Is it Safe to Use a MicroWave oven? - Steemit Health Check
Some days you ask yourself a question and it keeps triggering your mind.
Today, I was thinking about my microwave and food combinations.
Is it safe to use a microwave? You hear so much people warning for the use of microwaves!
So let's find out!
Myth or fact: A Microwave destroys all vitamins in food?
This was studied by a team of researchers (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814602002595) and they surprisingly concluded that it is not that easy to destroy the vitamins in your food by a microwave. Contrary, they concluded that when they compare cooked vegetables with microwaved vegetables that the cooked ones had much reduced amount of nutrients! The idea behind that is that these molecules are water soluble, so cooking drains the valuable molecules from the greens.
The other finding is that microwave cooking goes fast! And the faster the better to retain valuable nutrients. For example, vitamine C is much better retained.
FACT: You do not loose nutrients from short heating in the microwave
I have to mention that they warn for uneven " warming". So when you have certain food that needs to reach a certain temp, then a microwave is not always to be trusted. (cold spots).
Why is the use of microwaves maybe STILL a unhealthy choice?
Because we do not regularly cook fresh vegetables in a microwave!!!
People choose to:
- warm pre-fab supermarket packages
- stack it with SALT filled snacks
It is not the microwave that makes you ill, it is the FOOD that you put in the microwave (and yourself) that has an effect on your body!
So, what is your Healthy Choice for today?
Bee Safe!
@beesteem
I feared another irrational, fear spreading text, but not so this time. :)
I really hope many people, who do not know about the principle of a microwave, gonna read and learn from this.
I want to mention, that microwaves do have a fitting energy level to induce molecular rotation in dipolar substances. Primary small molecules like water are effected, hence brought into rotation. This rotation is of course a mode of motion with kinetic energy and kinetic energy of molecules and atoms is generally experienced as temperature. This means, that these parts of the food containing the most water will also be heated the most. As long as you do not force your mircowave to a too fast energy output (That would give local burning of the food just like in a regular oven.) by to high performance over a too long time this uneven warming is no problem, because as a general thermodynamic principle (second law of thermodynamics) the unevenly introduced energy will dissipate over the meal.
Therefore:
I appreciate your post!
Best,
mountain.phil28
PS: Furthermore the wavelength of microwaves is in the centimetre range, what of course gave rise of even more inhomogeneous heating of the food, but due to intelligent, modern microwave designs, this issue could be reduced substantially.
I acknowledge your great explanation and background on the waves!
I did not include it because I was afraid that it would make the message more difficult. You are right!
I did research as a chemist with enzymes in a microwave. If too much apolar solvent is used all energy directs to the polar enzymes, and they may degrade. However in food almost always water picks up tge energy, while the proteins only "feel" the heat from their neighbour molecules ;-)
Thanks for the acknowledgement!
I guess you are right. Your Post is easy to digest und understand due to skipping the scientific principle. Nontheless I had the needs to at least state them here in the commentars for those who want to read more. :-)
Following another chemist is nice 😃
Best,
mountain.phil28
thanks
Very informative! Not a subject you would think to look up everyday so good idea to write about it