Microwave Cooking Safety Tips

Compact microwave ovens are perhaps one of the best inventions ever developed when it comes to busy people in busy times. Within minutes, you can be digging into a nutritious baked potato, sipping a cup of tasty soup or eating a diet-friendly skinless chicken breast, all and heated to perfection.

Microwave cooking, even in a small and compact microwave, is perfectly safe as long as you keep in mind a few simple food safety precautions. One of the potential drawbacks of microwave cooking is the fact that these appliances do not always cook foods evenly. Cold spots can result, which means there might be areas of foods that did not get cooked thoroughly enough and could harbor risky bacteria. To avoid any problems with food-borne illness, it might be a good idea to invest in an instant-read food thermometer, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service.

After cooking a food item, particularly meat or fish, it is wise to use the thermometer in several places to make sure that the internal temperatures have reached levels that are adequately high enough to kill off any harmful bacteria. To make cooking meat safer, you might want to take the pre-cooking precaution of removing bones since bones can actually get in the way of complete cooking, according to the agency.

The USDA also has other helpful ideas for cooking foods in compact microwave ovens safely. Among that agency's recommendations is to be sure to stop the oven and turn or stir foods during the cooking process so all parts of the item get cooked throughout.

It also is a good idea to separate pieces of food before you start cooking, place them evenly in a microwave-safe cooking dish, possibly add water and cover the food with plastic wrap suited for microwave ovens.

In the end, don't forget the stand time that is required for nearly all microwave cooking since the food continues to cook as it stands.

While the USDA has useful recommendations for food safety issues regarding microwave ovens, one of the handiest tools you have at your fingertips is the user guide that either comes with or can be downloaded for your compact microwave oven. These manuals generally include information about how to use the oven correctly, and the best models have manuals that give specific recommendations for power levels, times and methods for cooking particular foods of a specific weight.

It might sound like dreary reading at first, but most microwave user manuals are actually pretty straightforward documents that are packed with helpful information and written in clear language. Many also offer cooking guides and charts, so you can see at a glance what you need to do to cook your meals well enough to kill off bacteria, but not turn everything into a dry and tasteless mess.

Food-borne illnesses can range from mild to miserable, and in rare cases, they can even be fatal. It is better to be safe and enjoy your handy appliance. Check the manual, follow the guidelines and be sure to pick up a food thermometer. You will be glad you did.

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