There is this popular belief that microwaving your food kills the nutrients within the food. Is it really true? Find out in this article.
Contrary to popular belief, microwave doesn’t destroy the nutrients in your food. In fact, lightly microwaving food can actually help retain more nutrients.
The reason?
It’s the way microwave heats up food.
How Microwave Works
Microwave cooks food using short energy waves that are very selective. They only affect water and other molecules that are electrically asymmetrical (molecules with positively or negatively charged ends).
So what the microwave does is it causes the molecules to vibrate quickly (by attracting molecules with positively and negatively charged ends together) to build up heat (thermal energy), which is then used to cook / heat up the food.
How Microwave Able to Retain More Nutrients
No matter what cooking method is used, to an extent, the nutrients in the food will be lost. But because of the shorter cooking time of the microwave, it is able to retain most of the nutrients as studies have proven that the best cooking method to retain the most food nutrients is by cooking or heating the food in the shortest amount of time.
Not only that, using as little liquid as possible to cook is also another method to retain food nutrients. Such as, steaming.
By steaming food in the microwave with just a small bowl of water, you’ll be able to retain more nutrients. For example, steaming vegetables is much healthier than boiling vegetables.
Seems like microwave is not only convenient, but also has an advantage in the nutrients preservation department.
Check out our multi-function microwave ovens and bring one home today to experience the most from this amazing invention!
Source: Harvard Health Publishing
