I’ve been studying the conflicting reports about what microwave energy does to our food.

I tend to agree that localized temperatures (especially near water molecules) becomes extreme when you microwave food and will tend to destroy nutrients by disassembling their molecular structure.  I think that’s pretty well established.

How does that lead to weight gain?

I’m not sure it does, but there are some theories that make a bit of sense.

One theory is that your body isn’t satisfied until it receives the nutrients it needs.  So, if you destroy nutrients by microwaving, you cause your body to be more hungry and eat more calories until it does receive the needed nutrients.  Excess calories are stored as fat.

There are problems with that theory.  There is no evidence that hunger is managed by nutrient levels at all.  One can easily prove this by eating something with very low nutritional value and seeing that hunger is, in fact satiated.

Another theory though says that the destruction of nutrients is only the beginning of the problem.  During that destruction, poisons are created.  The body deals with the fat soluble poisons by storing them surrounded by fat molecules in the body.

This theory carries a bit more weight.  In fact, if you ingest too much fat soluble poison (so much that the organs that normally metabolize that poison are unable to do so fast enough to prevent you harm), your body will, in fact, store some of those poisons as fat.  It will protect your body by surrounding those poisons with stored fat.

It is also a fact that poisonous molecules are always produced when organic molecules are heated with extreme heats.

The only problem with this theory is that the extreme heats are produced near water molecules in food items, not near fat molecules.  Water and oil don’t mix well normally (although high heats reduces the separation).   Of course, this might be the major problem with trans-fats.

Yet another theory places blame on the plastics often used as dishes in a microwave oven.  These plastics outgass into our food when heated.  A specific very popular plastic outgasses something called biphenol-a.  This chemical is very similar to estrogen and act like excess estrogen in the body.

Estrogen (and chemicals similar to estrogen like biphenol-a) are directly responsible for increased fat storage.  This is specifically why women have a higher normal weight than men.  This hormone is elevated in women and a prime cause of additional fat storage in women.

Men also have this hormone.  Increase the amount of this hormone and you increase the “normal” amount of fat storage in both men and women.

Both testosterone and progesterone regulate the effects of estrogen in both men and women.  There are no similar molecules outgassed into our food when we microwave using this common plastic though.

There are no problems with this theory.  The only issues remaining are how much this affects our normal hormone levels.  The studies are conflicting in this area.  It has been proven that this plastic does outgass phenol-a though.  It has also been proven that biphenol-a acts like estrogen in the body.

In any case, I have decide that although there is no proof that microwave ovens are unhealthy… there is a lot of evidence.  There is no corresponding evidence that seems to balance out this equation.  In other words, no studies have found that microwaving food increases it’s health value or causes a slimming effect.

So, our microwave oven goes in the trash as soon as we return to Utah.  Our home here in Costa Rica does not have a microwave oven and we do not plan to get one.

How can you live without a microwave oven?  Consider a counter-top toaster oven or convection oven.  Both are only a bit slower than microwave ovens.  Both take about the same space.  Neither causes extreme localized temperatures that can forcefully break the molecular bonds of nutrients in your food.

-James D. Brausch