# Microwaving food - can we settle this **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 23, 2013, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483 "2013-04-23T11:16:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/21 "2013-04-23T17:52:27Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Go ahead, try it. Make up a truly finished “TV dinner” with sauce, meat, pasta, cheese, and vegetables. Package it any way you like. Freeze it for eight weeks. To be really fair, let it partially thaw once or twice. Nuke it without being too fussy about power and time (or turning, fluffing or tending it) and put it on the table as it comes out of the microwave. Does it look like the fresh version you made? Does it look even as good as a Swanson offering? Or does it look like colorless, separated, dried-out institutional food?. I have done this with a food in a vacuum sealer, and it’s better than that Swanson’s crap. Nobody is arguing that the frozen food, for the most part (not all of it), is heavily engineered. (There’s plenty of small-scale frozen foods you can get here are basically exactly like the fresh thing, only frozen. For example, in Chicago there’s Alexandra’s frozen pierogi. They are hand made, flash frozen, and last forever in the freezer, as do any pierogi you and I could make as long as we properly seal them.) The point we’re arguing about is that you can’t freeze real food to eat later. Of course you can, and much of the time it ends up being better than the commercial stuff. I have no doubt the engineered stuff can last much longer with less degradation of product, but 8 weeks is hardly a test. I don’t think you’ll start noticing it until 6 months to even a year. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/22 "2013-04-23T17:53:49Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > and literally jump out of the box looking good and tasty. I have never expected or experienced prepared frozen meals coming out of the microwave looking good and tasty. I did not know that modern food engineering was capable of such a marvel. I look forward to seeing it some day. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/23 "2013-04-23T19:21:25Z")
Microwaving food is bad as it alters the dna of the food. Your body doesn’t recognize this altered DNA and thus wraps it in fat to protect your body. I actually read that somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/24 "2013-04-23T19:37:49Z")
> [@SpeedwayRyan](#): > > You should never feed a baby [Hot Pockets](http://www.hotpockets.com/). You should never feed anyone a Hot Pocket. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/25 "2013-04-23T19:43:04Z")
Do they still sell those hot dogs that are stuffed with chili? The hot dog would feel cool enough to eat until you got to the hot lava chili on the inside. I wonder how many lawsuits that brought on. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/26 "2013-04-23T19:52:09Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The point we’re arguing about is that you can’t freeze real food to eat later. Of course you can… Yes, of course you can. I’m not saying anything contradictory. I am saying you cannot make anything like the wide selection of commercial frozen foods; that the foods a home cook can make and freeze-preserve are a limited subset of home-cooked foods; that most complex frozen foods absolutely require highly engineered components to survive freezing and come out looking and tasting edible. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/27 "2013-04-23T20:19:32Z")
> [@Laggard](#): > > Do they still sell those hot dogs that are stuffed with chili? The hot dog would feel cool enough to eat until you got to the hot lava chili on the inside. Was there an implied promise not to shoot hot lava out of the dog and into your mouth? 😃 Sorry, best I could do on short notice. Oh, and were they foot long dogs? 😃 Sorry, got to go . . . ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/28 "2013-04-23T20:40:00Z")
I’ve found a brand of frozen meals that appears, on the surface at least, to be healthful (“Gourmet Dining”). There are several “flavors”, most of them containing pasta, chicken, and vegetables, and a packet of sauce mix. Aside from the sauce, I judge them to be healthful by the fairly short list of ingredients. From one such package, for example: > [@Ingredient list](#): > > Linguini Noodles: Cooked Linguini (Durum Semolina, Enriched with Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Monomitrate, Riboflavin and Folic Acid). > > Vegetables: Broccoli, Red Peppers, Mushrooms. > > Chicken: Chicken, Water, Modified Tapioca Starch, Salt, Sodium Phosphate. The sauce, on the other hand, has a lengthy ingredient list full of the usual suspects. A serving has 19% DV of sodium, 12% of which comes from the sauce. Interesting note, though: They recently changed the instructions on the package. Formerly, it had stove-top skillet instructions and microwave instructions. Now, they’ve eliminated the microwave instructions and give stove-top only. I still cook in the microwave (often adding additional frozen veggies as well), with seemingly good results. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/29 "2013-04-23T20:44:46Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Go ahead, try it. Make up a truly finished “TV dinner” with sauce, meat, pasta, cheese, and vegetables. Package it any way you like. Freeze it for eight weeks. To be really fair, let it partially thaw once or twice. Nuke it without being too fussy about power and time (or turning, fluffing or tending it) and put it on the table asG it comes out of the microwave. Does it look like the fresh version you made? Does it look even as good as a Swanson offering? Or does it look like colorless, separated, dried-out institutional food? > . Dude, you are just plain wrong. I freeze completely prepared foods all the time and they come out perfect, sometimes stored for months and years. See I have a vacuum sealer. Keeping the air out is the key to shelf life. With a home vacuum sealer, food looks and tastes great for much longer than the most secure wrapping can make them. I freeze soups, stews, whole baked ziti, creamed spinach … and defrost them in the microwave, for a few examples. It is air that damages frozen foods, for the most part. Keep out the air and you can manhandle frozen foods quite a bit. In sum my experience shows that you are completely wrong in every respect. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/30 "2013-04-23T21:33:52Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Yes, of course you can. I’m not saying anything contradictory. > > I am saying you cannot make anything like the wide selection of commercial frozen foods; that the foods a home cook can make and freeze-preserve are a limited subset of home-cooked foods; that most complex frozen foods absolutely require highly engineered components to survive freezing and come out looking and tasting edible. I will give you this much: cream sauces and similar emulsions don’t always do well in the freezer. Frozen fettucini alfredo? Um…no thanks. I really do tip my hat to the food scientists for getting something that approximates an alfredo sauce to freeze and not separate when heated. Frozen gluten free cream of mushroom soup concentrate seemed like a good idea at the time, but apparently corn starch slurry loses its thickening ability when frozen and thawed. Live and learn. (And some additional corn starch when it was reheated fixed it up fine, but that was a stovetop procedure, not a microwave one.) So yes, there \*are \*limits to freezing food at home. But I don’t think they’re nearly as limited as you think they are, with some practice and the right packaging equipment. 8 weeks? Shit…I think the oldest foods that I’ll eat from my deep freeze are going on 3 years…😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nippless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/df788c/32.png) [@Nippless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nippless)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/31 "2013-04-24T06:24:32Z")
Thanks, Dope. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > What reason(s) do _they_ give for claiming it’s bad? None really. It’s just listed as one of the foods that shouldn’t be eaten (Tamas). > [@Laggard](#): > > Microwaving food is bad as it alters the dna of the food. Your body doesn’t recognize this altered DNA and thus wraps it in fat to protect your body. > > I actually read that somewhere. While searching for more info I also saw this mentioned in places… sounds woo-woo to me. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/32 "2013-04-24T08:51:08Z")
> [@Nippless](#): > > Thanks, Dope. > > None really. It’s just listed as one of the foods that shouldn’t be eaten (Tamas). > > While searching for more info I also saw this mentioned in places… sounds woo-woo to me. the entire thing sounds like woo to me. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/33 "2013-04-24T11:50:47Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > There is a difference between freezing homemade food and freezing commercial goods. We all certainly freeze leftovers and extras, but we don’t store them for many weeks or months and expect them to pop out of the microwave looking appealing and ready to eat. Freezing spaghetti sauce, goopy foods like enchiladas, etc. for a few weeks, and then expecting to heat them up and “finish cooking” with them is one thing. Commercial frozen foods are expected to last for months, resist mishandling like multiple partial thaws, cook quickly, and literally jump out of the box looking good and tasty. You simply cannot achieve that without using considerably different food composition and preparation techniques from anything like home or restaurant cooking. > > Go ahead, try it. Make up a truly finished “TV dinner” with sauce, meat, pasta, cheese, and vegetables. Package it any way you like. Freeze it for eight weeks. To be really fair, let it partially thaw once or twice. Nuke it without being too fussy about power and time (or turning, fluffing or tending it) and put it on the table as it comes out of the microwave. Does it look like the fresh version you made? Does it look even as good as a Swanson offering? Or does it look like colorless, separated, dried-out institutional food? > > Food engineering is not secret. It’s just not publicized. Anyone who imagines their burritos coming from rows of skilled mamacitas tenderly making each one from fresh taqueria ingredients, or any variation thereof, is welcome to their delusion. If it’s frozen and it’s not a raw vegetable, it’s as engineered as an iPad. In your first post you said nobody could freeze and reheat a delicious home burrito. Then when everyone said they reheat delicious frozen burritos all the time, you quickly switched to nobody being able to freeze food for weeks or months. But that’s not true either. I don’t know anybody who freezes leftovers for less than weeks or months. In my experience, virtually any frozen homemade food properly packaged will reheat better than commercial food because the ingredients are almost certain to be much higher quality. When I reheat dinner from many months ago it looks and tastes great. Contrarily, I don’t think I’ve ever seen processed microwaveable food look good or tastey. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/34 "2013-04-24T12:22:22Z")
> [@Laggard](#): > > Microwaving food is bad as it alters the dna of the food. Your body doesn’t recognize this altered DNA and thus wraps it in fat to protect your body. > > I actually read that somewhere. It doesn’t alter the DNA of food items any more or less than conventional cooking. Microwave photons don’t have enough energy to break chemical bonds; all they do is heat your food, same as boiling, frying, grilling, or conventional-oven baking. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/35 "2013-04-24T12:57:39Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > It doesn’t alter the DNA of food items any more or less than conventional cooking. Microwave photons don’t have enough energy to break chemical bonds; all they do is heat your food, same as boiling, frying, grilling, or conventional-oven baking. Yes I know. And the idea of your body wrapping food in fat to protect itself is amazingly stupid. I mentioned only as an example of more microwave oven junk science. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/36 "2013-04-24T13:43:02Z")
I remember my mom getting one of those mass-forward emails claiming that plastic containers, even the ones labeled as “microwave safe”, should never ever be nuked for fear of Vague Horrible Things happening to you. Is there any real credence to that, or should I tell mom not to sweat it? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/37 "2013-04-24T13:53:34Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > In your first post you said nobody could freeze and reheat a delicious home burrito. And I’ll stand by that if anyone wants to do it the way commercial ones are handled and not for a shorter freeze time, without interruptions, and without coddling the reheating process. Make your tasty burrito, throw it in the freezer for four months, and nuke it on high for a minute. Get back to me. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/38 "2013-04-24T13:54:02Z")
> [@dotchan](#): > > I remember my mom getting one of those mass-forward emails claiming that plastic containers, even the ones labeled as “microwave safe”, should never ever be nuked for fear of Vague Horrible Things happening to you. Is there any real credence to that, or should I tell mom not to sweat it? Tell her to stop reading, or at least do some homework on those emails. From [here](http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0706a.shtml) (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > The FDA, recognizing the potential for small amounts of plasticizers to migrate, closely regulates plastic containers and materials that come into contact with food. **The FDA requires that manufacturers test these containers and that those tests meet FDA standards and specifications**. It then review the test data before approving a container. > > Some of these tests measure the migration of chemicals at temperatures that the container or wrap is likely to encounter during ordinary use. For microwave approval, the agency estimates the ratio of plastic surface area to food, how long the container is likely to be in the microwave, how often a person is likely to eat from the container, and how hot the food can be expected to get during microwaving. The scientists then measure the chemicals that leach out and the extent to which they migrate to different kinds of foods. The maximum allowable amount is 100–1,000 times less per pound of body weight than the amount shown to harm laboratory animals over a lifetime of use. **Only containers that pass this test can display a microwave-safe icon, the words “microwave safe,”** or words to the effect that they’re approved for use in microwave ovens. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/39 "2013-04-24T13:56:45Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Frozen gluten free cream of mushroom soup concentrate seemed like a good idea at the time, but apparently corn starch slurry loses its thickening ability when frozen and thawed. You can probably use another thickener that can hold up to freezing. I’ve never tried it, but arrowroot apparently survives the freezing process quite well. And I believe xanthan gum would work quite well, too. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483/40 "2013-04-24T14:11:39Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > You can probably use another thickener that can hold up to freezing. I’ve never tried it, but arrowroot apparently survives the freezing process quite well. And I believe xanthan gum would work quite well, too. Right. So if you start substituting ingredients other than those the recipe calls for, you can create a food substance that can tolerate freezing and reheating. Food engineering carries this to extremes because the manufacturers are selling maximum convenience at low cost. People want cheap food items they can handle casually, store indefinitely, nuke in minutes and get an acceptable taste, appearance and mouthfeel from. That can’t be achieved with most home ingredients and recipes unless exceptional effort is used in initial prep, storage conditions and reheating or finish prep - at which point you are no longer saving much money or time. Frankly, I can make a new pot of almost any sauce quicker than I’ve ever been able to thaw and finish a frozen block of it. About the only thing I freeze any more is blocks of particularly good stock. I think individual positions on this might map to ability as a cook and quality preference in foods. If you eat a lot of frozen food and don’t like to cook every day, freezing batches of your own stuff is certainly a step up. But it doesn’t change the fact that commercial frozen food bears almost no resemblance to what you would make yourself. It just comes out of the microwave looking that way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-food-can-we-settle-this/656483.md?page=3)