Microwaves

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This characteristic of microwaves, the efficiency with which they are
concentrated in a narrow beam, is one reason why they can be used in
cooking. You can produce a high-powered microwave beam in a small oven,
but you can't do the same with radio waves, which are simply too long.

Microwaves and their Use

The idea of cooking with radiation may seem like a fairly new one, but in
fact it reaches back thousands of years. Ever since mastering fire, man
has cooked with infrared radiation, a close kin of the microwave.

Infrared rays are what give you that warm glow when you put your
hand near a room radiator or a hotplate or a campfire. Infrared rays,
flowing from the sun and striking the atmosphere, make the Earth warm and
habitable. In a conventional gas or electric oven, infrared waves pour
off the hot elements or burners and are converted to heat when they strike
air inside and the food.

Microwaves and infrared rays are related in that both are forms ...

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agitate only water molecules, they pass through all
other molecules and penetrate deep into the chicken. They reach right
inside the food. Ordinary ovens, by contrast, fail to have the same
penetrating power because their infrared waves agitate all molecules.
Most of the infarred radiation is spent heating the air inside the oven,
and any remaining rays are absorbed by the outer layer of the chicken.
Food cooks in an ordinary oven as the heat from the air and the outer
layer of the food slowly seeps down to the inner layers.

In short, oven microwaves cook the outside of the chicken at the
same time as they cook the inside. Infrared energy cook from the outside
in - a slower ...

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