Foods that should not be heated in the microwave
In 2020, nutritionist Elena Solomatina told the newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva which foods should not only be cooked, but also heated in the microwave.
The expert warned that, above all, eggs and boiling water should not be boiled in a microwave oven.
“The principle of heating food in a microwave oven is that microwaves transfer energy to the water contained in certain foods. It is dangerous to bring even plain water to a boil. After all, it does not boil like in a kettle, in which the bottom is heated, the heated liquid rises up, and a colder one comes in its place. In a microwave oven, the heating of the entire mass of water is uniform, its temperature rises simultaneously at all points, and the release of oxygen due to heating – boiling – occurs instantly, like an explosion. The water bubbles and splashes out, you can get burns, ”Solomatina said.
In an egg, she explained, which is cooked in a microwave oven, moisture turns into steam when it boils. Until a certain moment, the strong shell holds back the growing pressure from the inside, but at any moment it can burst – the egg will explode like a grenade. The doctor noticed that a tightly closed container and any product with a dense solid shell can explode after heating in the microwave. According to her, overheated and bursting berries of currants, grapes or even ordinary apples can pour over a sticky boiling mass. When the juice boils, the nutritionist says, they can turn into a kind of “fruit bomb” and cause burns.
Solomatina also noted that when heated, many foods lose their beneficial properties and even turn into poison. “Vitamin C is destroyed when heated. Therefore, for some reason, I do not recommend heating berries and fruits too much. You cannot heat anything that contains polyunsaturated fatty acids. Unrefined oils oxidize and become a carcinogen. Therefore, you should not try to fry the seeds in the microwave, they will not be useful, ”the doctor assures. The nutritionist warned against quickly heating up “too cold” salads from greens and root vegetables in the microwave oven. She explained that beneficial plants – spinach, parsley, celery, sorrel, beets, radishes, carrots and others – contain nitrates.
When heated, they turn into nitrosamine, an organic toxic compound. That is why, according to Solomatina, diet soda should not be heated in the microwave. “Drinks marked“ light ”do not contain sugar, but a chemical substitute, most often aspartame. When heated, it turns into formaldehyde, which is very harmful to health. “It can be compared to arsenic. It is so serious that if a small child drinks such a warm drink, it can be fatal. Signs – headache, dizziness, general weakness, pallor, nausea, shortness of breath, cough, abdominal pain, kidney failure, ”the doctor warns.
According to Solomatina, when heated in a microwave oven, beneficial bacteria in fermented milk products die, as the walls of their cells are destroyed. The expert also said that one should not quickly heat a juicy berry to a warm temperature – in addition to the death of vitamin C, irradiation will change the whole structure of the fibers. The same will happen with mushrooms, according to the nutritionist. The nutritionist also warned against heating chocolate bars and sweets in a microwave oven: “hot chocolate” may not work, since they contain many chemicals – when heated, the product will become tasteless and possibly even poisonous.