Ask the experts: Does cooking food in a microwave change its molecular structure and make it unsafe?
A microwave heats food by moving the molecules, not changing them.
NO. The only thing microwaves
do to food molecules is make them
move-a lot, which creates the heat
that warms up food. A microwave
uses radio waves (larger waves
than, say, light waves) at a frequency
where they are absorbed by
water, fats, and sugars, but not
by plastics, glass, or ceramics. When
the radio waves are absorbed, they
are converted directly into atomic
motion, or heat.
Cooking with microwaves is tricky. Heat is nonuniform, which means certain places can get heated much more than others. This can produce undesirable changes to the look and feel of the food, but does not affect its molecular structure. -Ashim K. Datta, Ph.D., professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University
Evidence
Every so often a nonpeer-
reviewed study comes out
claiming a "microwave effect," but
in scientific literature there are
many more studies that contend
microwaves are perfectly safe.
Cooking with microwaves is tricky. Heat is nonuniform, which means certain places can get heated much more than others. This can produce undesirable changes to the look and feel of the food, but does not affect its molecular structure. -Ashim K. Datta, Ph.D., professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University
