Over 90% of American homes have microwave ovens used for meal preparation. Because microwave ovens are so convenient and energy efficient compared to conventional oven, very few homes or restaurants are without them. In general, people believe that whatever a microwave oven does to foods cooked in it doesn’t have any negative effects on the food.
Although there are many reasons not to use a microwave, one specific concern with microwave cooking is that vegetables and other food lose valuable nutrients when micro-waved. One study published in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found that broccoli “zapped” in the microwave lost up to 97 percent of the beneficial antioxidants it contained.
Russian researchers have reported a marked acceleration of structural degradation leading to a decreased food value of 60-90% in all microwaved foods tested. They noticed decreased bio-availability of vitamin B complex, vitamin C, vitamin E essential minerals and lipotropic factors in all foods tested. Thus vitamins, and nutrients were reduced or altered so that the human body receives little or no benefit from the food.
With the decline in the quality of our food and our tendency to eat preprocessed food we are only further decreasing the nutritional aspect of our foods when we microwave them.
Terry Pfau, DO, HMD