Wen ∕ Wang Shallow

Xiaojiang is an office worker who works hard in Taipei from the south. With a salary of 25k, it is not easy to rent a house to support himself, and the landlord forbids him to set up a group to cook. Therefore, the microwave oven brought from home has become the best cooking nanny for him for three meals. Just put the food in the microwave oven, press a number key and wait, and you can enjoy the delicious food easily. Simple toast and milk for breakfast will be solved, while Chinese food and dinner will be eaten in the company, which is also a simple microwave food solution. Fortunately, there are more and more choices of frozen foods, so that even if he eats them every day, he will not feel that his diet is too monotonous.

Using microwave food to eat three meals has indeed become the epitome of the life of many urban people, which is convenient and fast, as if it has become the choice of modern people's diet. Xiao Dunren, an adjunct assistant professor at the School of Public Health and Nutrition of Taipei Medical College, who has long been concerned about the issue of health and weight loss, said that microwave cooking has even become a special book published in the workshop, which shows that the rapid advancement of social civilization has also changed people's diet and cooking habits. Microwave oven is a household appliance with a high household occupation rate, which can make the temperature of all parts inside and outside the heated food rise enough to cook the food in just a few minutes. Compared with the traditional cooking method, it saves a lot of time, and there is no need to move a spatula, and there is no generation of lampblack and steam.

The cooking method of preparing three meals by microwave oven, which ripens food at such a high speed, really subverts people's previous experience in cooking, and is therefore accepted by people so quickly after the advent of microwave oven. According to a survey, the share of microwave ovens in household appliances in Taiwan Province is 4%, that is to say, there are four microwave ovens in every 1 households, which shows the intensity of this wave of "microwave revolution".

The doubt of microwave food

is only revealed by a foreign survey. Scholars believe that microwave food will seriously lose the nutrition of ingredients and even cause a cancer crisis. This statement can shock people who are used to microwave cooking and seek professional explanations one after another. Xiao Dunren said that there are letters circulating on the Internet that question the harm of microwaves to human body. Among them, the doubts about microwave food are slightly in three directions. One is that the nutrition of ingredients is lost due to heating, especially minerals, biochemical enzymes or vitamins B, C, E, etc. The second is to worry about the so-called carcinogenic compounds produced by heating, which will lead to hormonal imbalance and lymphatic and digestive system disorders; Third, Russian studies have pointed out that microwaves have a negative impact on people's emotional fluctuations.

However, Xiao Dunren emphasized that these are only doubts or opinions, not conclusive. In fact, there is no real evidence to prove that microwave food is harmful to human health. There is only one medical report from Poland, which points out that a woman underwent hip surgery in a hospital. During blood transfusion, the medical staff quickly heated the frozen blood to body temperature through microwaves, and then infused the blood into the human body, causing the woman to die on the spot. Xiao Dunren explained that this medical dispute in Poland requires further investigation of other variables, and that the food heated at present is only "eaten" into the human body, not "added" into the human body, so it is impossible to conclude that "microwave heating" is harmful to the human body.

the difference between traditional cooking and microwave conditioning

in view of the difference between traditional cooking principle and microwave conditioning, he further said that traditional cooking is to use a gas stove to fire and transfer heat to the food in the pot through the bottom of the pot. The heating of food is gradually transferred from the surface to the inner layer of food, that is, the container and medium are heated before the food can be heated. Everyone must have experience. It takes a long time to heat the whole caked frozen food. Sometimes the food can't be cooked inside and outside at the same time. If the inner meat is cooked thoroughly, the outer meat will be cooked too old or burnt.

However, when food is heated by microwave oven, there will be no similar dilemma, because the energy generated by microwave will directly penetrate the food itself, and then the moisture or medium inside the food will be used to generate high heat due to high-speed vibration, which occurs almost simultaneously inside and outside the food. It penetrates the whole food from the inside out, so the food heated by microwave can make the whole ingredients cooked in a short time. However, not all foods can be "perfectly heated" by microwave. Solid foods such as steamed buns and bread, because of the poor flow of water molecules, will also find that microwave heating is easy to be unevenly heated, causing local hardening and affecting the taste.

In fact, as long as the heating time is "broken into parts" and the heating time is divided into 1-15 seconds at a time, it is better to coat the surface with a layer of paper towel soaked with water, so that the delicious microwave effect can be achieved.

Crisis in the process of microwave

Xiao Dunren emphasized that microwave heating is only a process of converting "electric energy" into "heat energy", and microwave itself will not "remain" in food, nor will it cause chemical changes in food. However, instead of worrying about the loss of nutrients in ingredients, we should pay more attention to the possible crisis in the microwave process caused by loading containers or packaging materials.

The container should not block the microwave that heats the food, nor should it release toxic substances into the food. These are the two principles for choosing the container for microwave food. For example, as we all know, metal containers, including iron, aluminum, stainless steel, tin foil paper, and even porcelain bowls with metal edges, should not be put into the microwave oven. Apart from the fact that the metal will isolate and reflect most of the microwaves, food cannot be heated. What is more serious is that the metal has good electrical conductivity, and when it is irradiated by microwaves, it will generate current on the metal surface, which will lead to sparks. In the case of sparks, if a flame is generated in a closed room,

Generally speaking, ceramic and pure glass containers are more suitable for loading microwave food. If other materials are used, we must also pay attention to whether they can withstand heat above 12℃, especially when heating meat or foods with high oil content, it is best to use ceramic containers suitable for strong microwave. It is worth reminding that not all porcelains are suitable for microwave oven. For example, porcelains with metallic glaze will melt the glaze and then run into food. Therefore, when microwave food, it is recommended to use porcelains with microwave oven or pure white porcelains without colored glaze.

Principle of using microwave food 4

1. Reheat without cooking

Try to only let the food warm, heat or thaw, instead of cooking from raw to cooked, and defrost and cook in two stages, and never want to finish it at once because of laziness. Because bacteria are easily produced in the process of food from raw to cooked, if food must be cooked by microwave, it is recommended to strengthen microwave fire heating after thawing, so that food is relatively safe.

2 Cover when microwave

Because microwave mainly uses water molecules in food to vibrate and rub against each other, so heating is completed, it is suggested to cover when microwave, so that water will not be released too quickly, which is beneficial to microwave effect.

3 The distance from the microwave oven is more than 5 cm

At present, microwave oven bodies are all designed with smooth metal walls. Under normal circumstances, the risk of being injured by harmful microwave radiation is very low. However, it is recommended to place the microwave oven in a ventilated place indoors. Generally speaking, places more than 5 cm away from the microwave oven are safe.

4 Don't look directly at the microwave oven

When microwave is used, don't look directly at the food in the microwave, so as to avoid the microwave light hitting the eyeball, causing the lens to vibrate due to heat and increasing the chance of cataract lesions. However, the doors of microwave ovens are all designed with metal mesh windows, and the mesh size is much smaller than the microwave wavelength of 12 cm. Therefore, the microwave should be effectively confined in the oven without leakage. Therefore, as long as you don't look directly at the microwave oven, you should not worry.

Is the nutrition of microwave family unbalanced?