Microwave cooking (part III of III)

Microwaves & food poisoning

The salt added to microwave foods may interfere with the heating process, leaving harmful bacteria alive – even thriving.

In food safety experiments, British researchers added two types of bacteria associated with food poisoning to 30 microwave meals. After the meals were heated according to direction, Listeria bacteria remained alive in 29 of the 30 samples, and salmonella survived in twenty-four.

In another experiment described in the journal Nature, the researchers found that the more salt a food contains, the lower its core temperature remains during microwaving...