[jambutty]

It’s not the microwaves that are the problem but the ready meals that are heated up or cooked in them. It’s all those E numbers and additives. And now science has declared that there is a positive link between E numbers/additives and child hyperactivity.

Anyone with half a brain [email protected] wouldn’t put a sealed container in a microwave as that article that you pointed us to uses as an example why not to use a microwave. Also only an out and out fool would heat up a baby’s bottle and stick it in it’s gob without testing it first.

If I have a choice I will use the gas oven rather than the microwave but that is only because the oven cooking takes longer and I can stay at the keyboard.

The problem with cooking for one is that you still have the same number of pots and pans to wash that you would have when cooking for a family of four or more.

Talking of TV chefs like you were Ianto.W. – I wonder how much cooking they would do if they also had to do the washing up by hand?

Most of the ready meals especially supermarkets own brand are less nutritious anyway. Even home cooked meals can have the goodness boiled out of them. But worse than that is the raw food that you buy. It isn’t as nutritious as it used to be because the god of money has taken over and vegetables are grown too fast. Meat on the hoof is reared with adulterated feed to increase the yield. Poultry is a classic example. Vegetables need the growing time to develop the nutrients and taste. You cannot hurry nature and if you do the penalty is lesser quality goods.

Even if you grow your own vegetables organically in your own garden you are more likely to be using seed of lesser quality vegetables rather than the older and tastier varieties. Even genuine Jersey Royals don’t taste half as good as they used to.

The only really fresh fish that you are likely to get is if you catch it yourself or you are lucky enough to find an inshore fishing boat that delivers its catch ashore the day that it is caught. Otherwise the deep sea trawlers are at sea for weeks at a time and the catch is frozen in the hold. By the time that a fishmonger gets it, it is weeks old and has lost much of its flavour.

Ah! Well! Time for a frozen pizza heated in the microwave.