Don't use your microwave for this...

[Deja Q]

...vegetables.

From Compuserve:


Microwaving vegetables may be the fast and easy way to cook them, but it also zaps away many of the best nutrients. Exhibit A: Broccoli, which may be the most perfect food on Earth for its nutrient value, loses as much as 97 percent of its cancer-fighting antioxidants when it is cooked in the microwave, reports HealthDayNews of new research published in the November issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

And microwaving isn't the only cooking process that's prone to do this. Boiling causes broccoli to lose 66 percent of its cancer-fighting power, while a pressure cooker eliminates 47 percent. Blanching vegetables before freezing, a common processing technique, can remove up to one-third of the antioxidants. Freezing also causes some loss, but not as much. If you want the most cancer-fighting benefit from your veggies, it's best to eat them raw. But if you really want to cook them, steaming reduces the antioxidants by just 11 percent. It works so well because hot water is not in direct contact with the vegetable.

But do remember this: Even if vegetables lose a bit of their protective nutrients in cooking, they still retain some of them. And you reap the benefits when you eat them. "You're still getting plenty of healthy compounds as well as fiber, so there's absolutely no reason not to eat vegetables-- although, of course, the fresher the better," Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Center, told HealthDayNews. "If people are willing to have vegetables anyway, shape or form, even if they are going to nuke then, I'd rather have them do that."



So, I'm going back to using my microwave for cooking cool things like CDs and light bulbs. Steamed broccoli clearly is tbe best way to go, I ain't eatin' it raw!

[havocmom]

1. Raw is best

but a light cooking isn't too bad, is it? I like the microwave for the way it keeps the flavor but then I undercook most of the veggies I eat (if they get cooked at all)

[yella_dawg]

2. Try microwaving grapes.

Slice a grape lengthwise, leaving the two halves connected by only a thin bit of skin along one edge. When you get the connecting skin right, microwave on high to part the two halves with a brilliant incandescent flash. Too much connecting skin and it doesn't get hot enough. Too little skin and it burns through too soon. Get it just right, and it's amazing. Seems that some component of grape skin doesn't react well to microwaves.

On edit: http://c3po.barnesos.net/homepage/lpl/grapeplasma/

[Madrone]

3. To expand on this - Pet food

I read about a study that was done feeding cats only food that was heated in a microwave.

The cats in the study all died before their time.

I won't heat up any food for my animals in the microwave any longer.