Microwaves: should you be zapping your food, or is it causing your body harm?

Since 1946, we have been blessed with a cooking tool so easy and simple, almost anyone can use it. Microwaves! 95% of American homes contain a microwave, because its "almost impossible" or "pretty difficult" to live without one (Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communication, and Computation). Microwaves can make a variety of foods, including snacks like popcorn and nachos, or heating up last nights leftovers. But, what's the catch? How can microwaves heat up food that quickly, and is this science harming our bodies?

Well, here's the facts. Microwaves channel heat energy directly into the molecules of the food by sing high-frequency electromagnetic waves. Inside of a microwave, there is a high-intensity electromagnetic field, which cooks your food. These waves mostly target the water molecules in your food, and when they are heated they move very quickly, creating friction. This friction creates heat, quick heat, and this is how microwaves heat food. Conventional ovens rely on conduction to heat food, by vibrating the water molecules more slowly, and this creates a chain reaction throughout the food. This is why the outside of food is heated more quickly than the inside.

All of this science talk is cool, but is putting food that has been exposed to "electromagnetic waves" into our bodies a good idea?

Well, if you're scared of this radiation, you might want to put down your phone. Microwaves operate in the electromagnetic spectrum, and have about the same frequency as most telephones (2450 megahertz). Microwaves are slightly higher, but the way they are built prevents us from being harmed by these waves.

Many people are scared of using microwaves, because there are a lot of myths floating around the internet that would scare anyone away from this convenient cooking tool.

MYTH: "Microwaves change the chemical makeup of food, creating nutrients that are unrecognizable and unusable for our bodies."

This is true, in a sense. Any method of cooking causes some of the nutrients in food to break down, because of the friction and the heat necessary to cook food. While this does lower the nutritional value, the amount of nutrients "destroyed" is so minimal that it isn't worth worrying about. There are plenty of nutrients left in food, that are recognizable to our bodies, that this should not be a concern. Heating the food also kills microbes that may have contaminated the food, and killing these can save you from getting sick from contaminated food. Microwaving food is actually the least likely to break down nutrients, because of the short cooking time required for most foods. The longer a food cooks, the more nutrients are likely to break down.

According to Catherine Adams Hutt, RD PhD., "The best cooking method for retaining nutrients is one that cooks quickly, exposes food to heat for the smallest amount of time and uses only a minimum amount of liquid."

For example, if you boil spinach on the stove, it can lose up to 70% of its folic acid. If you microwave the same spinach with minimal water, it can retain almost all of its folic acid.

If you cook bacon on a griddle until it is crispy, it can create nitrosamines (a cancer promoting chemical). Microwaving bacon can create far less of these.

Microwaved foods can get a bad reputation, because many people think of prepackaged, microwave meals when they think of microwaved foods. In this sense, yes, microwaves are bad for you because many of the meals meant to be prepared in a microwave contain high levels of calories and salt, which is bad for anyone. This does not have to be the case, however. Using a microwave to make foods from scratch, or heat up foods that were prepared on a stove and the leftovers were put in the fridge, this is fine, as long as they are heated in a microwave safe container. Don't heat foods in plastic that is not microwave safe, because the chemicals from the plastic can get into your food and make you very sick.

So, its up to you. Continue using your microwave for the convenience and efficiency with the same nutritional value as cooking, or cook all of your food on a conventional oven. But remember, there is no difference between microwaved food and food heated on an oven, besides the amount of time it takes to cook.