There are 3 pros and 1 cons to cooking with a pressure cooker

Pressure cookers are easy to use, save time and effort, and are loved by housewives. However, many people worry that the high pressure created when cooking in a pressure cooker will destroy the nutrition of the food. In fact, compared with cooking at normal pressure, cooking in a pressure cooker has the characteristics of high pressure, high temperature, short cooking time, and can form a certain degree of vacuum. This gives high-pressure cooking certain advantages in preserving nutrients.

Many people like to use pressure cookers to stew meat and ribs. What effect does high-pressure cooking have on the nutrition of meat? Studies have found that compared with other cooking methods, stewing meat in a pressure cooker basically does not cause a reduction in protein, and at the same time can protect fat from oxidation. The Nutrition Research Laboratory of China Agricultural University found that cooking fish in a pressure cooker can better protect fat than cooking it at normal pressure. At the same time, the preservation rate of unsaturated fatty acids in the meat is also higher. This is mainly because cooking in a pressure cooker creates a vacuum-like environment, which reduces the contact between meat and oxygen. This effectively reduces fat oxidation and the production of harmful substances such as some polymers during fat oxidation, which is of great significance to health.

People also often use pressure cookers to cook whole grains and beans, which also has many benefits. First of all, cooking in a pressure cooker helps protect vitamins. Research has found that when cooking whole grains and beans in a pressure cooker, although the temperature increases from 100°C to 110°C, increasing high-temperature losses, the cooking time is shortened from 60 minutes to 30 minutes, reducing losses. The two offset each other and will not increase the loss of B vitamins.

Secondly, cooking in a pressure cooker helps protect antioxidant ingredients. Cooking in a pressure cooker can prevent food from being exposed to too much oxygen, which is very beneficial for preserving valuable antioxidant ingredients in whole grains, such as polyphenols. Foreign studies have found that steaming and cooking will reduce the antioxidant capacity of beans. For example, after green peas are boiled at room temperature for 90 minutes, their oxygen free radical absorption capacity (i.e. the ability to resist oxidation) is lost by 44%. However, cooking beans in a pressure cooker can reduce the loss of antioxidants at the same level of softness. For example, after green peas were cooked under high pressure for 15 minutes, their oxygen free radical absorption capacity not only did not decrease, but increased to 224% of the original value.

Finally, cooking in a pressure cooker is good for digestion. The Nutrition Research Laboratory of China Agricultural University found that when using a pressure cooker to cook relatively hard health ingredients such as yam, water chestnut, lotus seeds, coix seed and red bean, the digestion rate of these ingredients was significantly accelerated after 20 minutes of high pressure. Therefore, for people with indigestion and those with weak stomachs such as the elderly and children, cooking in a pressure cooker can help digestion and reduce the burden on the stomach. Therefore, whether you are cooking porridge or making soup, a pressure cooker is a good and healthy choice.

However, the pressure cooker is not omnipotent, and it does cause the loss of vitamin C. Vitamin C is very delicate, and almost all cooking methods will cause its loss. However, vitamin C is generally only found in large quantities in vegetables and fruits, and we hardly need to cook fruits and vegetables in a pressure cooker.