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Microwave Ovens

Microwave Oven

Despite the foodies disdain and contempt, the microwave is found in over 90% of British kitchens. Don't be tempted into buying a fancy one though - the cheapest will do the job for you.

Microwave Energy Efficient

The truth is that they are very efficient for heating up or cooking small quantities and invaluable for rapidly defrosting food.

In terms of efficiency, they run around 65% to 75% efficient, which is very high, in other words for every 100 watts used, 70 watts is actually delivered into the food.

Conventional ovens use much of their energy input in bringing the oven cavity and the air in there up to temperature. In a microwave though, the energy just bounces around the cavity until it hits a water molecule in the food. That's why the cooking time is so short.

Browning Food in Microwave

Of course, they don't brown food, unless you have a built in grill and when you get into larger quantities they take longer than conventional cookers and grills so there is a point where you are better off with your conventional oven.

Fancy Programmable Microwaves

We had a wonderful machine with optimum programmes for cooking various foods or you could programme it yourself. It came with a built in browning grill and various accessories and cost quite a lot of money.

Well, after three years the display went so it was uncontrollable and un-repairable. We thought about it and realised we'd never used any of the programmes, I think you needed a degree in computer science to work them out, neither had we used the browning grill nor any of the accessories. It also had a clock that was always on sucking power. That electronic clock was costing us nearly £10.00 a year alone to run!

The replacement cost us a tenth of the first model and merely has a mechanical timer and power settings. It looks as good, cooks as good and it's now in its fifth year.

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