So does putting it in a pan, surely? I’d rather take my chances.
Incidentally, we have that exact microwave pictured on the cover at work, where we use it to prepare gels for Western blots. It’s nigh on irreplaceable, since it’s much larger than a typical modern microwave. I’m sure there’s something available from a lab supplier at some inflated price, but for the time being we’ll stick to our huge 80’s microwave oven.
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In other words, you haven’t used 'em enough to really know what they do, but that’s based on some principle that has nothing to do with what they do. Good enough.
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Now that is just the height of snobbery. I’m single, and I don’t find it sad, but helpful. It would probably be doubly or triply helpful if I was new to using a microwave (it looks to be from the 1980’s). Single-serve cuisine is kind of exacting: you want varied menus, not too many ingredients or prep time, and you want it to be tasty.
It’s like watching the Simpsons. Without the self-consciously “hip” set of scare quotes, it’s just everyday life. And I don’t find either of them funny.
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I can’t help but notice the not-so-subtle prejudice on this thread against single people.
Almost everyone spends at least some of their life without a live-in romantic partner. They still need to eat.
Personally, I think the people who go into and then stay in a loveless or even antagonistic relationship just so they’re not alone are stuck in a much more pathetic lifestyle.
That being said, I find there are a number of kitchen items which work a lot better than a microwave to create healthy diverse meals for one. A stack of steamer baskets in a wok or rice cooker, for example. Slow cookers. Pressure cookers. But that’s just my opinion. A friend’s mother wrote microwave cookbooks and apparently threw weekly dinner parties – quite elegant ones – using only (or mainly) the microwave, just to show how it could be done.
I was single for years without ever feeling the need to resort to a microwave.
Nothing sad about being single. There is something very sad about feeling that means you have to resort to bland microwaved meals for one (okay, I’m sure the things in this book are a step up from ready made lasagnas). On the plus side, now I’m married I still get to do the cooking, which I’m moderately competent at 
I guess some people just take no joy in good food, though. I had a housemate at university whose idea of spaghetti bolognese was boiled minced beef and spaghetti. No need for sauce, waste of time. He once told me he wouldn’t eat if he didn’t need to in order to survive.
No more so than bland oven meals for one. Or stovetop. Or whatever.
If that’s all you’ve used the microwave for, that’s your choice, not its fault.
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Should I buy this?
I don’t think this is the link I saw sometime in my hazy past… But here’s 12 “gourmet” recipes you can make with a microwave:
Basically impossible to char anything in a microwave (well, anything you’d want to eat afterwards). Very easy to char things in a pan.
Yay, obliterative bronchiolitis isn’t cancer.
Dude… what the fuck are you talking about? Did you even read what you linked to or did you just type +microwave +bad into google? The only reference to microwaves on the page relate to ‘popcorn workers lung’ which is caused by inhalation of airborne diacetyl (a chemical used to produce artificial butter flavouring)… The microwaves aren’t causing it, the popcorn is.
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The microwaves cause it to be emitted from the artificial butter flavor, so it’s really a question of semantics whether the microwaves or the artificial butter flavor (or both) “cause” that syndrome. Surely the microwaves are a contributing factor, as the butter on its own doesn’t emit enough diacetyl.
one chemical - which we now know shouldn’t be heated in a microwave - doesn’t make microwaves evil.
No, not really. I have used them plenty, and experimented with cooking with them (I like to cook). I just don’t particularly like the food they produce.
I think we all just having nostalgia for those heady days after microwaves first came out when we thought we would actually cook with them. Remember when microwaves all used to come with a thermometer probe so when you were cooking your poultry or roast in the microwave you could cook it to exact temperature?
So do modern ovens. About as many people use them, about as frequently. Null evidence.
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1981 was the Year the Turkey Sucked, IIRC. It was the year I started actively hating turkey dinners. Cursed be the Amana Radar Range.
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Yes but when was the last time they actually included one in a microwave oven?
