I hate microwave meals.
Not because I think they are destroying cooking (which they seem to be doing) not even because they taste bad (which they do) but simply because of one experience I had with a chicken rustlers burger. 
I understand that food becomes a time consuming necessity for university students rather than a chance to escape from the stresses of essay writing and microwave meals have become a less time consuming solution and in Beth Hensperger's Not Your Mother's Microwave Cookbook: Fresh, delicious and wholesome main dishes, snacks, sides, desserts and more she writes "microwave ovens have become an essential part of modern life- even for those who do not consider themselves cooks. Microwave cooking, especially using the ovens sold today, is a convenient and safe method of food preparation".(1) My initial problem with this statement was the fact she suggested that 'cooks' often use microwaves and that she states that microwaves are essential for today's average person to cook a meal. Firstly microwaves were not affordable or used in homes until 1965, so how were people who were not able to cook normally able to make warm food? It is a mystery to me too....
My first experience with a chicken rustlers burger terrified me.
As I made a small tear in the side of the casing, just enough to let out the faintest whiff of plastic cheese and half cooked "chicken" I began reading the cooking instructions. Cook for 70 seconds....... Cook for 70 seconds...... Cook for 70 seconds.... yes, that's right, 70 seconds. Now, I've cooked chicken before, and it has never taken 70 seconds. I watched the burger spin round in the garish white light created by the humming microwave and as I did I realised that the chicken inside was contracting and expanding. Growing and shrinking as if it was a pair of lungs or it's own living creature slowly going through steps of evolution, from a flat useless slab of 'meat' to a fully formed thing of it's own. I was nervous. 
It was hard, yet soft at the same time and as I came to my final few mouthfuls I began feeling disappointed in myself. I have just ingested something that I know has no nutritional value, tastes terrible, looks horrific and grows and shrinks. I had wasted £2.50....
All I urge you to do is stop and think before eating something that cooks in 70 seconds... It's not nice.