Microwaves Destroy Nutrients

I’m actually kind of glad that this rumor is floating around both the cyber world and real world "teachers" of healthy living seminars. I get a good chuckle when I hear someone ranting about how microwaves alter the molecular structure of food and destroy its nutritional value. As previously noted, microwaves have no where near the power, or the right wavelength of EM waves that would be required to accomplish this.

Take 5 minutes on the internet and you will come up with hundreds of websites that will tell you how microwaves destroy nutrients. I’ve been to a good number of those websites and have read the same old examples over and over again.

The one example that comes up over and over is the detrimental effects of microwaving broccoli. You don't read about it affecting any other food - only broccoli. Why? It is the one food that is very easily changed by small amounts of EMR. They don't talk about any other foods - only broccoli. The fact is that the parameters surrounding the test were never completely revealed and their results were not reproducible by other scientists. A one in a million chance? No. I could write an article saying that the gravitational force of the earth destroys egg shells. What I WON'T tell you is that I dropped the egg from 6 feet above the hard surface of the ground! Redirection. They play upon our fears. What didn't they want to reveal in this study is that the broccoli was microwaved for a ridiculously long period of time - to the point of non-recognition. “I'll give you the facts that support my case and show what I want you to know....but nothing else.”
 
So how was their study done? According to the Journal of Science in Food and Agriculture, November 2003, they cooked the broccoli in 2/3 cup of water at the highest power for 5 minutes. The antioxidants that the study cited that were destroyed were destroyed by the long cooking time in water at high temperature – NOT by the microwaves themselves. The Journal noted that it’s the length of time cooked in hot water that determines the amount of nutrients lost. That cooking could be done in a microwave, an oven, pot or pressure cooker.

Cooking itself causes food to lose some nutrients. People have been saying for years that eating raw vegetables is better for you than cooked ones. They are right. So why are they so focused on saying it’s the microwaves that are destroying the nutrients? The fact is that microwaves may preserve more nutrients in the food than conventional cooking since the cooking time is much shorter! Vitamins are very stable in heat, and most vitamins are lost into the water when boiled or steamed. A study at Cornell University found that spinach retained nearly all of its folate (a B vitamin) when cooked in the microwave, but lost 77% when cooked on the stove.

When we read, or hear some sensational news, we owe it to ourselves to learn as much as we can about the facts surrounding it. It is easy to have a knee-jerk reaction and run away screaming from whatever the bad-thing-of-the-day happens to be.

Question, investigate, theorize and conclude. You owe it to yourself!