Goodbye Mr. Microwave

Being a very health conscious individual and parent, I do NOT use a microwave in our house.  We don’t even have a microwave!  Most people look at me like I’m crazy when they discover this, as our culture has heavily become dependent on quick fixes to everything, including our food.

I believe cooking or heating any food in a microwave is unsafe, especially if it is done on a routine or consistent basis.

here is just one of many articles on the dangers of using microwave ovens.  I finally decided to get rid of mine about two years ago.  At first it was a little difficult, mainly because I was so accustomed to just mindlessly throwing left overs in the microwave to reheat for lunch or dinner.  I could heat up a whole plate in under a minute!

Now, I had to plan a little and either reheat the food in my oven or on the stove top.  This means that when someone is hungry and wants a tv dinner, instead of it taking 4 minutes, it now might take 30-44 minutes.   It actually was really easy to do.  It didn’t take no time for this to become the norm.  My husband and kids use the oven and stove for all reheats, tv dinners, and anything frozen. At first there was a little complaining, but we all agreed that this was an important thing to do, and now after two years using a microwave would seem ‘weird’ to us.

There is a certain satisfaction knowing that the food my kids are eating now hasn’t been molecularly altered somehow. As a parent I feel it is my duty to give my kids the best start possible in life and I feel very good about my decision.

Yummy

After loosing our microwave the biggest problem was how to pop popcorn?  My son LOVES popcorn, so I went out and bought a small popcorn popper.  We buy organic popcorn kernels, throw them in the popper, and in less time than it would take in the microwave we have great popcorn~and all the molecules are still intact.

If you are considering giving up your microwave but fell like you can’t live without it, why not try to start off slow and incorporate one change at a time until you ween yourself off.

Some small changes could include:

• No more microwave popcorn. Buy a popper and start enjoying movie style popcorn…the kids will love it!
• only use the microwave when you are in a huge hurry.  If you have the extra time to reheat food on the stove, why not give it a try…it’s really not that difficult and the more you do it the more accustomed you will get to this method of reheating
• don’t defrost meat in the microwave. Make sure and remember to leave it in the fridge the night before and either take it out early in the morning or cook it frozen

Remember that eating should be a mindful occasion experienced with gratitude and joy.  Teach your kids (and yourself) to slow down and enjoy the opportunity to give their body the good food that it needs to be healthy.  The extra few minutes that it takes to use the stove top will be worth it.