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The short answer is – yes, cooking food with the Sous Vide is one of the healthiest methods of cooking.
Health and nutrition is becoming more and more important with many people beginning to pay close attention to the foods they eat.
Thankfully, the Sous Vide is a great aide to many diets and healthy eating plans. We will explore some of the health benefits of Sous Vide cooking below.
Sous Vide Health Benefits
Types of foods we cook in the Sous Vide
Some foods are better suited for the Sous Vide than other foods. As it turns out, many of those items happen to be very healthy and nutritious foods.
Speaking for myself, ever since I began using my Sous Vide consistently my diet has improved by leaps and bounds. Mainly because I have been eating natural, whole foods that do not contain many ingredients.
The following are some examples of common health foods that are perfectly suited for the Sous Vide.
Red Meat
Red meat is extremely healthy, satiating, and nutritionally dense. It is packed with essential vitamin and minerals. In fact, the Sous Vide is perfect for the carnivore and keto diets.
Red meat including any roasts or cuts of steak, are a breeze to Sous Vide and in most cases are way more tastier than using an oven or other conventional cooking method.
Not only steaks, but any other animal cuts such as lamb, pork, and venison! Sous Vide happens to be a favorite for hunters, or anyone else that appreciates grass fed meat.
Chicken
Chicken is packed with high protein, vitamins, and low calories.
Chicken, especially the breast usually comes out dry, bland, and boring. Not with the Sous Vide! Cooking chicken in the Sous Vide allows it to retain its juices and not overcook.
In fact, I will go as far to say that Sous Vide is the BEST way to cook chicken breast. There is no doubt in my mind!
Fish
Fish is a super-food full of healthy fats, protein, and essential minerals.
Unfortunately it is very easy to overcook fish ending up with a dry, chewy meal. The Sous Vide takes the guesswork out and produces a perfectly juicy filet every time.
My personal favorite is salmon in the Sous Vide. It just melts in your mouth!
Vegetables
Love tender, juicy vegetables?
The Sous Vide enables you to cook your veggies to the exact texture you want. I just love Sous Vide carrots and you can find my favorite recipe over here.
Retains Vitamins and Minerals
When using the Sous Vide everything is cooked within an enclosed bag, or mason jar. Doing so enables the food to cook in its own juices, retaining more vitamins and minerals than it would using traditional cooking methods.
Temperature control is very important when considering the nutrients in a meal. Since the Sous Vide will not go over a specific temperature, you can be sure the vitamins and other nutrients in your meal will be there by the time you are eating dinner.
Prevents Overcooking
Using the oven, grill, or stove, people often times will overcook their foods. Doing so can also destroy some of the healthy enzymes that come naturally in our foods.
With the Sous Vide, we are able to set a specific temperature for our foods and they will never go above that temperature.
This helps us keep all the vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that are naturally occurring in our foods.
Sous Vide is Lower Calorie
While calories are not unhealthy by default, it is generally a good thing for people to lower the amount of calories they consume.
One major contributor to calories in our foods is cooking oils. Oil is extremely calorie dense, and generally is needed when sauteing or cooking different types of foods on the stove top.
Fortunately with the Sous Vide, oil is typically not necessary. Just the food item and a plastic bag!
Even when searing my food after the Sous Vide, I usually do not use any oil. Especially with a fatty cut of meat such as a rib-eye, I simply throw it on a hot cast iron for a quick sear.
Avoiding Charred Food
When cooking meats with traditional methods, the meat exterior is exposed for high heat for a longer period of time. This is because we want to have that tasty mallard reaction without overcooking the interior of the food.
However, unfortunately some studies have found that too much charred food can be unhealthy.
According to multiple studies, regularly eating very well-done, charred meat can significantly increase your risk of cancer. One study at the University of Minnesota, which tracked the of more than 62,000 people over nine years, found a greater than 60 percent increase in pancreatic cancer cases among those who ate charred meat on a fairly regular basis [source: ].
Source – https://health.howstuffworks.com/food-nutrition/is-charred-food-bad.htm
Sous vide helps to solve for this, as after cooking you will only need a very quick sear for around 30 seconds per side!
Proper Pasteurization
Under-cooked foods can potentially have harmful bacteria that can hurt our stomachs or worse.
Since the Sous Vide keeps food at higher temperatures for longer periods of time, they undergo a type of pasteurization.
Pasteurization is a process where foods undergo mild heat for long periods of time to eliminate pathogens. Our milk is pasteurized this way.
By using the Sous Vide, we get those same benefits and can rest assured most of the unhealthy pathogens and bacteria in our foods has been eliminated.
Is cooking in plastic bags safe?
Because in today’s world most bag manufacturers make sure to produce BPA free plastic bags, they are generally safe for the Sous Vide.
If you would like a deeper dive on this topic head over to this article about plastic bags.
To Conclude
In conclusion, we can see that not only is the actual Sous Vide cooking method healthy, but there are many other health benefits that come along with it. These are benefits I did not even consider when I first got into the Sous Vide.
Remember you can find tons of healthy Sous Vide recipes on our site! We also recommend some cookbooks here.
