now you can yet Oyama, Emson and Secura for about $60 on ebay and amazon with free shipping!  Infra red is much better. We really like this oven! It browns your food very nicely if you want browning. It cooks faster, is quieter, easy to use, and much easier to clean. It is really easy to clean. You just cannot clean a regular kitchen wall oven very easily. The infra red takes only minutes to wash the bowl. You wipe the top off with a hot, soapy sponge because of the electrical elements. You will save on energy bills not using your wall oven and broiler. Infra red browns so well, and so quickly, you can use it to broil as well as bake your foods. Yes, it really browns food very well. This is just a great way to make low fat meals.

Using your wall oven to cook can be very impractical, especially when you don’t have much to cook. It is expensive, and then hard to clean later on.  One can heat food in a microwave safely, but should not cook with a microwave. They won't brown foods either. They ruin bread products. Microwaves are just not made for cooking food. You need to stay at least three feet away from a microwave oven while it is operating. Infra red is safe as long as you don’t touch the hot surfaces. Microwaves are just not a natural way of cooking. Tabletop toaster non-convection ovens really don’t cook very well, since they have no fan.  Regular convection ovens were good, but now we have a great advance in technology that brings us infra red halogen heating. Infra red is perfectly safe, and there is no dangerous radiation. Convection ovens are also known as fan ovens, or turbo ovens, since they use forced air convection to cook faster at lower temperatures. The new infrared ovens are, in fact, turbo fan ovens, but use infrared to heat, rather than a standard metal heating elements. You’ve seen infra red heating bulbs to warm food in many restaurants, so this is not a new thing. It is a new thing to have inexpensive, consumer table-top ovens using infra red.

Certainly you don’t want to fry and sauté your foods, except for vegetable stir fries where you use a mere tablespoon of oil for the whole dish. Using an infrared oven is a very healthy practice for cooking low fat foods. Spend a mere $60, and get yourself a glass tabletop infra red convection oven, and you’ll really enjoy cooking with it. They last for years, too.