Any cooking at home is a step in the right direction as it allows you to control ingredient quality, quantity, and nutrient balance. That said, there are better quality cooking methods, such as vapor cooking, which should be on your radar to get optimal health and taste results at home.
Vapor cooking is a cooking method that uses a small amount of water in appropriate cookware (designed so vapor creates a complete seal between the lid and the pan base) to deliver optimal taste and texture results for different foods like fish, chicken, vegetables, and legumes. Because of the unique way it works, vapor cooking offers several health advantages over other cooking forms. First, rather than coating the pan with a fat to prevent sticking or to achieve desired moisture, vapor cooking relies on water so you eliminate the calories from the added fat (this can be as much as 200 calories per serving). Second, the vapor does the cooking to so you don’t need to add salt or a sodium-based broth to achieve moisture thus reducing salt intake. And finally, while vapor cooking uses water it actually only works with minimal water – a few teaspoons – so the nutrients stay in the food you are cooking not in water that gets drained off prior to consuming.
When it comes to our health, we know that we can’t separate our health from the health of the environment, and as such, our cooking methods should support both. In addition to reducing water amounts, vapor cooking can reduce energy use in two ways – cooking at lower temperatures and cooking for less time (recipes call for removing the sealed lid and pan from the heat to allow the vapor to finish the cooking). Vapor cooking also reduces the potential for harmful carcinogen production when compared to other methods such as grilling or broiling of animal proteins.
Have more questions about vapor cooking or interested in checking out some cooking demos and recipes? Check out 360Cookware.com – if interested in purchasing you can save 15% with the code “AKA”.
