What if I microwave Beyond Meat?
I have a bag of Beyond Meat crumbles. Before reading the bag, I microwaved the crumbles in a bowl until they were thoroughly heated.
...Then I noticed that the bag says "DO NOT MICROWAVE". Is there a health concern with microwaving the product, or are the directions intended to ensure that the product is as enjoyable as it can be?
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Health related concerns are off-topic here, but pretty much anything that can be cooked on a stove can be heated in the microwave, whether the food is then palatable is another issue. There are a few things that are worth considering:
Microwaving food cooks differently to on a stove in that the water in the food is heated by the microwaves, this can lead to unpleasant textures in some foods
Similarly, microwaving some items has a burning risk if they are a dry food like bread - the inside browns before the outside (reverse toast anyone?) and could potentially catch fire without warning
Cooking on a stove usually means adding some other ingredients such as oil or water to help heat it, which alters the taste and can enhance flavour; you might not get this with food heated directly in the microwave.
On the Beyond Meat website there's no mention either way of microwaving (other than the section that reproduces the packaging you've already seen), however searching their tweets reveals that they concede it's possible, though undesirable, to microwave the stuff: twitter.com/BeyondMeat/status/615620476862230528
while you can microwave the #BeastBurger , we always recommend grilling
for the best taste, texture and experience!
twitter.com/BeyondMeat/status/424243984341684224
most of our fans eat them [Beyond Chicken Strips] out of the box, we
recommend pan frying them, but they are totally microwave safe!
There are no health concerns with microwaving food. Microwaves excite water molecules to heat food, they don't change food or make it dangerous. When a product says do not microwave it means one of 3 things:
The packaging is not meant to be microwaved: heating some types of packaging can cause bad tastes or smells in food, or cause the packaging to release unhealthy chemicals. Putting the food in a microwave safe dish solves this problem
Microwave heating causes undesirable texture changes in the food. Microwaving can sometimes cause a rubbery texture, or make it soggy
As @fraxinus rightly points out some foods can explode in the microwave, especially food with a shell or airtight covering of some sort like eggs and potatoes. Heat causes pressure to build until the shell or covering fails, causing a 'rapid unscheduled disassembly' as they say in the aerospace industry when something blows up
Number 2 is the most likely reason the package said do not microwave.
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