If you're worried that microwaving food damages its nutritional content or somehow makes the food unhealthy, you needn't be concerned. Despite many widespread misconceptions to the contrary, microwave ovens are perfectly safe for use in the kitchen. If you put healthy food into the microwave, you'll get healthy food back out when it's cooked.
Microwaves
Many people worry that microwaves cook food with nuclear radiation. This simply isn't true. Microwaves are no more similar to nuclear radiation than are light waves -- they're different types of energy. Microwaves cause molecules to rotate, which makes them rub together. This generates heat through friction, just as you produce heat through friction when you rub your palms together rapidly. The heat spreads through your food, warming or cooking it.
Misconceptions
A common microwave misconception is that microwave ovens destroy, or "mutate," crucial aspects of food. There have been claims that microwaves destroy enzymes in food. This is true, but is of no concern, because you neither need nor can you use the enzymes in food, as humans make their own enzymes. Also, heat of any kind destroys enzymes, meaning that this effect isn't unique to microwaving -- it occurs any time you cook food.
Vitamin Content
One legitimate concern with regard to microwave cooking is that it reduces the vitamin content of food. This is true, particularly when it comes to vegetables, notes a 2004 "Food Chemistry" study by Dr. D. Zhang and colleagues. However, any kind of cooking causes similar effects, conventional stove-top cooking included. Whenever you choose to cook foods -- by whatever method you choose -- you reduce the vitamin content.
Microwave Benefits
As it turns out, microwaving may be the best way to maintain as much vitamin content in your food as possible when you choose to cook. A 2007 study in the "Journal of Food Quality," by Dr. M. Schnepf and colleagues, notes that microwaving appears to reduce vitamin content to a lesser extent than traditional cooking methods. This may be because microwaves often rely upon steam cooking rather than submerging vegetables and other foods in water, which is known to remove vitamins.
References
- "Food Chemistry"; Phenolics, ascorbic acid, carotenoids and antioxidant activity of broccoli and their changes during conventional and microwave cooking; D. Zhang et al; December 2004
- "Journal of Food Quality"; Sensory Attributes and Nutrient Retention in Selected Vegetables; M. Schnepf et al; May 2007
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