Impact Of Using Microwave Oven On The Food Nutrition Value
Getting proper nutrition is one of the most important factors for enjoying a healthy and disease-free lifestyle. Thus, it is quite essential to ensure that you are having a diet that is full of health-beneficial components and the healthy nutrients that your body essentially requires. In the present world, all of us remain quite busy with our work, so there is hardly any time left to make fresh foods just before eating. So, we have a tendency of using electronic machines such as microwave ovens and OTG heaters to reheat food and have it. On the other hand, electronic devices such as microwave ovens are also often used to make delicious foods that are baked and grilled using this machine. But, we will have to rethink whether using electronic gadgets such as microwave ovens is at all safe for the overall health of the body. It is necessary to ensure that having food that is reheated or prepared in microwave ovens does not cause any type of harm to the physiological functioning of your body and helps to keep you away from developing the risks of getting different types of harmful diseases that might cause great damage to your overall health. So, let us take a deeper look at what a microwave oven is, how it works in reality, what are the positives and negatives behind using a microwave oven for heating and baking regular foods, and most importantly, what impact can foods heated in microwave ovens can cause on your overall health conditions when they are consumed regularly.
What Is All About Microwave Ovens?
In earlier times people used to bake, grill, or heat on ordinary ovens, but they used to take quite a lot of time to prepare. Besides, those methods are quite hectic and troublesome. In the present day, microwave ovens are used to heat, bake, grill, or prepare any type of food substance. Besides, microwave ovens are faster, can be used, and are handled very easily. Just like all other appliances in your kitchen- your refrigerator, chimneys, water filter, and so on, the microwave oven is one of them. As the name suggests, these types of ovens use electromagnetic waves, which are also known as microwaves to heat your food and prepare it with the accurate taste and texture. While the food is cooked using electromagnetic heat waves, the food matter at the atomic and molecular levels undergoes a type of vibration. This happens because the atoms and molecules inside the food particles, when heated, are known to clash against each other as they spin around and generate a type of energy. This energy produced by the rapid stir of the molecules and atoms inside the food generates heat that helps in preparing the food.
How Much Effect Microwave Oven On The Food Nutritional Profile?
When it comes to the matter of food take you to have in your daily diet, then the nutritional profile of the food is something that you must consider in the very first step. When you are using microwave ovens for making food, then you must think about whether the nutritional components in the food are getting hampered or not. This is important to note because once the nutritional contents in the food substances are depleted or lost because of heating in the microwave ovens, then you must think about whether to use it further, as the end of the day, nutrition in the food that you eat is all that matters, and it is the health- beneficial nutrient that keeps you healthy and free from developing any kind of ailment.
It is often said by several dieticians and health care experts that whenever you are cooking food in any form of heat, some amount of nutritional components is depleted from the food and as a result, the nutritional value of the food gets slightly reduced after the food gets cooked. Therefore, when you are cooking any form of food using a microwave oven, then the same thing is happening. But, what matters here is the amount of nutrients that get depleted while you are cooking with or without microwave ovens. There are several types of factors that are often considered responsible for the lowering of the number of nutrients present in food. Some such factors can be listed here as follows:
The amount of time taken
The amount of time taken is a major factor that contributes to the depletion of the nutritional contents in the food. This happens because the longer time you spend heating the food while cooking, there are greater the chances of draining the essential nutrients.
Extra boiling and heating
When you are reheating or boiling the cooked food just after having the meal, just to serve the food hot, you are unknowingly lowering the number of nutrients that are present in the food. In fact, when food is boiled, the water-soluble nutrients that are present in the food are depleted and drained out from the food, that in the end lowers the food value.
Constant Overcooking
If you go on overcook the food repeatedly, then you are most likely to lower the number of nutrients and health-beneficial components that are present in the food.
But, this is not the case when it comes to microwave ovens. When you are using a microwave oven, then the cooking time is much reduced. This ensures much lower consumption of heat for making the food and this means that much of the nutritional components or health-beneficial substances that are present in the food have not been drained. Moreover, when you are using a microwave oven for making the food, then you are not boiling the food, so there are lesser chances of leaking out essential nutritional components that are present in the food. So, it is for this reason that many doctors and health care experts advise making your food using microwave ovens. In fact, it has been found in recent studies and research experiments that those people who use microwave ovens for cooking their regular food are more likely to get the major amount of nutrients present in the food than those who do not use microwave ovens.
Are Microwave Ovens Safe for Your Health? The Negative Sides
There are both positive and negative sides to using microwave ovens for cooking your regular meal. From some point of view, it is true that using microwave ovens for making food will truly save time, prevent the food from excessive cooking, boiling, and getting exposed to high heat, and thus saves the food from draining its nutrients. But, there are certain adverse effects of using microwave ovens as well. Mostly, it bothers you when the impact is on your overall physiological health.
There are certain food nutrients when exposed to high heat are broken down and then do not end up in your body. Vitamin C is one such essential nutrient. Moreover, some healthcare professionals opine that the electromagnetic wave radiation that is emitted directly on the food while cooking food in microwave ovens might be harmful to some and can cause lethal diseases, one of them being cancer. According to recent studies and experiments, it has become clear that though the electromagnetic wave radiation that occurs while making food in microwave ovens is not harmful to all, it might be damaging when it comes to using damaged microwave ovens every day. So, if your microwave oven is damaged, replace it or fix it as soon as possible. Apart from these, there are many people who have the tendency to use plastic containers to heat food in a microwave oven. We must always remember that the use of plastic is not at all good for our physical health. And when it comes to the matter of heating foods, the use of plastic containers, that too inside a microwave oven is very much formidable, this is because when you are using a plastic container to heat the food inside a microwave oven, the heat directly falls of the plastic container. This condition might not only damage the internal areas of the microwave oven but also when heated, the plastic container releases some chemical components that are not only harmful but are lethal to our health. These harmful chemicals will get mixed with the food substances that are present inside the plastic containers and when you consume the food, you are taking in the harmful chemical substances that might make you ill.
So, it is advisable, that before using microwave ovens, consult with your health care expert once, to know whether this is feasible for your health.
