The Instant Pot offers a range of functions, including pressure cooking, which makes for a quick and easy meal. However, given that pressure cooking uses high pressure, as the name suggests, you may wonder if your Instant Pot could be destroying the nutrients in your food as it's cooked very thoroughly in a short amount of time.

Pressure cookers trap steam, increasing temperature and pressure at a rapid rate, which actually means that foods cooked in an Instant Pot retain more nutrients than steamed or boiled foods. Because there is less water to leach out vitamins, and less time for those vitamins to be extracted, nutrition and flavor is locked in.

For legumes like green peas, lentils, and chickpeas, their nutrients aren’t just retained by an Instant Pot, but boosted. Food scientist Kantha Shelke, Ph.D. explains that pressure cooking gives legumes and grains “increased digestibility of the macronutrients and the increased bioavailability of the essential minerals."