Science is proving that heating your family's food with a microwave can be harmful to human health. According to this article, the difference between heating your food on the stove or steaming it vs. using a microwave's radiation to heat it is that microwaves deform and distort the molecules in food while conventional heating methods don't. This matters because once the food molecules have been altered, the nutritional value of the food drops drastically. 

Microwaves work by causing water molecules to resonate at very high frequencies, converting them into steam and thereby heating your food.  ​While this might be a convenient way to prepare your food, using microwave radiation in this way actually changes the chemical structure of that food. ​Multiple studies have shown the serious damage in nutritional  content caused by microwaving items such as

broccoli, garlic and breast milk. ​Studies showed that microwave heating actually destroyed the active healing properties of foods. 

The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture examined what microwaves do to broccoli, finding that broccoli, after being microwaved, lost up to 97% of its beneficial antioxidants. By comparison, when researchers steamed broccoli, they discovered that it only lost 11% or fewer of its antioxidants. 

A study using the super food garlic found that just 60 seconds in a microwave can render its principle active ingredient (alliinase) as useless. 

Microwaves have also been found to destroy immune-boosting agents that are found in breast milk. These are disease-fighting nutrients which are essential to the health and development of the child. For example, one study found that microwaving breast milk caused a decrease in lysozyme activity and antibodies, and aided the growth of more pathogenic bacteria. The interesting thing about this study is that the researchers found that more damage was done to the milk from microwaving compared to any other method of heating. 

Dr. Mercola states on his website: I don't recommend storing your food in plastic or cooking it in a microwave, but if you're going to use either, at least don't use them together.  Microwaving food in a plastic container virtually guarantees that your food will be contaminated with plastic chemicals that have leached into your food during the heating process. 

The sad state of our soils is yet another reason to ditch your microwave and respect our food's natural nutritional content. Over the past century, the quality of fresh food has declined due to soil depletion, unsustainable industrial farming practices, overproduction of crops and the use of artificial fertilizers and toxic pesticides and herbicides such as glyphosate, which acts as a mineral chelator. You can no longer assume you're getting all of the vitamins, minerals, enzymes and phytonutrients you need by eating a multitude of fresh produce, even if you're eating organic foods. Not surprisingly, the amount of nutrition in a calorie of food has been reduced over the past 50 years.

Three recent studies of historical food composition have shown 5 to 40 percent declines in some of the minerals in fresh produce, and another study found a similar decline in our protein sources.

So, now more than ever, you must be careful to maximize the "bang for your buck" when it comes to the foods you eat. Research shows your microwave oven will not help you in these efforts. Instead, it will in fact threaten your health by violently ripping the molecules in your food apart, rendering some nutrients inert at best, and carcinogenic at its worst.

Here are a few tips on how to prepare your food after you've ditched your microwave:

• Plan ahead. Take your dinner out of the freezer that morning or the night before so you don't end up having to scramble to defrost a 5-pound chunk of beef two hours before dinnertime. 
• Make soups and stews in bulk, and then freeze them in gallon-sized freezer bags or other containers. An hour before meal time, just take one out and defrost it in a sink of water until it's thawed enough to slip into a pot, then reheat it on the stove. Preparing batches of meals in advance will also ensure you always have a good meal available on days when you're too busy or too tired to cook. 
• Consider eating more organic raw foods.  This is the best way to improve your health. 
• A toaster oven makes a great faux-microwave for heating leftovers.  Keep it at a low temperature (200-250 degrees Fahrenheit) and gently warm a plate of food over the course of 20-30 minutes.  

The growing knowledge about the negative effects microwaves have on our food and on our health points to one solution - stop using microwaves to heat your food.  The mantra, "You are what you eat" is really true.  We need to consider not only what we buy, but also how we cook it.  When it comes to microwave ovens, I don't want my family to suffer the price for convenience by compromising our health.