Rice is an excellent staple food, well balanced in nutrients and nourishing for the body. Cooking healthy rice is quite simple, but not many know it. If you choose unbleached, unenriched, and not over-processed rice, you’re already halfway there; but unless you know this secret, there is no way you are cooking healthy rice. Curious? Don’t worry, I’m about to reveal it!
Just as choosing healthy ingredients is important for healthy cooking, just as important is the way we cook it. The problem with cooking rice is that conventional ways of cooking involve the use of a metal / ceramic pot. Unfortunately, this makes your rice unhealthy in more ways than one.
First, these metals and ceramics leach metal ions that react with the nutrients in the rice at cooking temperature (heat is a catalyst) and render it toxic. Sounds amazing right? I felt the same way until I did a home test on my favorite rice cooker (a stainless steel skillet). The test is pretty simple, all you need is some baking soda and follow these steps:
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Boil 2-3 cups of water in any pot, when it starts to boil add 2 teaspoons of baking soda, boil for 5 more minutes. Turn off the stove.
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Wait until cool enough to taste and then taste the water (take a sip). If you taste metals, that’s what you are eating! If the water has a rubber / paint taste, it is enamel / enamel chemicals.
As a control, mix 2 teaspoons of baking soda in 1 glass of water and take a sip; you will taste just the baking soda.
It is recommended that at least 80% of the food we eat is alkaline, sodium bicarbonate is also alkaline and therefore looks a lot like our food. If a pot is leaching metals into the alkaline baking soda solution, it will definitely seep out while the food is cooking. This is the working principle of this test.
Second, the strong heat from the metals / ceramics dissolves the delicate nutrients and makes the rice nutritionally depleted. This heat is also uneven, and as a result, it is not evenly distributed, leaving the rice overcooked or unevenly cooked (one of the reasons why the grains don’t look fluffy and don’t separate from each other).
I did some research and found this all-natural pure clay rice cooker and decided to give it a try. The first thing I noticed about them after following the alkaline baking soda test is that they don’t leak! Also, they don’t get too hot and you can easily hold them, mostly with your bare hands or a kitchen towel. The heat radiated from its walls is far infrared heat. This heat penetrates deeply into each grain, cooking them evenly and completely, keeping the nutrients intact.
Rice cooks soft, delicious, and fluffy with just the right amount of moisture while the pot filters excess water through semi-porous walls. No artificial additives, fats or oils needed – the cooker takes care of cooking the perfect rice for you. That is why I think it is the ideal rice cooker.
