Are microwaves making our food less healthy?

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Microwaves are indispensable in kitchens because of the convenience they bring. But today there are still many doubts about this versatile kitchen tool. It is thought that cooking food in a microwave can make food less healthy and can also remove good nutrients from food. So whether using a microwave oven is safe or not will be analyzed in this article.

1. How microwave oven works in cooking

Understanding how a microwave oven works can help clarify answers to common questions about the benefits or drawbacks of using it. Microwaves prepare food using electromagnetic wave energy that functions like radio waves, but shorter. The waves operating in the microwave are remarkably selective, mainly affecting water and other molecules that are electrically asymmetrical, one end positively charged and the other negatively charged. Microwaves cause these molecules to vibrate and rapidly accumulate thermal energy.
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2. Some rumors say that cooking food in the microwave will lose important nutrients

We've all heard about how microwaved food removes some of its nutritional value, but is it true? Is something bad going on with our food behind that microwave oven glass? Is it safe to use a microwave oven?
If you follow the procedure correctly, cooking food in the microwave is one of the best ways to retain the vitamins and minerals in your food.
Some nutrients break down when exposed to heat, whether it's from a microwave or a conventional oven. Vitamin C is perhaps the most obvious example, but because microwave food preparation time is shorter, microwave cooking does a better job of preserving vitamin C and other broken down nutrients. destroyed when heated.
For vegetables, cooking them in water takes away their nutritional value, as nutrients are lost to the cooking water. For example, boiling broccoli loses its glucosinolates, a sulfur-containing compound that may give the vegetable its cancer-fighting properties and taste that many people find distinctive.
There are dangers to microwave food. If you use the wrong type of plastic, unhealthy chemicals can leach into your food. But if you're concerned about how to get the most nutrients out of your food, microwave cooking is considered a safe cooking option. In fact, using a microwave in food preparation can be a nutritionally sound food preparation method. If you use the microwave with a small amount of water to essentially steam the food from the inside, you will retain more vitamins and minerals than most other cooking methods.

Certified nutritionists and food scientists whenever you cook food, you lose some nutrients. The best cooking method to retain nutrients is the quick cooking method, which exposes the food to the least amount of heat and the smallest amount of liquid.
For example with spinach , boil it on the stove and it can lose up to 70% of folic acid . But when you steam spinach in the microwave with a little water, you'll retain almost all of the folic acid. Cooking bacon on the grill until crisp can produce nitrosamines, while microwaved bacon produces far fewer cancer-causing chemicals.
However, steaming on the stove is also a good cooking method. In some cases, it might even be better: One small study found that steamed broccoli retained more of the cancer-fighting sulforaphane than microwaved broccoli.
MORE: Does reheating leftovers in the microwave lose vitamins?

But in most cases, using a microwave to cook food, if it's tightly covered in a microwave-safe container with minimal liquid, is a method with many health benefits. nutritional aspect. In fact, it can even enhance the nutrition of some foods. For example, it makes the carotenoids in tomatoes and carrots more available to our bodies. It makes the biotin in eggs digestible. And heat destroys bacteria in food that can make us sick.
For the above reasons, continue to use the microwave oven. Because this is a cooking method that retains the best nutrients - a fast cooking method that heats food in the shortest time and uses as little liquid as possible.
Using a microwave with a small amount of water is basically steaming food from the inside out, improving the quality of the food. That's done by retaining more vitamins and minerals than most other cooking methods, and shows that microwaved food can indeed be healthy.

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Reference source: webmd.com