I don’t have a microwave and very, very rarely will even eat food that’s been warmed up in one. I’ve seen several reports that of all the different ways of heating vegetables, for example, the microwave damages the nutritional value most. Actually, it may even be worse than that according to some sources: microwaving can actually make food toxic in some ways. But you don’t more rumor and opinions, right? Take a look at this (cut and paste).
Okay, I don’t know about the study conducted in the above link, but unless I see something real, I’d suggest that people eating microwaved food are eating crappy foods and the study results are simply showing what happens to people that eat crap.
I mean, you go to a fast food joint and eat microwaved food, the food isn’t crap because of the microwaving, it’s crap because of the ingredients.
Then, of course, we get into how microwaves are “harmful” to living organisms. I don’t know about you, but I don’t crawl into my microwave very often while I’m cooking something…
There are lots of scare sites out there for everything, with very little but conjecture and fancy sounding research which is tangential to the issue at hand.
Be really skeptical until you get actual studies and THEN read the studies to make sure the results are actually what the claims make them out to be instead of some tangential fabrication.
Could microwaved foods be bad for us? Sure. Have I seen anything resembling a study which indicates it? No. When I do, and it’s credible, I’ll worry about it.
any time you heat any sort of compound, you give it energy to react.
The thing about microwaves, is that the frequency (2.4 gigaHz) is the resonant frequency for water, and because of this specificity, things with a smaller magnetic field or with a very different resonant frequency will not generate as much heat in a microwave.
This is great because of it’s specificity in heating, a lot of compounds do not absorb microwave radiation, although i should say, many vitamins are based off of some flavin ring or some aromatic ring structure which is not transparent to microwaves. However, i would say whether you are using a burner or using a microwave, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. In fact, i’m willing to bet a burner is more harmful simply because you are supplying direct heat to an area with intensity that is >>>>>> the compounds decompositions points. Whereas with a microwave, as long as liquid water is present in that food, the hottest that thing can get is 100 degrees C.
i am in favor of microwaves. There is all this paranoia out there about radiation and carcinogens, but the cancer is due more to the psychomania than the oxidizing compounds generated.
[quote]consumer wrote:
any time you heat any sort of compound, you give it energy to react.
The thing about microwaves, is that the frequency (2.4 gigaHz) is the resonant frequency for water, and because of this specificity, things with a smaller magnetic field or with a very different resonant frequency will not generate as much heat in a microwave.
This is great because of it’s specificity in heating, a lot of compounds do not absorb microwave radiation, although i should say, many vitamins are based off of some flavin ring or some aromatic ring structure which is not transparent to microwaves. However, i would say whether you are using a burner or using a microwave, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. In fact, i’m willing to bet a burner is more harmful simply because you are supplying direct heat to an area with intensity that is >>>>>> the compounds decompositions points. Whereas with a microwave, as long as liquid water is present in that food, the hottest that thing can get is 100 degrees C.
i am in favor of microwaves. There is all this paranoia out there about radiation and carcinogens, but the cancer is due more to the psychomania than the oxidizing compounds generated.[/quote]
The voice of reason.
Heating is the cause of nutritional breakdown. Not microwave ovens. You don’t have to heat everything to it’s melting point. You can simply thaw it out to where it can be chewed.
Remember the cell phones give you brain cancer crap going on about 5 years ago.Not 1 credible piece of evedince proved or disproved that.There are to many chicken littles out there…
I mean, you go to a fast food joint and eat microwaved food, the food isn’t crap because of the microwaving, it’s crap because of the ingredients.
[/quote]
Great point Vroomy.
But why isn’t that some food scientist can’t simply test a foods nutritional content and then nuke that shit for a couple minutes and then test again? That would finally, and once and for all, end this debate! That’s the type of data I was hoping for.
To the person who posted a link, thanks. I’ll read it tonight.
[quote]HouseOfAtlas wrote:
Throw even tiny piece of tin foil in a microwave and it does some scary stuff. LOL! Throw some tin foil in an oven and it doesn’t do anything.
[/quote]
But what happens when you put tin foil on your head?
[quote]bikemike wrote:
consumer wrote:
any time you heat any sort of compound, you give it energy to react.
The thing about microwaves, is that the frequency (2.4 gigaHz) is the resonant frequency for water, and because of this specificity, things with a smaller magnetic field or with a very different resonant frequency will not generate as much heat in a microwave.
This is great because of it’s specificity in heating, a lot of compounds do not absorb microwave radiation, although i should say, many vitamins are based off of some flavin ring or some aromatic ring structure which is not transparent to microwaves. However, i would say whether you are using a burner or using a microwave, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. In fact, i’m willing to bet a burner is more harmful simply because you are supplying direct heat to an area with intensity that is >>>>>> the compounds decompositions points. Whereas with a microwave, as long as liquid water is present in that food, the hottest that thing can get is 100 degrees C.
i am in favor of microwaves. There is all this paranoia out there about radiation and carcinogens, but the cancer is due more to the psychomania than the oxidizing compounds generated.
The voice of reason.
Heating is the cause of nutritional breakdown. Not microwave ovens. You don’t have to heat everything to it’s melting point. You can simply thaw it out to where it can be chewed.[/quote]
[quote]Soldierslim wrote:
HouseOfAtlas wrote:
Throw even tiny piece of tin foil in a microwave and it does some scary stuff. LOL! Throw some tin foil in an oven and it doesn’t do anything.
But what happens when you put tin foil on your head? :)[/quote]
[quote]consumer wrote:
any time you heat any sort of compound, you give it energy to react.
The thing about microwaves, is that the frequency (2.4 gigaHz) is the resonant frequency for water, and because of this specificity, things with a smaller magnetic field or with a very different resonant frequency will not generate as much heat in a microwave.
This is great because of it’s specificity in heating, a lot of compounds do not absorb microwave radiation, although i should say, many vitamins are based off of some flavin ring or some aromatic ring structure which is not transparent to microwaves. However, i would say whether you are using a burner or using a microwave, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. In fact, i’m willing to bet a burner is more harmful simply because you are supplying direct heat to an area with intensity that is >>>>>> the compounds decompositions points. Whereas with a microwave, as long as liquid water is present in that food, the hottest that thing can get is 100 degrees C.
i am in favor of microwaves. There is all this paranoia out there about radiation and carcinogens, but the cancer is due more to the psychomania than the oxidizing compounds generated.[/quote]
This is true. It is probably the least damaging method of heating.