Now you can lose weight just by eating rice. 

There are many ways to cook rice, but here in Japan, most households rely on the ease and convenience of a rice cooker to prepare the everyday staple with minimal fuss.

The demand for rice cookers in Japan is so great it’s helped to deliver some impressive technological advancements like the Twin Chef cooker and the one-person rice cooker shaped like a bento box. Now, another progressive step in rice-cooking technology has been made, with the debut of the Healthy Support Rice Cooker.

As the name suggests, this new product is focused squarely on health, and what’s got everyone’s attention is the fact that it’s said to cut the sugar content of rice by around 20 percent. Less sugar means less carbohydrates, which is great news for those wanting to cut their daily carb intake to help with health and weight loss.

▼ Same rice intake but less carbs is like a dream come true for a lot of Japanese people.

Produced by Iris Ohyama, this new cooker comes with two “low sugar” rice modes:

・”10 percent cut mode” for those who want to cut sugar content while retaining flavour
・”20 percent cut mode” for those who want to firmly cut sugar content

Interestingly, the 10 percent cut mode is able to reduce the sugar content by about 18.5 percent, while the 20 percent cut mode can reduce it by about 25 percent. This makes it easy for health conscious rice lovers to maintain a low-carb diet without having to cut back on the amount of rice they eat each day.

▼ The cooker preserves the moisture level of the rice, which helps to reduce its sugar content.

According to Iris Ohyama, eating a bowl of rice cooked in the 20 percent cut mode three times a day over the course of 365 days cuts out about 273 tablespoons of sugar in total compared to normal rice. The low sugar cooking modes are just two of nine healthy cooking menu options available, covering varieties outside of white rice, like brown rice, millet, and red bean rice.

 

There are also menu options that allow you to make okayu rice porridge and a fermentation option to ferment rice and get the most nutrients out of brown rice. It’s one of the healthiest rice cookers out there on the market right now, and it’s also one of the newest, as it was just released on 7 August.

▼ The Healthy Support Rice Cooker (5.5-go size) is priced at 16,800 yen (US$157.38) plus tax.

While this new product comes with a lot of healthy cooking modes on board, you can also use it as a regular rice cooker as well. That means you can use it to cook giant cheesy okonomiyaki pancakes on cheat day, thanks to all the calories you’re saving!

Featured image: Iris Ohyama
Insert images: Pakutaso, Iris Ohyama
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[ Read in Japanese ]