First let me get this out of the way. I don’t judge people who use microwaves. If you’ve ever served me a meal prepared in a microwave, I didn’t secretly hate it. I didn’t wake up and decide one day that I had a moral issue with microwaves. For me it was more gradual than that.

In 2006, my father-in-law was diagnosed with a rare cancer called Angiosarcoma. In response to the diagnosis, he and my mother-in-law started trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Around the same time my mother-in-law had read about the dangers of using plastic in the microwave, and at the time they were eating more frozen dinners in plastic containers than they were comfortable with. They decided that it would be beneficial for them to sacrifice the convenience of the microwave for better health. They threw out their microwave and replaced it with a toaster oven.

When Jamie and I visited and experienced life without a microwave, we were intrigued. We were intrigued that it didn’t really change anything, and also that the foods we normally would have heated in the microwave ended up tasting so much better cooked in the toaster oven. We went home and decided to experiment with our microwave usage. We didn’t immediately chuck it out the window or even take it out of the kitchen, but we started thinking more about what we were cooking in it and about alternative ways to prepare food. After a while, we unintentionally stopped using our microwave completely. I was only heating water for tea or melting butter in it. During our transition to the farm, we had to rent for a few years while trying to figure out housing. The rentals we stayed in didn’t have microwaves, and we didn’t run out to buy one. Here are some reasons why.

Food tastes better when it’s cooked slower. I’m trying really hard right now, and I can’t think of any food that I think tastes better when cooked in a microwave. If you read my post last Monday, you know how I feel about baked potatoes. I’m a little particular to put it mildly. If you’ve ever had a really good and perfectly baked potato, compare that to one cooked in a microwave. It gets hot in a microwave, but the texture never comes out quite right. Also any food with more than one section–such as a baked potato with the starchy inside and the crispy skin–doesn’t do well in the microwave because the microwave can’t do two vastly different textures. I understand not everyone has the time to make certain foods the conventional way, and that sometimes the only option is the microwave, but if you have the time and the option, why wouldn’t you choose better tasting food?

Having to wait for food makes it an experience. When we first started to wean the microwave from our lifestyle, we had been eating a lot of microwave popcorn. And when I say a lot, I mean my kids could eat it every day and still ask for more. This bothered me for two reasons. First microwaves are fast and convenient, but instant products are–more often than not–processed products, and processed foods are something my family tries to avoid when we can. Secondly, popping a bag of popcorn in three minutes wasn’t as meaningful as my memories of eating popcorn as a child. I loved it when my mom would make my sister and me popcorn on the stove. I can still smell the oil heating up, and then the smell of fresh hot corn as the kernels started to pop. It was so magical watching the lid start to rise from the expanding volume of the popped corn. A few pieces always escaped creating a frenzied race to see who could grab and eat the first piece. When the pops grew fewer and further between, the smell of butter melting on the stove took prominence. That moment was how we knew it was almost time to dive in. A ding from the microwave just can’t compete with the memories made from popping corn on the stove. And really, it doesn’t take much more time. Making it on the stove only takes about ten minutes. The true difference is in the experience.

It teaches my kids patience. We live in a microwave society with instant gratification everywhere you look. When people are used to getting everything they want the second they want it, patience becomes an antiquated notion. No one can fathom it existed in the first place. After all, why would we need patience if we never have to wait. This is the one thing that adds the most stress to my job as a parent. Being a parent is hard enough without your kids constantly barking orders and demands, and expecting instant responses. I intentionally fight this behavior in my children by removing the microwave from the equation. If they want something to eat–even if I jump up and start on it right away–they have to wait for it. They have to wait for me to heat it up in the oven or on the stove top. For the things that don’t need to be heated, I still take my time so that they won’t expect instant results. I want them to know that anything they consume is prepared with love and costs something. Time and energy is more valuable a currency to me than money. Even though I love them unconditionally and they can have all my time and energy if they need it, I want them to appreciate every morsel of time and energy that I give to them.

The microwave-less lifestyle started as an experiment, but it is now our way of life. Our house on the farm had a microwave, and one of the first remodeling projects for us was replacing it with a range hood. Though it might not be the lifestyle for everyone, we have grown to enjoy the small amount of peace and the patience that we’ve gotten back from not having a microwave to rely on. I love being intentional about planning our family’s food, and without a microwave as a safety net, I have to be.