Lose Weight Using A Rice Cooker

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Let Your Rice Cooker Help You Lose Weight

If you start eating a lot of rice wouldn’t you just pack on the pounds?  While it is true rice consists of empty calories, this does not mean it will make you pack on the pounds.  The simple truth is that rice by itself is not very fattening at all.  In fact, eating plain rice along with other healthy food choices several times a week will actually help lead to weight loss since you are consuming meals that are low in calories, fat, and cholesterol.  Here are 3 ways that using your rice cooker can help you lose weight and promote a healthier lifestyle.

Make the Switch from White Rice to Brown Rice

Brown rice is always a healthier choice than white rice. All rice was once brown rice.  It’s the milling process that strips brown rice of its outer bran layers that turns brown rice into white rice. Brown rice is higher in fiber, has a more unique earthy and nutty flavor, and offers more overall health benefits, including reducing the risk of Type 2 diabetes.  If you’ve got a fuzzy logic rice cooker, brown rice is just as simple to cook as white rice.  The only slight downside to cooking brown rice is that takes just a little longer to cook than white rice.  For more information, check out our article - Which is Better – Brown Rice or White Rice?  In addition, you can also make the switch to other healthy grains such as quinoa which are easy to cook in the rice cooker.

Use the Rice Cooker Steamer Tray

Most rice cookers come standard with a steaming tray that can be used for preparing nutritious steamed vegetables, poultry, and seafood and other meats.  This is a much healthier way of cooking and removes unnecessary fats and oils that would be present in your diet if you were frying these foods or using another cooking method requiring the use of oils.  This one step alone can make a big positive change in your diet by eliminating unhealthy fats and oils from your diet and promoting the consumption of more vegetables in your diet.

Steamed chicken breast with vegetables

Use Your Rice Cooker as a Slow Cooker

Many rice cooker models such as the Sanyo ECJ-HC100S come with slow cooking features as well.  Coupled with using your rice cooker to make steamed food with rice, making a hearty slow cooked meal once or twice a week also helps to contribute to weight loss and healthier eating since these dishes tend to be lower in fats than most fried and baked foods.
Using a rice cooker and following some or all of the above tips along with daily exercise and overall healthier eating habits can help aid in weight loss and support creation of a healthier lifestyle.  There are many rice cooker recipes out there to help you start making more use of your rice cooker.  Check out our own rice cooker recipes page for tons of ideas on great recipes for rice cookers.
If you don’t already have a rice cooker, browse these rice cooker reviews or take a look at the top rated rice cookers on Amazon.  With the holidays coming up, a gift of a rice cooker is always a welcome and inspired gift idea.

Photo Credit:  Mark MrWizard