[mahrain]

This explains a lot, American microwaves have these settings for different types of food etc, it seems most people throw something in and just 'nuke it'. European microwave ovens on the other hand, have a setting for different wattages (90W up to 720W 'Max' in my case), which, combined with instructions in the recipe or on the box, provide the right setting for this particular food.

[notachatbot123]

Are you sure that European microwaves actually use continuous power at those wattages and not also "simulate" the wattage by using short bursts of a fixed power?

[adrian_b]

Some have inverters for continuous power adjusting, others turn on and off the magnetron.

In any case, all that I have ever used have 2 dials, one for power and one for time (and a button to allow to chain multiple time intervals, each with a different power level). I have always used only these 2 dials and I have never used any other buttons that may exist for preset programs.

For many years I have used microwave ovens only for reheating food. Now I consider that I was stupid and I cook all the food that I eat in a microwave oven, from raw ingredients.

This is much better than by traditional means, because it is much faster and perfectly reproducible. Moreover, cooking in a microwave oven removes the need for continuous or periodic stirring that is required in many traditional cooking methods, because the microwave-cooked food is homogeneous (without lumps etc.) even with no stirring, if the time and power level are chosen correctly.

[ahartmetz]

They switch the magnetron on and off, unless they have inverters I guess. I have seen the two knob ones (and I prefer these) and the fancy ones, which all have cryptic user interfaces and usually no manual next to them.

[cwmma]

American microwaves almost always have a fairly easy way to change the power level, it's just nobody bothers to use it.