Rice Cooker Review: Aroma ARC-996 12-Cup Cooked, 6-Cup Uncooked Capacity Digital Rice Cooker and Food Steamer...

In Early November 2011 I Bought An Aroma 12 Cup Rice Cooker and Steamer And I Want You To Consider Buying The Same One Or One Like It.Here Are the Reasons Why You Should Own and Use a Rice Cooker And Food Steamer To Improve Your Health:

As part of my rice cooker review, particularly on an amazingly good value for the price ($30.00 US)and features the Aroma ARC-996 12-Cup Cooked, 6-Cup Uncooked Capacity Digital Rice Cooker and Food Steamer...

...you first need to know why owning and using any rice cooker and vegetable steamer is another valuable step to take in improving your own health...just as Juicing fruits and vegetables are an incredibly important step to take to improve your health.

• Rice is a very important source of nutrition that is valuable to your health. It is one of the highest energy foods you can eat.
• When rice is compared to cassava, sweet corn, potato or wheat, rice more than holds its own. Rice is great source of the following Minerals: iron, magnesium, calcium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium and zinc. Many of these critical minerals are lacking in many of the foods we eat.
• When it is compared to Cassava, sweet corn, potato or wheat, rice is good source of most of the B vitamins. Many of us suffer from B Vitamin deficiencies.
• Rice comes in amazing varieties to inspire your taste buds and it is a great basis of many, many delicious meals because rice is so versatile, capable of being easily combined with so many other foods and made so delicious.
• Rice is one of the least cost and highest nutrition and energy promoting foods available...
• The more energy your body has, the stronger and healthier you will be. But if all you eat is rice, you might get very fat so use rice in combination with other foods in amounts appropriate for you, please.

Here Is the Backgound Story to My Review of the Aroma ARC-996 12-Cup Cooked, 6-Cup Uncooked Capacity Digital Rice Cooker and Food Steamer...

As many of you know, if you have explored my website, but for those of you who don't know, I'm an Oriental Medicine Doctor and A Licensed Acupuncture Physician with an active and busy practice...

I believe good nutrition is incredibly important to maintaining good health...you cannot eat fast food, processed food or manufactured food and stay healthy even if you take vitamins.

There are other things that are important and fit into the equation of good health, but what you eat and how it is prepared is vital to your maintaining good health and preventing illness and disease.

Please people throw away your microwave...do not thaw or heat or cook anything in a microwave oven...When you do, you "de-nature" that food...because of the microwave radiation...you convert that food into a substance the body either can't assimilate or is toxic to the body or both.

Foods cooked in a microwave can induce an inflammatory response in the circulatory system of some people causing a variety of circulatory disorders...you do not want to risk that.

Use a conventional oven or a toaster oven or a pan on a burner of your stove...whichever is more appropriate for what you are doing.

Here is part of the problem I was trying to solve for myself...

How could I make great tasting and truly healthy meals for my self using as little time and effort as possible?

The good news is...there are ways!

• Juicing fruits and vegetables for a meal works.
• Making fruit smoothies for a meal works.
• Juicing vegetables such as carrots, celery, cucumbers, and greens such a fresh spinach, or other leafy greens and even adding pea protein powder for even more nutrition works.
• When you cook, for example chili...make a huge pot eat a meal or two from what you just cooked and freeze a lot of it in containers to have your own meals ready to eat when you want them. Just put the frozen chile or whatever in a pan and thaw it and heat it.
• Cook a big pasta casserole using fresh and wonderful ingredients like Barilla plus pasta, sauteed mushrooms, peppers and onions, using one of the great sauces made by Classico or Bertolli or Barilla...some of which are even available with nothing but Organic ingredients. And again, after you cook it and it has cooled divide it up and freeze it in plastic containers. When you want a quick high quality meal, thaw it and heat it when you need it.li>

• Make a big pot of soup with all your favorite, best ingredients and again, eat some of after it is cooked, and then freeze the rest and put into plastic containers big enough to be a meal for one. And thaw it and heat it when you need it.

I had discovered a lot and it was and is great and wonderful, but I was getting bored. I needed to include more rice in my diet but this was always a problem.

Because cooking rice was a complete step by itself that took 45 minutes to cook let alone prepare to cook...get the pan out, add the rice and proper amount of water, and oil...time the cooking just right.

Then cook other things in other pans to go with it and then wash all the darn dishes...and then put them all away...there had to be something better...

Thank God there was...there is a better way to make meals with rice.

What Are The Advantages of Owning and Using Your Own Automatic Rice Cooker and Vegetable Steamer:But First, As Part of My Rice Cooker Review, You Need To Know Why You Should Not Buy A Simple-Non-Automatic Rice Cooker:

I read every review about rice cookers on Amazon and other sellers sites...I was going to go with one of the $15 to $20 manual rice cookers and steamers, but I am so glad I didn't...

Even though a friend of mine had bought one of what I will call a manual cooker/steamer and was happy...

I decide to go in another direction because there were so many and varied problems reported about the manual rice cookers and steamers.

Here are many of the reasons why you do not want to buy the kind of rice cooker that you plug in and have to time your cooking with a lid that just sits on top of the pan...a non-automatic rice cooker.

Here is what I found out by reading hundreds of reviews about all types and kinds of rice cookers and vegetable steamers:

• non-stick coating coming off inside of cooking pot, due to the use of inferior non-stick coating,
• froth from cooking rice spilling all over the counter every time they cooked it, unless meticulous and time consuming rice preparation methods where used.
• Uncertain outcome for rice being cooked, including the rice burning to the bottom of the pan.
• Rice that is over cooked or not cooked enough.
• You have to time the cooking manually and be sure to hear your timer go off...heaven forbid you cook it too long...know what I mean?
• You need to know a different cooking formula or recipe for white rice and for brown rice.
• There were too many reports of frequent catastrophic heating element failures.

These are the major problems you are likely to encounter with a cheap non-automatic rice cooker and steamer or just a plan old rice cooker with no steaming capability.

Ease of Use Reasons Why You Should Buy the Aroma ARC-966 12 cup Digital Rice Cooker and Food Steamer

• A good automatic rice cooker and vegetable steamer like the Aroma ARC-966 12 cup Digital Rice Cooker and Food Steamer makes perfect rice every time with little effort.
• Even though this may seem like too big a cooker for making rice for one person, it will make as little as two cups of cooked rice.
• You don't have to time the rice you are cooking.
• You add the amount of rice you want to cook and the corresponding appropriate amount of water, close the lid and press the appropriate button for cooking white rice or brown rice, and this unit does the rest perfectly.
• If you only want to use this unit to steam fresh or frozen vegetables you just put in a cup or so of water, fill the steamer basket with the amount of vegetables or meat you want to steam, close the lid and push the steamer button and leave it all in for the appropriate amount of time.
• If you want to make rice and steam vegetables or even meat at the same time as you cook you rice...you choose your rice and add the right amount of water...and put the rest of your meal into the steamer tray and put it in with the rice at the appropriate time, close the lid and push the button for the kind of rice you are cooking and it will all be done together, perfectly, deliciously.
• When the rice is done cooking or the rice and steamed vegetables in the steamer tray are done, the unit automatically switches to a keep the rice warm mode.
• You can use it like a crock pot to cook chili, stews, etc...
• You can also use it to keep things that you are serving warm like soups or dips or oatmeal...the list goes on and on.
• The unit is pressurized almost like a pressure cooker so it cooks things faster.
• There is never any froth over spilling all over your counter top.
• The juice from the vegetables, or the veges and meat, you cooked while the rice was finishing up drips down into the rice. Making the rice even more delicious and of course very importantly more nutritious. You get all the nutrition because you are not pouring off the water as you would if you cooked the vegetables in water or even steamed them in a pan.
• The clean up is easy! You wash the rice pot which is Teflon coated, wash the steamer tray, and plastic spatula (all of which can go in the dishwasher), wipe down the lid, and rinse the steam vent.
• There is even a delay timer so that you can set everything up to cook your rice and tell it how long to delay before beginning the cooking process...If you are late getting home...even 12 hours late it won't matter because this cooker will automatic shift to "keep rice warm mode" when it is done cooking...and your rice will be at the perfect temperature to eat when you do get home...now how nice is that?

This photo shows how you would use the cooker to cook rice and steam the rest of your meal.

This photo shows the steamer tray loaded with chicken and fresh asparagus for steaming...You start cooking your rice and add the rest in the steam basket 15 minutes before the rice is done.

This photo shows the cooker used to cook and keep this rice dish warm.

This photo shows the rice cooker being used like a crockpot to cook and keep stew warm, delicious and ready for serving.

Can You See How Getting This Inexpensive Rice Cooker and Steamer Actually Helped Me Simplify My Life and Save Time and Improve My Health All At The Same Time?
Can You Imagine How This Could Make Your Life So Much Easier, Give You More Diversity in the Food You Eat, Help You Eat More Nutritious Food And Improve Your Health All At The Same Time? How Good Is That?

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Please click here to visit my Holistic Nutrition page to learn more about good nutrition and how to get it.