Microwaves are great cooking tools, they might not be the healthiest way to go but they sure do save time. Here are some tips to keep that cooking green:
The greenest, and safest, way to cook in a microwave is to cover your food using oven-safe glass cookware, which eliminates waste and the potential for chemicals leaching from plastic wrap.
“Microwave-safe” containers only means that the plastic won’t melt or crack in the microwave, but doesn’t guarantee that it won’t leach chemicals into your leftovers.
If you DO use plastic, only loosely cover your food, allowing steam to escape, and NEVER let plastic wrap touch food directly.
Only use ink-free paper towels in the microwave. Most printed paper towels use non-food-grade inks. (blech)
Never cover food with plastic bags, aluminum foil, grocery bags, or newspapers.
There doesn’t seem to be any real evidence that microwave ovens damage nutrients or food any more than other forms of heat.
Low power settings on a microwave oven just turn the heat on and off – it doesn’t mean that there are fewer or weaker microwaves. for example, a 50% setting means that there are equal time periods of heating and non-heating.
I was wondering if microwaving on low power would limit the potential damage to nutrients that some say occur when one micorwaves their food. Have there been any studies on this??