For The Love Of Food: 5 Foods You Should Never Microwave!

Microwaves have proven themselves to be very useful kitchen helpers, however, proper caution must be followed when using microwaves. Although you can microwave almost anything, there are certain things you should never microwave. This piece is not just for the love of food, it's also for the love of health and safety. Take a look at 5 food that should never come close to a microwave.

1. Defrosted Meat

Some microwaves rotate and some do not, which can lead to uneven distributions of cooking and thawing. Frozen meat is a tough thing to have to defrost in a microwave, as it can take so long that it becomes very easy to start cooking it. Edges of meats can start to cook and turn brown while the inside remains frozen.

Japanese researches found that meats cooked longer than 6 minutes in a microwave also lost half of its vitamin B-12 content. The best thawing tips are to let it defrost in a fridge overnight or thaw under cold, running water.

2. Frozen Fruit

This has always been a big time saver. Buying frozen foods is actually not a bad idea as the flash freezing process can help preserve the nutrients of the fruit. Fruit immediately starts losing nutrients the moment it is picked.

It’s never a good idea to put fruit in the microwave. Grapes, for example, will explode, and raisins send off so much plasma that they can ruin your microwave.

Frozen fruit is best thawed in a fridge or simply on a counter top at room temperature.

3. Breast Milk

Busy mothers sometimes have to use a breast pump to extract milk for their babies, and sometimes, it seems like a good idea to pump out a lot and refrigerate or freeze it. However, re heating it using a microwave is harmful! A key benefit of providing a newborn breast milk is being able to introduce the baby to powerful bacteria-fighting agents that are contained within the milk.

The Journal of Pediatrics ran tests on 22 samples of frozen breast milk heated in a microwave on either low or high heat and found that breast milk heated on high heat showed greater E-coli growth. This was 18 times higher than the milk heated without a microwave.

The samples microwaved at lower temperatures dramatically decreased isozyme activity as well as promoted the growth of harmful bacteria for babies

4. Eggs (with the shells)

Eggs intact in their shells or boiled eggs. The problem, WebMD reports, is the pressure builds up in the sealed egg "container," which can cause it to explode (even if the boiled egg is peeled). Best to pierce the egg in multiple spots before nuking.

5. Hot Peppers

Hot peppers, dried or raw can't withstand the microwave and their juices are very dangerous once out, they can even catch fire. Don't microwave dry materials

To find out what other materials should be kept from the microwave, look here.