Microwave Cooking and Nutrition
Almost every home has a microwave oven and the convenience they offer is undeniable. However, despite the widespread use of microwave ovens and their excellent safety record, some people have lingering doubts cooking food with microwaves somehow makes food less healthy by zapping away nutrients.
Does cooking with a microwave do that?
Understanding how microwave ovens work can help clarify the answer to this common question. Microwave ovens cook food using waves of energy which are similar to radio waves, but shorter. These waves are remarkably selective, primarily affecting water and other molecules which are electrically asymmetrical, where one end is positively charged and the other negatively charged. Microwaves cause these molecules to vibrate and quickly build up thermal (heat) energy.
Some nutrients break down when they’re exposed to heat, whether it is from a microwave or a regular oven. Vitamin C is perhaps the clearest example. However, because microwave cooking times are shorter, cooking with a microwave does a better job of preserving vitamin C and other nutrients which break down when heated.
As far as vegetables go, cooking them in water removes some of their nutritional value because the nutrients leach out into the cooking water. For example, boiled broccoli loses glucosinolate, the sulfur-containing compound that may give the vegetable its cancer-fighting properties (as well as the taste that many find distinctive and some find disgusting).
Is steaming vegetables better?
In some respects, yes. For example, steamed broccoli holds on to more glucosinolate than boiled or fried broccoli. The cooking method that best retains nutrients is one that cooks quickly, heats food for the shortest amount of time and uses as little liquid as possible. Microwaving meets those criteria! Using the microwave with a small amount of water essentially steams food from the inside out, keeping more vitamins and minerals than almost any other cooking method.
Vegetables, pretty much any way you prepare them, are good for you and most of us don’t eat enough of them!
As for the microwave oven? A marvel of engineering, a miracle of convenience and sometimes nutritionally advantageous too.
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