Don’t worry, this is not another blog post telling you that you SHOULD be a vegan or vegetarian! Instead, we are here to help you make environmentally-friendly food, in a microwave! Now you might be asking yourself, is a microwave even eco-friendly in the first place? 

About 60 percent of our conventional ovens are powered by electricity, not gas—and they’re less efficient than standard microwaves. In the first place, conventional ovens operate at a higher wattage—about 3,000, compared with something between 600 and 1,650 for a microwave. They also cost us energy by cooking food more slowly. One University of Bristol study found that a chicken cooked in a convection microwave resulted in energy savings of 30 percent over a conventional electric oven. 

Microwaves do have a few other environmental advantages. For one thing, they produce a lot less indoor air pollution than other cooking methods. Plus, they don’t heat up your house the way an oven can, which means lower energy costs associated with both your A/C and your refrigerator. Heating up a meal on the plate you intend to eat off of also means fewer dishes to wash—although regular use of your microwave might encourage higher consumption of ready-to-eat convenience meals and all their extra packaging.

Food waste is an important environmental consideration: Not only does it mean more garbage, it also means squandering all the resources that went into growing, storing, and preparing that food. Therefore, although the amount of energy that you consume while preparing the food matters, it is just as important for you to ensure that you do not waste that food! 

This blog post is from the Slate Article titled, Are Microwave Ovens Good for the Environment?