If you consider a food steamer to improve your physical health through diet, you are on the right track. For many different reasons, steamed food is relatively healthy.
If you are looking to shed some pounds and lose a good bit of weight, you may consider getting yourself a food steamer.
So, is steamed food good for weight loss?
The answer is yes, it is good for weight loss, and we’ll discuss why.
Let’s get to it!
Steamed Food and Weight Loss
There are a few reasons why this steamed food is good for weight loss. But first, let’s discuss why steamed food can help you lose weight.
1. No Oil is Required
Perhaps the biggest reason why steaming food is good for weight loss is that you don’t need any oil when steaming food.
However, oil or fat is usually involved when you cook with a frying pan, deep fry, roast, grill, or bake.
When you consume too much oil, those calories will be stored in your body as body fat.
Also, too much oil isn’t good for your heart, cardiovascular health, or cholesterol levels. When you steam food, it is cooked in water vapor with no oil.
This prevents you from consuming excess fat and calories that would otherwise be turned into body fat.
It’s one of, if not the healthiest, cooking methods, particularly when compared to anything requiring oil.
Not only does this oil-free cooking method help cut down on calories and keep your heart healthier, but not needing oil to cool all the time is also good for your wallet.
2. It Preserves Vital Nutrients
Another reason steaming food is ideal for weight loss is because it helps preserve vital nutrients and minerals.
It keeps them intact, as opposed to other cooking methods that often destroy those essential vitamins and minerals.
First, when you boil vegetables, although they might start loaded with vitamins, once boiled, that vitamin content will be much lower.
The B vitamins, including B6, B12, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, biotin, and others, as well as vitamin C, and other minerals, are water-soluble.
Therefore, many of the vitamins and minerals will be boiled out of the vegetables when you boil.
Those nutrients are gone forever unless you drink the water in which the veggies were boiled.
Moreover, anything that doesn’t get boiled out of the veggies might be destroyed regardless. Vitamins don’t like boiling temperatures for prolonged periods.
The reason why this is important for weight loss is that these B vitamins help to boost your metabolism.
Your metabolism is how fast your body burns calories. The higher your metabolism, the quicker your burn calories.
The more B vitamins you consume, the faster your metabolism and the more calories you burn.
This means that you won’t retain as many of the calories you eat as body fat and may also start burning off your excess body fat.
3. Steamed Food is Usually Healthy
Steamed food is good for weight loss because steamed foods are usually healthy in and of themselves.
For instance, some of the best-steamed foods include broccoli, cauliflower, leafy greens, peas, green beans, asparagus, and other such vegetables.
Some people may also choose to steam their meat. But, on the other hand, you’d never steam chips, chocolate, or candy.
This is a cooking method designed for veggies and meats, which for the most part, are healthy as is.
However, if you eat more veggies and lean meats and cut out the junk, you’ll cut down on the fat, carbs, sugars, and calories you consume, assisting with your overall weight loss goals.
4. Easy to Digest
Another factor is that steamed food is easier to digest. When both vegetables and meat are steamed, it breaks down the tough fibers inside them.
Steaming food softens it to the point where it becomes much easier for the body to digest.
If veggies and meats are easier to digest, the nutrients they contain are more easily absorbed by your body.
But, again, this goes back to the above two points, that many of the vitamins and other nutrients in meats and veggies can assist with your weight loss goals.
5. It’s Easy to Prepare
Another reason steaming your food could be an excellent way to lose weight is that it is very easy.
Many people don’t cook for themselves, cook unhealthy food, or just get takeout because it’s much easier.
In addition, some of us don’t have the energy to cook healthy foods after a long day.
However, with a steamer, you can stack those baskets on top of each other and prepare a full meal with just a single kitchen appliance.
Also, steaming is quite fast, so your meals won’t take long to make.
If you aren’t eating healthy because you are too lazy or tired to cook, this quick and easy cooking method could motivate you to eat much healthier.
6. It Makes Meat Healthier to Eat
The final reason steamed food is so good for weight loss is that it helps melt the fat out of your meat.
When you cook pork and beef in any other way, you usually sear the outside and seal all the fat inside the meat.
Also, you would generally use oil for cooking meat.
This means that meat, particularly red meat, contains a lot of unhealthy fat and cholesterol.
However, if you steam your meats, all that fat will melt out of the meat, leaving you with a relatively fat- and cholesterol-free piece of meat.
Therefore, the less fat you eat, the fewer calories you consume, and the easier it is to lose weight.
See the 8 Benefits of Steaming Food.
Conclusion
As you can see, in more ways than one, steaming is ideal for helping you achieve your weight loss goals.
If you’re wondering if an air fryer is better than a steamer, check out the article here.