The Nation - News from Sept. 1, 1987

Bacon cooked in a microwave has all the flavor but almost none of the suspected cancer-causing elements formed during skillet frying, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher said at the American Chemical Society conference in New Orleans. The potentially carcinogenic nitrosamines--a class of chemicals known to cause cancer in some laboratory animals--do not show up when bacon is put into the microwave for under 45 seconds, said Barbara Miller of the agency’s National Center for Toxicological Research, citing the lower temperatures in microwave cooking.