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Steam Cooking Helps Improve Your Nutrition

By Frank Russelton

Steam cooking allows you to keep natural nutrients, flavours and colours of your ingredients when cooking a meal. Boiling food destroys many nutrients. If you want to improve your diet and eat more essential nutrients like vitamins and minerals, then steam cooking may be your perfect solution.

When you arrive home after a long tiring day at work, you do not want to spend two or three hours in the kitchen cooking a complex meal. You can prepare a quick and easy meal with a steam cooker, and keep all the essential nutrients your family needs to maintain their health.

Cooking With Fresh Pre-Cut Vegetables

You can buy fresh pre-cut vegetables, to avoid spending time cutting your vegetables. You can place these vegetables in the steam cooker and you will quickly have a delicious meal.

I always include fresh herbs from my organic garden, to enhance the flavour of my vegetables. I even have a window box herb garden, so that I can grab a few fresh herbs whenever I need to improve the natural flavours, when cooking meals for my family.

Growing Your Own Organic Vegetables

I grow many of my own vegetables in my organic garden, rather than purchase tasteless fruit and vegetables from the food store. When I go to the health food shop, I find the prices for organic produce are quite high, so I now maintain my own organic garden and grow all the produce I need for creating delicious meals.

Once you realize all the delicious flavours and nutrition you have been missing, you will want to prepare many of your meals with steam cooking.

Cooking The Most Nutritious Food

With all our modern kitchen gadgetry, including the microwave, slow cooker and convection ovens, it’s easy to get that hot and delicious meal on the table as conveniently and quickly as possible.

For most home cooks, time is at a premium – we rush home from work and set about getting that meal on the table, pronto! However, we’ve also got to consider delivering food that gives you the most bang for your buck, nutritionally speaking. Steam cooking is the ultimate cookery technique.

Keeping All The Nutrients And Natural Flavours

Steam cooking, as a method, also protects the nutrients, color and flavor of many foods. Let’s see how you can use the steam cooking method to produce meals that your family will love and which are easy and quick to prepare.

Sound good? It gets even better. Using the steam cooking method, you can cook up big batches in the do-ahead fashion, freezing portions for future meals, with no loss of nutrients or flavor. Does it get any better than that?

Available At Affordable Prices

Electric steamers are now a common appliance, available for an inexpensive price, ranging from $10-$20. This handy little gadget comes in a variety of sizes. With this simple appliance, you can cook veggies, rice, fish or poultry, to perfection.

There’s another type of steam cooker, available in Japanese and Chinese kitchen ware shops. This one consists of stacking, round Bamboo baskets, allowing steam cooking of several foods at once.

A Screen Allows Steam To Rise

The baskets are usually sold separately, along with a Bamboo lid. Each basket has a screen across the bottom, to allow the steam to rise through each basket. The sides of the basket are tightly woven to prevent the steam escaping.

The lid is solid and tightly woven to cap the baskets and keep the steam circulating while cooking. You place the filled baskets over a pot of boiling water and set the tightly fitting bamboo lid on the top basket.

Producing A Delicious Meal In Minutes

The steam rises and recirculates through the baskets. This centuries-old kitchen ware produces an entire meal in minutes, using just a single burner on your stove. Cleanup is a snap. As for storage, you can save valuable cupboard space, while adding a nice decorative touch to your kitchen – hang each basket on a cup hook on the wall.

When choosing between an electric steamer and the bamboo steamer, keep in mind that, with an electric steamer, you are limited to cooking one item at a time. The bamboo steamer allows you to cook several foods at once.

Rice At The Bottom And Fish At The Top Basket

For example, if you’re making a rice dish that includes veggies and fish, why not cook everything at once? The rice goes in the bottom basket, with the veggies in the middle and the fish in the top basket.

When you purchase a bamboo steamer, ask the shop for a pamphlet which details the proper use and placement of foods, if one is not included with the baskets.

Recirculating Hot Moisture Within The Cooker

It’s easy to see the many advantages of using the steaming method to cook a variety of foods, particularly in the case of veggies. Steam cooking recirculates the hot moisture, within the cooker, as opposed to boiling, where up to 90% of the nutrients are lost in the cooking water.

The steaming method retains most of the nutrients, along with the color and brightness of your veggies. You save time in both cooking and cleanup. Hooray for speedy cooking and maximum nutrition!

Buying A Steam Cooker For The First Time

The next time you are in the kitchenware section of your favourite store, have a look at the steam cookers. You may look to purchase an electric steam cooker, to try out steam cooking in your kitchen. Once you gain experience with steam cooking, then you may move to the bamboo steamer, allowing you to cook a number of foods at the same time.

This may be convenient if you have guests coming for dinner, or you have a large family. It may also be convenient when you cook a number of meals and place them in the freezer, so they are ready for your next dinner.

Keeping Natural Nutrients To Meet Dietary Needs

You may have been told to improve your diet, by eating food with more vitamins and minerals. When you boil food, a lot of these essential nutrients are destroyed. Steam cooking allows you to keep the nutrients and help you maintain your diet and improve your health.

Your meals will taste different, as more of the flavours are maintained and your family will congratulate you for improving your cooking with steam cooking.

About the Author:
Frank Russelton has written a number of articles on food and cooking including Steak House, Cooking Recipes, New Recipes, Cookbooks, Cooking Food.
Keep a lookout for more articles on this website.

Did You Know?

What is the difference in cookware?
All cookware has one great similarity and function in common: to cook your food. It is the conditions surrounding the cooking that separate the bad cookware from the good. A lot is based on personal preference.

A more experienced cook wants versatility in their cookware and is looking for quality. Far too often the novice cook buys a set of cookware only to find that the product is inferior. Do a simple search on the internet for cookware that suits your cooking needs. It is also important to make sure that the cookware is durable and can last for longer than a few months.