How your microwave oven works Microwave ovens are safe. Microwave energy is not hot.
make its own heat, and its this heat that cooks the food.
Mode Mixer Magnetron
Oven Cavitv
Microwaves are like TV A magnetron in the
waves or light waves.
You can’t see them, but microwave oven pro-
duces microwaves.
you can see what The microwaves
they do. 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.
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.
It causes food to
Ceramic Bottom
Metdl 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.
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z.
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.
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