A food steamer or steam cooker is a kitchen appliance used to prepare various foods in a sealed vessel that limits the escape of air or liquids below a preset pressure.

Advantages

Most steam cookers also feature a juice catchment, which allows all nutrients (otherwise lost as steam) to be consumed. When other cooking techniques are used (eg frying with butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...

 or oil

Oil

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....

), these nutrients are generally lost, as most are discarded after baking.

Due to their health aspect (cooking without any oil), food steamers are used extensively in health-diets as Cuisine minceur

Cuisine minceur

Cuisine minceur is a style of cooking created by French chef Michel Guérard, which recreated lighter versions of traditional Nouvelle cuisine dishes...

, the raw food diet

Raw foodism

Raw foodism is the practice of consuming uncooked, unprocessed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet....

, Okinawa diet

Okinawa diet

The Okinawa diet is a nutrient-rich, low-calorie dietfrom the indigenous people of the Ryūkyū Islands. In addition, a commercially promoted weight-loss diet has also been made based on this standard diet of the Islanders....

, macrobiotic-diet and the CRON-diet.

Food steamers release less heat to the kitchen environment, therefore helping keep the kitchen cool during hot summers.

Moreover, steaming preserves much of the vitamins in vegetables (as opposed to frying, boiling etc.) and is one of the most healthy ways of cooking.

See also

• Steaming
  Steaming
  Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. Steaming is considered a healthy cooking technique and capable of cooking almost all kinds of food.-Method:...
  
  
• Food processing
  Food processing
  Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for consumption by humans or animals either in the home or by the food processing industry...
  
  
• Pressure cooking
  Pressure cooking
  Pressure cooking is a method of cooking in a sealed vessel that does not permit air or liquids to escape below a preset pressure. Because the boiling point of water increases as the pressure increases, the pressure built up inside the cooker allows the liquid in the pot to rise to a higher...