A few decades ago, the microwave seemed to be the greatest invention on earth, allowing multiple cooking techniques and possibilities be realized with the small, contained and electric kitchen tool. But after all the microwave's glory years, a possibility that it can cause harm to human health is being considered by specialists.
Microwaves work by having water molecules to reverberate at very high frequencies, conducting steam that heats your food. Though microwaves and its usage is very common at home, experts bring up one phenomenon that may change the way we see it: microwave radiation.
You might be wondering how does reheating your food have radiation? And how does it differ from the conventional way of heating meals on the stove? Or steaming? According to studies, our beloved microwave 'distort and deform' the molecules present in the food, while steaming and heating on a stove top does not.
Microwaving your food also gets rid of its most essential nutrients, some researches also claim, but more studies are still set to be done to prove it.
A study published in The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture back in 2003 has examined what microwaves do to broccoli. To the researchers' surprise, the results showed that after heating the vegetable through a microwave, it lost 97 percent of its beneficial antioxidants. Comparing to the ones steamed, which only lost 11 percent.
"Microwaving appears to be contraindicated at high-temperatures, and questions regarding its safety even exist at low temperatures," the researchers explained.
