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How your microwave oven works
Microwave ovens are safe. Microwave energy is not hot. It causes food to
make its own heat, and it’s this heat that cooks the food.
Microwaves are like TV
waves or light waves.
You can’t see them, but
you can see what
they do.
A magnetron in the
microwave oven pro-
duces microwaves.
The microwaves
move into the oven
where they are scat-
tered or stirred by a
mode mixer (like a
fan). Microwaves
bounce off metal
oven walls and are
absorbed by food.
Mode Mixer
Oven Cavity
Magnetron
Ceramic Bottc
I
Metal Floor
The ceramic bottom
of your microwave
oven lets microwaves
through. Then they
bounce off a metal
floor, back through
the ceramic bottom
and are absorbed by
the food.
P
‘l
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s
Microwaves pass
through glass, paper
and plastic without
heating them so food
absorbs the energy.
Microwaves bounce
off metal pans so food
does not absorb the
energy.
Microwaves may not
reach the center of a
roast. The heat around
the outside is what
cooks the roast all the
way through. This is
one of the reasons for
letting some foods
(roasts, baked
potatoes] stand for a
while after cooking, or
for stirring some foods
during the cooking
time.
,rn
The microwaves dis-
turb water molecules
in the food. As the
molecules bounce
around bumping into
each other, heat is
made, like rubbing
your hands together.
This is the heat that
cooks.