How do you heat up a dinner?

Jjjjjjjbarry

Hello,

I live alone so often make dinner that is enough for the next two days.
I usually reheat in the microwave but have heard many say it's not healthy to microwave.

Does anyone else actually still use a microwave and how do other single people reheat their dinner?

Jellybaby1

I've never heard that reheating in a microwave is unhealthy. I regularly do this when I'm using up leftovers.

Tree

We use the microwave all the time (not single, but one veg one meat eater sometimes needs two meals handled ), the main risk with it is that the landlord installed it on an eyelevel shelf and i'm clumsy....

Mostly I reheat in the microwave, and sometimes on a pan or in a covered dish in the oven, depending on what the meal is.

CelticRambler

Depends on the dinner. Any kind of sauce or stew I'll re-heat in the microwave, but I'd always cook a fresh portion of pasta or rice if that's what the sauce was meant for. For a stew, though, if I've got pre-cooked mashed potatoes, I'll microwave a plate-full of those. On the other hand, tonight's dinner was fried mash potato, fried eggs and peas. The frying was obviously done in a pan, the peas went in the microwave.

I've never heard anyone (other than conspiracy theorists) say microwaved food was unhealthy, unless they're referring to a lukewarm re-heat of a bowl of rice (which isn't unhealthy, it's downright dangerous :eek: ) but there may be some concern about stuff leaching out of plastic. I don't ever use clingfilm over my food, but I reheat my pasta sauces in the plastic ice-cream containers I store them in.

_Brian

Microwaved food is perfectly safe.

Now, it can become superheated in places and you could burn yourself.

Also, some foods reheat poorly in the microwave and so are less than perfect.

But it’s no way unsafe.


Something to do regularly is wipe down the seal around the door, if the seal gets dirty it can affect the seal and “possibly” cause a microwave leak.

ForestFire

I don't think reheating rice is dangerous in itself.

It appears that the longer rice is left, or leaving it at room temperature for long time, until eating it, the more dangerous it becomes as bateria grows

If you are careful with this and reheat until pipping hot there should be no issue.

But it is good to highlight that rice dose have issues.

How many more leave a take away curry at room temperature and eat or reheat later.

https://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning.aspx?CategoryID=51

Dizzyblonde

Mod note:Let's not stray into the realm of giving food safety advice please, folks.

Jjjjjjjbarry

http://wisemindhealthybody.com/collective-evolution/heating-food-microwave/

I’ve often read articles like that claiming microwaves destroy all the nutrients in the food. So is this just fake news conspiracies?? That one popped up in my Facebook feed this morning funnily enough.

_Brian

Some nutrients are damaged by heating be that microwave, oven or boiling but it’s nothing unique to a microwave.

Gloomtastic!

I lie awake at night worrying about whether threads breach the food safety advice rules or not. Careful please people. Sleep, sleep, my kingdom for sleep!![\b]
:rolleyes:;)

rubadub

Jjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

I’ve often read articles like that claiming microwaves destroy all the nutrients in the food. So is this just fake news conspiracies??

The more reliable sounding studies show the opposite, that more nutrients are retained.

The one in that link cites an article but I can only read the abstract. I would be interested to see how they did the testing.

If you microwave for 1 hour I expect it would lose a lot of the flavonoids.

Look at this one

A Japanese study found that only 6 minutes of microwave heating turned approximately 40 percent of the B12 found in milk dead and completely void of any nutritional value.

"only" 6 minutes ONLY!!! as though people routinely boil milk in microwaves for 20mins or something!

Dial Hard

it really depends on the food. Some dishes are best reheated in the microwave, some in the oven, some in a pot and some in a pan (leftover pizza, I'm looking at you).

My microwave has been broken for weeks and I haven't bothered replacing it so nothing is going in it at the moment but it's certainly not out of safety concerns.

georgina toadbum

I will microwave almost everything apart from fish. It just ends up stinking the place out.

rubadub

Airfryer is great for reheating, esp the foods that are poor in the microwave, like chips, pizza, battered stuff. In fact sometimes chipper chips come out even better than before.

_Dara_

I think the reason people are iffy about microwave reheating is that it can affect the quality of the food so it just won’t be as nice as fresh. But the things that can dry out in the microwave can also dry out on reheating in the oven.

Some microwaves reheat food patchily too so to make sure every part is reheated to a safe level can sometimes mean a good few minutes in the microwave which, again, can affect how edible the food is once heated.

_Dara_

CelticRambler wrote: »

Depends on the dinner. Any kind of sauce or stew I'll re-heat in the microwave, but I'd always cook a fresh portion of pasta or rice if that's what the sauce was meant for. For a stew, though, if I've got pre-cooked mashed potatoes, I'll microwave a plate-full of those. On the other hand, tonight's dinner was fried mash potato, fried eggs and peas. The frying was obviously done in a pan, the peas went in the microwave.

I've never heard anyone (other than conspiracy theorists) say microwaved food was unhealthy, unless they're referring to a lukewarm re-heat of a bowl of rice (which isn't unhealthy, it's downright dangerous :eek: ) but there may be some concern about stuff leaching out of plastic. I don't ever use clingfilm over my food, but I reheat my pasta sauces in the plastic ice-cream containers I store them in.

Constantly reheating food in plastic takeaway containers is a no-no, as they are made to be disposable. Those are the ones that could start leeching. So I’d be weary of reheating stuff often in ice cream containers as they’re not designed for that purpose and the materials used might reflect that.

rubadub

_Dara_ wrote: »

Some microwaves reheat food patchily too so to make sure every part is reheated to a safe level can sometimes mean a good few minutes in the microwave which.

A huge problem is the fact that a large majority of people use microwaves ONLY on full power, and never stir or take any care at all, so they destroy food.

If your method of reheating say spag bol was to sit a saucepan on the hob and get it roasting hot on full power, then dumping the spag bol in without ever stirring it, then you can also expect scorched bits while others are still cold.

It is easy enough to microwave foods and have them turn out OK, I cringe seeing people destroying food in them.

AMKC

CelticRambler wrote: »

Depends on the dinner. Any kind of sauce or stew I'll re-heat in the microwave, but I'd always cook a fresh portion of pasta or rice if that's what the sauce was meant for. For a stew, though, if I've got pre-cooked mashed potatoes, I'll microwave a plate-full of those. On the other hand, tonight's dinner was fried mash potato, fried eggs and peas. The frying was obviously done in a pan, the peas went in the microwave.

I've never heard anyone (other than conspiracy theorists) say microwaved food was unhealthy, unless they're referring to a lukewarm re-heat of a bowl of rice (which isn't unhealthy, it's downright dangerous :eek: ) but there may be some concern about stuff leaching out of plastic. I don't ever use clingfilm over my food, but I reheat my pasta sauces in the plastic ice-cream containers I store them in.

I don't ever use clingfilm over my food, but I reheat my pasta sauces in the plastic ice-cream containers I store them in.

Not a good idea. Much better and safer to put it on a plate and heat it on that. Heating it in plastic plates could mean the plastic contaminating your food and it becoming dangerous. Plastic is made from oil after all. Unless that plastic is designed to be used in a microwave I would not chance it and even then only once or twice at the most.