thanks man, that really made my morning. I'll be snicking about that all day. Best part is how often that user wants to argue about physics, but apparently does not know how to multiply fractions...

everyone can make a mistake
so if he had given the wrong answer to the question of the op i would have rolled my eyes but thought "okay, that happens"
but questioning the correct answer is something different, he should really have thought twice before making a statement like that
and he is a professional programmer as far as i know - but we know the clarity of his arguments, don't we

exactly. If I got an answer that was 1/64th the size of the answer you gave, I'd be triple checking my work...

However:

iirc, microwave quanta don't individually have enough energy for anything beyond changes in conformation - if even that - when it comes to organic molecules. In fact, infrared light (which is of higher energy than microwaves) affects molecules in a way that has virtually no impact on the chemistry, so microwaves changing conformation of a random assortment of molecules would be something very, very unlikely. In lay terms, this simply means that the probability for something safe to turn into something hazardous due to microwaves is very tiny.

again, if my memory serves me right, i do recall a case where microwaves are used to facilitate a certain chemical reaction, but it's only one specific case and thus you can't extrapolate anything merely on that basis.

dielectric heating is the mechanism with which the water in the food gets hotter and subsequently heats the food itself. It might also have an effect some on organic molecules, causing them to gain kinetic energy, but what happens here is identical to what happens when you heat your food in a conventional manner. Only the manner in which you bring energy to the system is different.

This post was edited by Holod on Jan 21 2014 01:11pm

As the previous speaker stated, the energy of a microwave photon is relatively small (approx. 10^-4 eV) in comparison to visible light (approx. 1-2 eV). So multiple orders of magnitude smaller.
A photon with less energy of visible light cannot cause any chemical or molecular change to a molecule that is stable at room temperature, it simply cannot do things that visible light wouldn't have already done... It does not have the energy to do so.
What is different in a microwave is the amount of photons, but they only delivers the energy to heat your food and again as the previous speaker said, there is no difference in the outcome only in the way it is accomplished.
And this way is not more or less save then conventional cooking, just another way.

I was able to track down a couple studies that did say there was a 30-40% B(12) loss in microwaved meats. But I didn't see anywhere that they said it was more or less than other forms of cooking. Upon further searching I found a study that have found up to ~62% loss of B(12) when cooking fish via boiling, frying, steaming, and microwaving. There was, however, no loss of vitamin B(12) during vacuum-packed pouch cooking (interesting!). So I would venture to guess that there is not a significant difference in B(12) loss when comparing microwave ovens to frying, even though these studies used different foods.
Microwave oven B(12) study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10554220
Cooked Fish B(12) study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22472286


I get the impression you didn't read much of anything past the topic title. All of the things you mention were already covered in earlier posts and weren't in question in the first place.


Its been nearly 15 years since I've sat in a physics class and I've forgotten much of what I learned. I was merely proposing an uneducated hypothesis. I was not making any claims to facts. The whole point of this topic was to learn the empirical facts.


The reason I said some and not all is because I've only read a handful of credible articles covering this subject and I felt it could possibly be overconfident for me to say all. I'd rather appear skeptical, than to have to eat my foot later.


There is a lot of studies that show nutrient loss when foods are heated. Specifically, some vitamins are destroyed or broken down by heat. So wouldn't that be considered an impact on chemistry?
I pretty sure there is no doubt that raw foods are generally more nutritious than cooked foods. What I was aiming to learn was what differences microwaves may have compared to other cooking methods. There appears to be some evidence that suggests microwaving is sometimes healthier due to its ability to cook foods faster than other methods and this may help minimize the vitamins destroyed (though I have been unable to find any studies that confirm this). One study found that boiling carrots actually increased carotenoid levels when compared to steaming or frying. Though what that study does not show is the loss of other nutrients in those same cooking scenarios (I think boiling is generally considered to be one of the worst.) I got some of my information from here: http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/Microwave-cooking-and-nutrition.shtml

If anybody has information that analyzes the chemical changes of microwaved food compared to other cooking methods I would be glad to hear it. It is a tricky comparison since both temperature and cooking time have a large effect on these chemical changes. For an accurate comparison they may have to also take into account any differences in temperature and cooking time.

It alters the dna structure of the food and makes it harder to digest properly.

I would recommend not using them at all.

Sure, the heat has an impact on the molecules, but what I tried to say is, that the microwave (the particle not the machine) itself cannot have more impact on the chemistry then ordinary light.
And you will heat your meal whith normal cooking as well, so... no difference.

The only difference there is, is that microwaves have different impact on i.e. water and fat, because of the dipol structure.
So the heat could be distributed inhomogeneous, depending on what you cook and that can clearly cause different nutrien losses, depending on the cooking method and on the meal cooked.

But that is no reason to worry.

Env. Consultant here.. No it will do nothing..

here comes all the science illiterates. i love having fun poking at these type of people.

This post was edited by huntersghost on Jan 21 2014 05:46pm