While some people have been pressure cooking for years, others have just started considering it and question just how healthy pressure cooking really is. Some believe it’s very healthy and others continue to doubt this. After reading the following you should be able to make a more informed decision to decide if pressure cooking is healthy or not.
How Pressure Cookers Work
The majority of foods have some amount of water, naturally. Cooking food consists of transferring heat from a heat source through the food to cook it. Once the food begins to warm up many molecular changes happen. Thus resulting in properly cooked food.
The boiling point of water is the limiting factor of how much time it takes to cook food. Consider this example. People living at high altitudes have lower air pressure so they’re water will boil at lower temperatures. This lower air pressure will affect how long it takes to cook food because the water will start evaporating earlier which can dry the food out faster. Turning up the heat won’t solve the problem and rather longer cooker times are required in higher altitudes.
Increase the Pressure
Pressure cookers will increase the pressure used to cook the food which will also raise the boiling point of water. Cooking with a pressure cooker can cut cooking time a great deal for just about any food. If you typically make chicken broth it likely takes many hours whereas if you were to make it in a pressure cooker you could cut that time to just an hour or two.
Pressure cooking allows you to cook food at a higher temperature without the risk of losing water. Regular cooking methods at higher temperatures can cause food to burn, dry out or be over-cooked. In a pressure cooker the water is maintained and helps the food cook quickly without ruining it.
Is Pressure Cooking Food Unhealthy?
Those who believe pressure cooking is not healthy think that it’s bad for the nutrients in the food simply because you’re cooking with higher temperature and pressure. There is no real rhyme or reason as to why people believe this and several studies have actually shown that pressure cooking helps preserve the nutrients better than other cooking methods.
Less Cooking Time Helps Preserve Nutrients
The longer you cook food the more nutrients you’re likely to lose. However, pressure cooking allows you to cook food in a shorter amount of time which helps keep the nutrients in place. The temperature itself in which you’re cooking is not the main factor. It’s how long you are cooking the food. Therefore, pressure cooking allows you to cook food at high temperatures in less time without losing precious nutrients.
Less Water Also Preserves Nutrients
Pressure cooking doesn’t require that you use a lot of water which is helpful if you want nutritious food. For example, you’ve likely noticed that nutrition experts recommend steaming veggies rather than boil them and this is simply because you can preserve more nutrients through steaming rather than boiling. Boiling your vegetables will encourage nutrient loss through water evaporation. The nutrients are lost into the water and we don’t typically keep the water after we finish boiling our vegetables so they’re lost when we dump the water.
Pressure cooking doesn’t require a lot of water and acts more like a steam cooker. The steam doesn’t simply escape and evaporate. Instead the pressure is built inside the cooker and water has less of a chance of stealing the nutrients from the food.
Grains & Legumes Become More Digestible
Pressure cooking certain foods can also help with better digestion. Legumes, seeds and grains have lectins and phytic acid that can be hard to digest through traditional cooking methods. Rather than boil them you pressure cook them.
Just How Healthy is Pressure Cooking?
We’ll let you be the judge of that but we believe it’s a much healthier cooking method than most traditional methods. Obviously, some foods may not turn out the way you want in a pressure cooker but those that do will be worth cooking with a pressure cooker. The studies done so far on pressure cooking and nutrients have shown to be very positive and reassuring.
Read Pressure Cooker Reviews
If you’re on the fence about whether you should buy a pressure cooker you may find these pressure cooker reviews to be very helpful. See what others have to say about their pressure cookers and how healthy they believe them to be. The majority of consumers that start pressure cooking are happy with the results so it’s worth checking out what others have to say.