What do pressure cookers do to food that traditional cooking methods can’t?

Question

What do pressure cookers do to food that traditional cooking methods can’t?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Heat impacts the rate at which food is cooked at an exponential rate: It roughly doubles every 10°C increase. So if cooking something in a regular pot at 100°C takes 4 hours, it will take just 1 hour in a pressure cooker at 120°C. There might be some other beneficial chemical reactions that only happen at a higher temperature, but I don’t know any specifics about that.