How to use a microwave: instructions, is it harmful, service life

Nowa­days, almost every per­son in the house has a microwave oven. With it, it is con­ve­nient to heat food, defrost, cook inter­est­ing dish­es and even grill meat. How­ev­er, not every­one knows how to use the microwave so that it lasts as long as pos­si­ble and the food turns out to be of high qual­i­ty.

Instructions for use

When pur­chas­ing your first or new microwave, first of all, you should read the instruc­tions. In it you can learn about the pur­pose of the but­tons and about all its pos­si­bil­i­ties, for exam­ple, about the grill func­tion in the device. Only after that you can start using it.

How to turn on the microwave?

It’s the first thing peo­ple think about. Brief instruc­tions for acti­vat­ing the device:

1. First you need to put it on a flat sur­face, for exam­ple, on a table.
2. Then plug into the sock­et, as the device can­not work with­out elec­tric cur­rent.
3. After that, you may need to click on the “Start” or “Cook” but­ton. On some devices, you can do with­out but­tons. It is enough to turn the cook­ing time timer. After all these actions, the oven should work.

As for the timer, this is an impor­tant ele­ment, since it is he who reg­u­lates the cook­ing time. Now you can find dif­fer­ent types of timers, which one is bet­ter — it’s hard to say. The most com­mon is the dial, which must be turned clock­wise until the desired time is dis­played on the screen. There is also a numer­ic key­pad that requires you to enter sec­onds and min­utes.

You need to know exact­ly how much you need to heat or cook spe­cif­ic foods so that they do not dete­ri­o­rate. The infor­ma­tion is often found on the prod­uct pack­ag­ing.

What uten­sils do you need?

Hav­ing fig­ured out how to turn on the microwave and set the time, you need to decide on the dish­es that can be placed in the microwave. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to load met­al bowls and objects that can melt into the oven. It is also unde­sir­able to put plates that can get very hot. Cook­ware designed specif­i­cal­ly for the microwave oven is ide­al. It meets all the require­ments and will not harm the microwave.

If you want to heat up prod­ucts that tend to splash or burst, then they should be cov­ered with a spe­cial plas­tic cap. It can be toma­toes, apples, sausages, pea soup, etc.

Defrost func­tion

Each microwave has a defrost mode that is designed for frozen foods. It should be used before cook­ing ice meat. It usu­al­ly takes 15 to 30 min­utes for the defrost to be ful­ly com­plet­ed.

After learn­ing how to use the microwave, you need to take care of it.

Care rules:

• It must be cleaned reg­u­lar­ly, after dis­con­nect­ing from the net­work.
• For best results, the grates, turntable and oth­er sim­i­lar items should be removed.
• They need to be washed in warm water with liq­uid soap, and then allowed to dry on their own.
• The microwave itself should be cleaned with a bare­ly damp cloth, remov­ing all the crumbs and stains of grease that are present on the sur­face.
• It is impor­tant not to use water, as it may cause the appli­ance to mal­func­tion. How to prop­er­ly care for appli­ances, will tell the arti­cle — How to clean the microwave?
• When the microwave becomes clean, you can return the grills, turntable and oth­er items to their place.

Now you can use the microwave again.

How many years can be used?

When won­der­ing how many years you can use a microwave, you need to remem­ber the qual­i­ty of the device.

Expen­sive microwave ovens can last 5–8 years with­out fail­ures, but cheap ones can break even after 3 years.

Also, the dura­tion of oper­a­tion depends on how many times a week a per­son uses a microwave and how well he takes care of it. There are cas­es when the microwave oven works nor­mal­ly even after 11 years. Although experts do not rec­om­mend using such old devices. They can be haz­ardous to health, as the pro­tec­tive lay­er on the screen is deplet­ed, and harm­ful radi­a­tion begins to affect a per­son. In addi­tion, the device becomes obso­lete and starts to work worse. To make it last longer, you need to know how to use the device cor­rect­ly.

From this we can under­stand that the ques­tion of how much microwave can be used is pure­ly indi­vid­ual. Usu­al­ly, the own­er him­self under­stands when it is time to replace the device, since the device becomes incon­ve­nient to use after a cer­tain peri­od of time.

Are Microwaves Harmful?

Almost every­one could hear or read that microwaves are dan­ger­ous to health. How­ev­er, despite such state­ments, the devices con­tin­ue to be sold, and many peo­ple do not stop cook­ing in them. Is it harm­ful to use a microwave — that’s what every own­er of such a device should know.

Any­one who cooks in the microwave can be imme­di­ate­ly reas­sured. Microwaves are not dan­ger­ous to humans and do not poi­son food.

Yes, microwave radi­a­tion in itself is harm­ful, but the body of the device reli­ably pro­tects against them. If it’s intact, then there’s noth­ing to wor­ry about. But if the door glass is bro­ken or there is anoth­er mal­func­tion, then the device should be hand­ed over for repair or thrown away. In this case, they can­not be used, as it becomes real­ly dan­ger­ous.

In stud­ies designed to answer the ques­tion of whether it is pos­si­ble to use a microwave, there was no neg­a­tive effect on food. On the con­trary, foods that have been cooked in a microwave oven retain about 90% of the vit­a­mins, while those for which tra­di­tion­al culi­nary meth­ods have been used retain only 40–60% of the vit­a­mins. From this we can con­clude that if you know exact­ly how to use the microwave, then it will only ben­e­fit.

Grill function — what is it?

Grilling in the microwave is a very com­mon fea­ture that many appli­ances sup­port. How­ev­er, not all peo­ple know whether it is pos­si­ble to cook deli­cious food with it or not. Of course, this is pos­si­ble, espe­cial­ly if the microwave oven mod­el is of high qual­i­ty and expen­sive. You can make deli­cious veg­eta­bles, chick­en, meat and oth­er prod­ucts in it.

Under­stand­ing how to use a microwave grill is not always easy. From the first time it is rarely pos­si­ble to cook the prod­uct, since it is still not clear what tem­per­a­ture and time to set. In addi­tion, the grill is heat­ed and quartz, and their func­tions are very dif­fer­ent.

To cook, for exam­ple, chick­en, you will need:

1. Place it on wire racks or string it on a skew­er, if you have one.
2. Turn on the grill func­tion and set the time to about 30–40 min­utes. It is good if there is a quartz heater, as it cooks food bet­ter.
3. Wait the spec­i­fied amount of time.

As a result, the chick­en should turn out to be com­plete­ly fried and with a crispy crust in a grill device. If it is not ready in 40 min­utes, then the time should be increased by 15–20 min­utes. The same can be done with oth­er prod­ucts, as the grill func­tion in the appli­ance is real­ly ver­sa­tile and use­ful.

Video instruction

Mod­ern microwave ovens can often seem incom­pre­hen­si­ble to use, so it is rec­om­mend­ed to watch a video that, using the exam­ple of one of them, talks about turn­ing on, set­ting the timer and all the func­tions of the device.

Hap­py cook­ing!

Good to know: how to remove an unpleas­ant smell from the microwave.