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From: prbonneau@watrose.UUCP (prbonneau)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: microwave ovens harmful?
Message-ID: <7590@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Oct-85 14:40:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: watrose.7590
Posted: Thu Oct  3 14:40:54 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 03:31:06 EDT
References: <1110@wanginst.UUCP> <7300003@uiucdcsp> <892@utcs.uucp>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 23

[Out vile jelly!]
> Microwave ovens tend to heat things very unevenly because things are cooked
> for such a short length of time.  In a normal oven the heat is distributed
> within the food by the normal mechanism, but in a microwave oven when cooking
> something for short periods of time this equalization cannot take place.
> Therefore there is a tendency for the same piece of food to be both overdone
> and underdone in bits.

I only got into this discussion in the middle, but microwave cooking is MORE
even than conventional ovens.  In a normal oven, where heating of the food is
due to low frequency irradiation (which does not penetrate the food) and hot
air convection (which heats the outside of the food) the cooking proceeds from
outside to inside.

In a microwave oven,  microwaves penetrate the food, and it is cooked
everywhere at once.  This produces a much more homogenous level of "cookedness"
throughout whatever is being cooked.

The only reason that the food is cooked for a short time is that it's a lot
faster to cook your food all at once, instead of from the outside-in.
-----
I'm a man!  I'm not a horse!		..!watmath!watrose!prbonneau
					Paul Bonneau.