I feel like there is a bit of a cultural divide here. Microwaving is here (central europe) not part of food preperation and if it is used stuff is filled into glass containers instead of plastic packaging?
These glass containers will likely last forever.
They are more expensive than the cheapest plastics, but it's buy-once, so not a significant long-term factor.
Glass is fragile, dangerous, heavy, slippery, expensive, loud, and space-wasting.
Plastic containers are light, resilient, durable, portable, compact, and efficient.
I also have little doubt that IKEA will be around in 10 years compared to some random Amazon brand.
Where did you buy them? Were they name brand?
E: obviously I can spend extra effort to handle a hot glass container, but I'd rather deal with container without that property. Even with plastic containers there are some that gets suspiciously soft / weak after a few minutes in microwave, and then there's ones that stay sturdy and cool enough to handle. Half the point of microwave is convenience.
Honest question - is there something wrong with microwaving ceramic bowls? Literally every bowl intended for eating (rather than for mixing cooking ingredients) that I have ever owned or encountered has been ceramic.
> > For most Americans, they don't have glass plates/bowls at their work
As a note, most people I've seen microwaving their leftovers at work were microwaving plastic because that's how they packaged the leftovers from home. If there aren't dishes at work, let alone a full kitchen, then leftovers are transported, heated, and eaten from the same container.
Fair! I've been lucky enough to always work in places where the kitchen has a decent amount of crockery and cutlery into which leftovers could be transferred for heating, but I can see how this could be an issue. Thanks for pointing that out!
Some bowls are more prone to this than others, but it's not obvious and requires experimentation to determine. It's a pain.
And it depends on stuff you won't be able to discover.
I usually cover them with a plastic designed for this purpose which doesn't come in contact with food.
I use it all the time for potatoes unless I’m baking them. It shaves a lot off the cooking time with no I’ll effect
Microwaves work pretty well for saucy Chinese food, for example. (The alternate method is usually steaming, which is even soggier.)
But the warmth in the food heated on a burner is nicer than the warmth generated by the microwave (more even, cools slowly).
Maybe we slow down and expect our lunch to take 10 minutes to heat and 5 minutes to clean up?
In much the same way that I take a stick of butter out of the fridge and nuke it for exactly 9 seconds to get it (at least the bottom) to spreadable consistency. In fact, this is 90% of what I use a microwave for.
There are all kinds of industrial heated plates, continuously running pots on stoves, or always on ovens, etc restaurants use to keep the day's food heated or slightly reheat it.
Almost every restaurant uses microwaves for some part of food prep. Go work in a kitchen for a bit.
If "almost every restaurant microwaves" in one's area, they should probably move to a better area.
Though I'm not sure what you call a restaurant. Does it include fast food "restaurants" for example? Or some 2x-3x the local price tourist trap in places like Barcelona, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris (say, Montmartre) or the Greek isles?