It's been a while since I've offered an update, that's because I had been feeling sick for a WHILE, months.
Without making it too gross, let's just say, I've gotten into a LONG bout of stomach upsets, diarrhea, that lasted months. OTC drugs didn't really help, and even prescription strength stuff barely kept it under control. Let's just say, I had to standby near the toilet quite a bit.
And I just realized I did this to myself.
Basically, it's caused by 2 things: my air fryer, and my lousy cleaning habits.
I have a personal air fryer, and I used to use it a lot. Let's just say, the hot air exhaust is... oily as I tend to cook frozen chicken thigh w/ skin. It's simple, decent protein, and you can do all sorts of sauces to make it edible.
However, I don't clean it enough. I bought one of those silicone "trays" that goes inside, and promptly forgot about cleaning the inside. And grease started to accumulate inside I didn't rinse out after each use. As I said, I had a lousy cleaning habit.
I think there was a month or two where I ate something else, so I didn't use the air fryer for a month or two. When I opened it up again, there's a mount of MOLD that grew on the leftover grease in the silicone tray.
I tossed the whole tray, found a backup silicone tray I had purchased, rinsed the inside of cooking basket with the hottest tap water I can get out of the faucet, and proceeded to cook two more chicken thighs, and ate at least one.
I suspect there are mold inside the fan assembly, and I basically fed myself mold and mold spores. I don't want to look, now that I think about it. It'd explain the prolonged stomach problems.
I'm going to toss the air fryer, of course. Already bought the replacement.
There is a bit of a benefit... I lost 50 pounds during the ordeal. Now I don't have to diet.
Not sure all that suffering (even now) is worth it though...
