# Reheating food in the microwave -- effects on nutrients?



## Phineas (Jul 29, 2010)

I've always read that cooking food from raw in a microwave will kill some of the nutrients. What about reheating food?

I cook all my food without a microwave, but at work I have to reheat food for meals that I made the night before. Is this killing any of my nutrients?


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## Muscle_Girl (Jul 29, 2010)

I have also been curious as to the effect that cooking has on food (non-microwave). Is there a way to calculate, or a site which details the nutrients removed/chemical reactions that happen to food when they are heated?

Microwaved food almost always tastes worse than the originally cooked meal, so I can only assume that something is removed, or changed, during heating.


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## Phineas (Jul 29, 2010)

I think leftovers taste different no matter how they're prepared.

I always thought re-heating food was okay. I hope so, because at work that's the only way I can heat my food. I cook it the night before, and ziplock it.


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## Muscle_Girl (Jul 29, 2010)

Ewwie, I would be more concerned about what you are getting from the plastic containers lol.


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## DOMS (Jul 29, 2010)

From the NCBI.

"Microwave-oven technology has been improved by the use of low power.  With the utilization of low-power techniques, studies showed equal or  better retention of nutrients for microwave, as compared with  conventional, reheated foods for thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxine,  folacin, and ascorbic acid. Beef roasts microwaved at "simmer" were  comparable with conventionally cooked roasts in sensory quality, while  vegetables cooked by an institutional (1,150 w) microwave oven were  superior to those cooked in a domestic (550 w) microwave oven.  Microwave-cooked bacon had lower levels of nitrosamines than  conventionally cooked bacon; however, the use of a new alpha-tocopherol  coating system has been found to be a safe N-nitrosamine inhibitor  regardless of cooking method used."

Granted, it doesn't specify what the "normal" nutrient retention is.


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## Muscle_Girl (Jul 29, 2010)

So, it would depend if his work had updated microwaves I guess.


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## Phineas (Jul 30, 2010)

Muscle_Girl said:


> Ewwie, I would be more concerned about what you are getting from the plastic containers lol.



lol, ya but in this day and age you get crap in your body from just about everything. Walk outside and you breah car exhaust and second hand smoke all day. Even healthy food has to come in packages.

I buy all organic food. I eat nothing but whole foods. And even when I do package meals for work in tupperware it's not for very long. 



DOMS said:


> From the NCBI.
> 
> "Microwave-oven technology has been improved by the use of low power.  With the utilization of low-power techniques, studies showed equal or  better retention of nutrients for microwave, as compared with  conventional, reheated foods for thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxine,  folacin, and ascorbic acid. Beef roasts microwaved at "simmer" were  comparable with conventionally cooked roasts in sensory quality, while  vegetables cooked by an institutional (1,150 w) microwave oven were  superior to those cooked in a domestic (550 w) microwave oven.  Microwave-cooked bacon had lower levels of nitrosamines than  conventionally cooked bacon; however, the use of a new alpha-tocopherol  coating system has been found to be a safe N-nitrosamine inhibitor  regardless of cooking method used."
> 
> Granted, it doesn't specify what the "normal" nutrient retention is.



Thanks for the link. I'll have to look in to how new my work's microwave is. I imagine it's pretty modern. It's provincial government. They're overwhelmingly on top of work health and safety. We're a ministry of about 180 people and we have an ergonomics department, lol. When I started they came to me to see if my chair and keyboard were postioned in a safe way for my spine. Talk about service!


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