The frequency of the electromagnetic radiation in a micro wave oven is thousands of times lower than gamma and x rays, so negligible ionization is produced in the food unless you heat the food to very high temperature. Typically food that has been microwaved is safer than food heated by other methods, but I suppose rare health exceptions occur. If heated in a plastic container, there is some possibility that toxic gases from the plastic will enter the food, but that is also true of heating food in plastic containers by other food heating methods. Neil

I would think that contamination of that kind could happen from other materials too, for example, heavy metals are sometimes used in pigments for glazed ceramics and coloured glass.

It is actually interesting that one so often hear about how bad microwaves are, how they reduce the nutrients in the food, create carsinogenic substances and so on, when these are very real problems with traditional methodes for food preparation. High temperatures can create carcinogens and release substances from the cooking gear, cooking in water can wash/disolve out nutrients, coking over fires or smoking food can introduce unhealthy materials from the smoke, and so on. I would think that these problems would actually be less likely to occur with microwave ovens.

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Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

TrAI,

That is what I suspected when I started this thread, and what I wanted
eventually to learn about. Those carcinogens produced in ordinary oven,
stovetop, and grill cooking sure are tastey, though! I'm not going to give
those up for the health advantages of microwaved food!

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Well, I suppose one have to find a balance between safety and enjoying the ride, the game is destined to be lost sooner or later, and then it is to late to play.

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Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

When meat is roasted next to a fire (not over it, so it's not subject to the harmful smoke from the burned grease), which cooks the meat, renders the fat into grease which drips into the fire, burning it (instead of leaving a mess). Many fruits and vegetables should be eaten raw. A few, such as potatos, should be cooked, both to make it more digestible, as well as to remove (mostly) harmful toxins (glycoalkaloids). Exposure to light, and age, cause greening due to the growth of chlorophyl, and seed tubers (the "eyes" of the potato), both of which contain much higher concentrations than the main part of the potato itself. Interestingly, the highest concentration is found immediately beneath the skin, which is perhaps one reason why, intuitively, we began skinning our potatoes. Baked potatoes, however, experience enough heat to minimize these toxins.

Microwaved potatoes, however, may not! Then again, they may... Just how hot does the surface of a nuked potato get during those 4 minutes on high?

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.