I absolutely despise microwaves. It comes from a (seemingly) irrational fear of my dad's - formerly a trained chemist, but also just a smart guy.
1. I feel that as with many products, microwaves are also maximized for perceived customer happiness - this means food hot ASAP. So, they're probably pushing out the legal maximum of energy in microwave form. "Better" microwaves are probably worse for this.
2. I notice a distinct flavor to microwaved _meats_ specifically - maybe this is true about all proteins, but I'm not entirely sure. It's very pronounced in more flavorless chicken dishes when I notice it. I've read (on some stackexchange site) that chicken can change when re-heated. I don't need to know what it is. I trust the tongue evolution gave me.
3. I have always noticed - no matter what type of plastic, all plastics impart a taste to water once the water has been sitting for some time. I imagine heat speeds up this process. Maybe, microwaves do too. Again, the tongue.
Based on these points, I:
- avoid microwaves like the plague to start with. Air fryers and mini-ovens FTW! Sometimes it's far and above the best choice; e.g. microwaving nachos vs. burning them with the broiler and wasting a LOT of energy in the process.
- never microwave with/in plastics. So, no TV dinners EVER, and pyrex/glass/ceramic containers.
- generally microwave at 70% or less power rather than the default 100% - usually on a program of progressive power reduction (see below)
- constantly stir/move food around - prevent hot-spots (see next bullet)
- immediately stop the microwave when I hear any popping sounds - it's a good heuristic that some part of the food is boiling hot, and the heat needs to be evened out
One piece of advice is to familiarize with the power settings and "programmed cooking" methods of a microwave. I often will heat food on a program of 70% power for 1 min, followed by 50% power for 1 min, followed by 40% power for 1 min.
I hope some of this helps someone. I feel like I'm the anti-microwave evangelist of the house - my wife heckles me about it constantly. I can't wait to send out this link in the AM!
Fun fact: Conventional microwaves always microwave on full power. They just flip the magnetron on/off to reduce power output.
If you want the microwave to actually reduce the power output rather than using pulse width modulation, you need to make sure you've got an inverter microwave.
What's wrong with microwaves? Aside from their mechanism of heating, what do they do differently to food to anything else? Arguably they get the outsides of some foods much hotter than otherwise, but I'm not sure how true that might really be - we regularly cook loads of other foods at very high temperatures in ovens or pans.
I had a organic chemistry professor when I studied biology at university, who said he was convinced that microwaves split amino acid chains in proteins, thus leading to free radicals which could be cancerogenic.
Free radicals last for microseconds in any material. The moment you removed microwave power the free radicals would immediately react with other materials and stabilise (plenty of those in food since the whole point of it is it's high energy).
Which is to say, that's a very specific claim for a professor to make without publishing any papers about it.
> [...] all plastics impart a taste to water once the water has been sitting for some time. I imagine heat speeds up this process. [...]
I feel the same. Water from most plastic bottles tastes very different from the same brand & "type" in a glass bottle. Thinking about this, I should eventually do some experiments (e.g. ABX and fully blind). Especially since summer heat should impact this during transport.
For plastic dishes, I avoid these for hot(!) foods as well. At least my SO's cheap plastic outdoor dishes add some flavour. Though for fridge storage or cold foods I never noticed the plastic flavour. I still prefer glassware for practical reasons (except weight) and (highly subjective) fell like it's just nicer, but e.g. at BBQs I (luckily!) nothing ever tasted like plastic only because a salad was in a plastic bowl; same for use-once plastic stuff used at some events, luckily the short contact never contaminated the taste (which means this could be placebo except for really bad plastic ware!).
Just out of curiosity: Do you also taste milk changing its taste long before others notice? Maybe we have a similar sensitivity that's also affecting "plastic flavour"?
As for hot spots in the microwave, that's just a drawback of the tech imho (or our old-ish, non-inverter microwave with a poor radiation pattern), and except for reducing these (70% and stirring), I live with that. Though we basically never prepare raw food in the microwave, only reheat leftovers or boil water/milk. So actual food safety is less an issue for us. On especially lazy days (and with highly unevenly heating food like yesterdays home-made lasagna) I even skip the cold parts and put them in the microwave again; I'm pretty sure this is safe.
1. I feel that as with many products, microwaves are also maximized for perceived customer happiness - this means food hot ASAP. So, they're probably pushing out the legal maximum of energy in microwave form. "Better" microwaves are probably worse for this.
2. I notice a distinct flavor to microwaved _meats_ specifically - maybe this is true about all proteins, but I'm not entirely sure. It's very pronounced in more flavorless chicken dishes when I notice it. I've read (on some stackexchange site) that chicken can change when re-heated. I don't need to know what it is. I trust the tongue evolution gave me.
3. I have always noticed - no matter what type of plastic, all plastics impart a taste to water once the water has been sitting for some time. I imagine heat speeds up this process. Maybe, microwaves do too. Again, the tongue.
Based on these points, I:
- avoid microwaves like the plague to start with. Air fryers and mini-ovens FTW! Sometimes it's far and above the best choice; e.g. microwaving nachos vs. burning them with the broiler and wasting a LOT of energy in the process.
- never microwave with/in plastics. So, no TV dinners EVER, and pyrex/glass/ceramic containers.
- generally microwave at 70% or less power rather than the default 100% - usually on a program of progressive power reduction (see below)
- constantly stir/move food around - prevent hot-spots (see next bullet)
- immediately stop the microwave when I hear any popping sounds - it's a good heuristic that some part of the food is boiling hot, and the heat needs to be evened out
One piece of advice is to familiarize with the power settings and "programmed cooking" methods of a microwave. I often will heat food on a program of 70% power for 1 min, followed by 50% power for 1 min, followed by 40% power for 1 min.
I hope some of this helps someone. I feel like I'm the anti-microwave evangelist of the house - my wife heckles me about it constantly. I can't wait to send out this link in the AM!