Is Microwaving Food Bad For You?

You see, where I come from using microwave oven for heating food and cooking wasn’t that popular up until the recent may be 10 years. When I got a microwave my mother would tell me “Don’t use this thing to cook in it! It kills all the vitamins and valuable nutrients”. She was (and still is) a very health conscious person. So was I. But I was sooo much about convenience also.

Microwaving has become the most repeated action in the kitchen nowadays. I heat my food, brew tea, even cook in it when I don’t have the time or the desire to create something really cool. And, trust me I like cooking and I can slap together some pretty delicious foods out of what I can find in the fridge.

But, any way, back to what my mother used to say, and probably what yours says, too. Is microwaving food bad for you? Does it kill the nutrients in food?

Well, the short answer is: it does. But if you know how to do it, microwaving is not bad for you. Here is what I mean. We know that the amount of nutrients lost to hight temperature in cooking is in direct proportion to the cooking time. Now, think about it. For how long do you use a microwave, and for how long a burner or a conventional oven?

Fact is if food is exposed to heat for a short period of time (as in microwaving) most of the nutrients are preserved. The most heat-sensitive micro nutrients are water-soluble vitamins. Those include Vit. C, Vit B. Heating up your food isn’t very likely to destroy them.

So, be careful how you use your microwave – if you use it to completely replace the conventional oven, then you’re eating dead food. But if you mainly use it to briefly expose food to high temperature, than your food will retain its healthy properties. It’s a whole another story how much valuable nutrients your food has even before you slapped it in the microwave…