“Microwaving food destroys its nutritional value.”
Microwaving does not destroy the nutritional value of food.
A microwave is a fine way to cook or heat healthy food without losing its value. To keep the most vitamins, use a short cooking time and only a little water.
Next time you cook vegetables, try microwaving them with just a splash of water until they are tender.
Food-composition studies across many vegetables and reheated foods consistently find that microwaved food keeps most of its nutrients, and microwaving often keeps vitamin C better than boiling. Every cooking method lowers some heat-sensitive vitamins, but no study found that microwaving wipes out a food's value.
Microwaving does not destroy the nutritional value of food. Like any cooking, it lowers some heat-sensitive vitamins, but in vegetable studies it often kept more vitamin C than boiling, and minerals stayed stable.
A 2018 study cooked several vegetables by blanching, boiling, steaming and microwaving. Vitamin C kept after cooking ranged from 0% to 91% across all the cooked samples; microwaving generally kept the most and boiling the least. Some cooked vegetables had more vitamin E or beta-carotene than raw ones, depending on the vegetable, and microwaving lost the most vitamin K in two leafy greens but the least in spinach and chard. A 2007 broccoli study found minerals held steady under every microwave setting, while vitamin C and other plant compounds dropped, mostly from heat and from leaking into cooking water; the longest times and the most water caused the biggest losses. An older review of reheating studies found that, at low power settings, microwaving kept B vitamins and vitamin C as well as or better than conventional reheating.
Does microwaving keep vitamin C better than boiling?
Often, yes. In a study of several vegetables, microwaving generally kept the most vitamin C and boiling kept the least. Boiling loses more because vitamin C leaks out into the cooking water.
- Lee S, Choi Y, Jeong HS, Lee J, Sung J. Effect of different cooking methods on the content of vitamins and true retention in selected vegetables. Food Science and Biotechnology. 2018;27(2):333-342. DOI: 10.1007/s10068-017-0281-1. PMID: 30263756. PMCID: PMC6049644
- López-Berenguer C, Carvajal M, Moreno DA, García-Viguera C. Effects of microwave cooking conditions on bioactive compounds present in broccoli inflorescences. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 2007;55(24):10001-10007. DOI: 10.1021/jf071680t. PMID: 17979232
- Hoffman CJ, Zabik ME. Effects of microwave cooking/reheating on nutrients and food systems: a review of recent studies. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 1985;85(8):922-926. DOI: 10.1016/S0002-8223(21)03737-8. PMID: 3894486