Ten Reasons to Throw Your Microwave Out

Again, I have been trying to start a couple of threads w/ alternative and unknown health risks of certain common foods, practices going on today.

HERE is a website that outlines the risk of microwaving foods. They present some historical facts first:

Is it possible that millions of people are ignorantly sacrificing their health in exchange for the convenience of microwave ovens? Why did the Soviet Union ban the use of microwave ovens in 1976? Who invented microwave ovens, and why? The answers to these questions may shock you into throwing your microwave oven in the trash.

Over 90% of American homes have microwave ovens used for meal preparation...

That site then discusses the technical elements of microwave ovens and the cancer risks involved.

Getting to the heart of the argument (it is one, since corporate interests still have plenty investing in them) is the fact that microwave ovens CHANGE the molecular structure of food. Outlined in this article are some stats regarding how.

Here are a couple more articles/sites delving into the topic.... I know a lot of consumers still depend on this dangerous tool everyday, try to figure out how to change your diet to not need one anymore.

Ten Reasons to Throw Out Your Microwave
clipmarks.com...

From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting in our kitchens. Based on this research, we will conclude this article with the following:

1). Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term - permanent - brain damage by "shorting out" electrical impulses in the brain [de- polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue].

2). The human body cannot metabolize [break down] the unknown by-products created in microwaved food.

3). Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered by continually eating microwaved foods.

4). The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual [long term, permanent] within the human body.

5). Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit, or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down.

6). The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free radicals when cooked in microwave ovens.

7). Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths [tumors]. This may explain the rapidly increased rate of colon cancer in America.

8). The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood.

9). Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.

10). Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory, concentration, emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.

www.alun.dk...
www.herbalhealer.com...
tkocomix.blogspot.com...

[edit on 15-10-2007 by anhinga]

[edit on 15-10-2007 by anhinga]

[edit on 15-10-2007 by anhinga]

reply to post by anhinga


I haven't gone over the links in depth but most of this is pure junk, sad to say.

From your quote, it looks like the usual uninformed microwave bashing with the usual faux experts, although I've no doubt they'll ring in the former medical director of Lapland.

I'm suspicious of crap in the food as much as anyone else, but I really don't believe eating microwaved food is harmful. The second article mentions studies but doesn't reference them -- that's always a BIG red flag that the information isn't exactly top-shelf.

I would be more concerned about cooking in a non-stick or aluminum pan. I use only stainless steel and cast-iron because of this.

I poked around a little after I read your article and could not find a single reputable scientific or medical site that backed up any of these claims. Only "alternative health" sites.

Since we've been nuking our food for over 50 years, and since the microwave works on the water molecules in the food by making them vibrate faster (just like if you'd cooked them on the stove), I don't see any problem.

I wouldn't recommend using your microwave as a hand dryer, but as far as making dinner in it, there's no problem.

Get rid of your Teflon instead.

I mean, seriously, look at the first one:

1). Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term - permanent - brain damage by "shorting out" electrical impulses in the brain [de- polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue].

Do these people ever do the least bit of reading and study on the subjects they're discussing?

First - by what method? By what mechanism does eating food cooked in a microwave going to cause this? Because you really have to have that bit of info in a discussion. Or you have to have a lot of statistical data supporting a correlation which you then have to follow up with causative hypotheses.

But by the terms used "shorting out" etc I get the distinct impression that they're trying to imply the food has somehow absorbed radiation which will cause this "shorting out" damage. Bullpuckey. The word 'radiation' in this context isn't the same as the word 'radiation' used to describe ionizing or particulate radiation such as you'd have if it were 'radioactive'. That's really confusing to a lot of laymen, thus you end up with housewives who think their food will become radioactive if they overcook it.

Nonetheless, that's not how your brain works. Neurons aren't "magnetized" at all, that entire side of the statement is pure bovine excrement. Next, they don't really conduct electricity in the same manner as a wire - you can't "short them out" exactly. The impulse travels down the cell membrane in a wave of depolarization, more like people doing the 'wave' in a stadium. There is no longitudinal conduction of electrons except between nodes of Ranvier in a myelinated nerve, where you get "saltatory" conduction. But the transmembrane polarization in a nerve is created by sodium-potassium pumps, and is depolarized by ion channels being opened by various cues in the neuron when it fires in normal operation.

Yep, that's right - a neuron that doesn't depolarize occasionally isn't DOING anything.

Anyway, the only way to "short it out" would be to either block the Na-K pump or to open the ion channels. I'll bet you won't see them explain how that happens.

The only problems regarding microwaves is the container you are cooking them in can contaminate your food..

I hate plastic wrapped garbage anyway

This is your third thread regarding modern food techniques/ingredients..
What do you eat?

You're not about to hit us with a new diet book are you??

Coming to the OPs defense, there are problems with our food. Quite a few, actually. But I think OP is barking up the wrong tree in many cases, and just needs to learn to sort out the informational wheat from the pseudoscientific chaff.

There are so many more things to worry about in the food than microwave cooking.

Yeah, transfats are a lot more bothersome to me than microwaves. Not to mention they taste nasty for the most part, compared to their natural counterparts.

Unfortunately sat fats and trans are both bad, just in different ways, so I'd rather die of using butter than margarine.

I'm also not much for unfermented soy in my diet, but just try avoiding it.

Those flexible high temperature silicone cake baking pans are a much larger concern to me than an occasional use of the microwave. I only use the nuker for quickly warming up things maybe once or twice a week- not as the primary cooking appliance as they have a tendency to turn things to tasteless mush.

As always - moderation in all things is the way to go

"Don't look in there, you will get cancer!" Maybe...

The only thing that I have heard about microwaves that sounds possible is that it takes out a lot(or all) nutrient's and other stuff thats supposedly good for us.


Reading the thread, I got thinking...
Microwaves might be perfectly fine but.. It is probably possible to add something to microwaved food that would only become deadly or make you sick if it is 'nuked.'
People would probably come the conclusion that it was the microwaves fault.

Thats just me thinking with my head in the microwave though.

Can't stop laughing

Microwaves are incapable of causing any of the "symptoms" or side-effects described in any of these articles. If the OP knew how a microwave worked, then (s)he might find this information as preposterous as most of us do.

Now, I also agree with many of you - there are serious problem with our food supply. We are regularly hit with product recalls due to E.Coli, salmonella or some other bacterial contamination. Then there are the pesticides. The additives. The artificial this and that. The preservatives. The processing. The transferring and shipping. The storage. Now they are exasming allowing "Organic" foods to be a certain percentage of additives!?!? Now, that just doesn't sound very organic to me.

If people want to enage in the occassional trans-fat, go for it. On the run and need a quick meal? Grab that hot-pocket and don't feel too guilty. But eat a natural, well-balanced diet and you will be healthier. I think it's time to re-teach people how to eat as it seems that the vast majority of us have forgotten how to eat healthy.

I imagine judging from this site the 127 million (!!) overweight people in America occasionally post on ATS. Aside from changing the MOLECULAR structure of your food, these things also turn your food into waste.

Are you one of the overweight mentioned? 127 million out of under 400 million is no small number. I notice more anger and resistance in this thread already. It seems obvious, people are addicted to this poison machine as much as Equal/Nutrasweet and the rest of the poison sugar.

It doesn't take that much to change your diet!

We have been putting garbage into our bodies since convenience became the norm to blame laziness.

We find time to do other things but we are looking for convenience when it comes to the food that nourishes our bodies.

I have a microwave, but I still cook my meals in the stove and do it from scratch as much as I am able to do.

reply to post by anhinga


So, it's your contention that there weren't any overweight people before the microwave became popular?

Or that there haven't been a bazillion other foods/additives introduced in the same time period, like, say, HFCS?

It doesn't "change the molecular composition of food" any more than any other method of heating, by the way. Cook pot, microwave, heat is heat.

reply to post by anhinga



Just because people don't 100% agree with your slightly alarmist opinion doesn't make them microwave loving,trans fatty eating,sweetex addicts.

I try and balance nutrition between modern and natural style cooking when I'm busy.
Not the healthiest I've ever eaten but not the worst either.

I agree with Marge. People's problem with obesity is more to laziness and addiction to modern comforts rather than ingredients.
Why burn a few extra calories peeling,chopping and sweating over a stove if you can unwrap and nuke something.
Let alone chasing,catching,skinning and preparing your food.

EVERYWHERE you look recommends a BALANCED diet.

1) ....[de- polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue].

I didn't know my brain is polarized or magnetized. So it must be bad to always sleep in one direction, the earth magnetic field could demagnetized it .. making me a

[edit on 15-10-2007 by looofo]

I didn't say that -- I threw the stat up there. Almost 1 out of 4 people in the U.S. are overweight, although, I imagine if we looked at these kind of stats before the mv oven -- they'd be a lot less. That's something not really worth arguing. . . .

Also, I'll have to disagree w/ you - "heat is heat"?? I won't accept or ever agree w/ that statement -- this seems a little different then fire heating:

Microwaves are a form of electromagnetic energy, like light waves or radio waves, and occupy a part of the electromagnetic spectrum of power, or energy. Microwaves are very short waves of electromagnetic energy that travel at the speed of light (186,282 miles per second). In our modern technological age, microwaves are used to relay long distance telephone signals, television programs, and computer information across the earth or to a satellite in space. But the microwave is most familiar to us as an energy source for cooking food.

Every microwave oven contains a magnetron, a tube in which electrons are affected by magnetic and electric fields in such a way as to produce micro wavelength radiation at about 2450 Mega Hertz (MHz) or 2.45 Giga Hertz (GHz). This microwave radiation interacts with the molecules in food. All wave energy changes polarity from positive to negative with each cycle of the wave. In microwaves, these polarity changes happen millions of times every second. Food molecules - especially the molecules of water - have a positive and negative end in the same way a magnet has a north and a south polarity.


SOURCE

Mod Edit: Reduced Extrernal Quote.

[edit on 15/10/2007 by Mirthful Me]

If yo all had to drive the same road I do on my way to work every morning you would realize how safe a microwave is. I work in the kitchen appliance industry and am not even going to bother to respond.

mikell

Nothing that is man made and not natural is safe, nothing.

BTW the US waist started to expand with the introduction of refine goods, sugar, flour and many other items.

In other words we stop eating natural fiber in a change for refine cheaper foods full of sugars.

I always say that if people will just add a littler bit of fiber in the diet and I mean real fiber the waist line will get a littler bit smaller.

reply to post by anhinga


No offense, OP, but it was mentioned earlier that you'll need to find better sources than some alternative health site to back up your claims.

Where are the Russian and German studies for instance?

People are fat because of HFCS and hydrogenated oils. The microwave isn't the cause of anything but burned fingers and mouths, and sometimes crinkly plastic wrap.

Looking into food dangers is a hobby of mine -- or, was, when I had hermit crabs. Hermits are extremely sensitive to chemicals, etc. If microwaves were a danger, then my hermits would have died from it, as I cooked their food in the nuker quite often.

So I'm not just your usual skeptic-just-saying-no-because. I have actually researched these topics you're trying to scare people with and know a bit about it.

The only safe way to eat today is to grow your own food organically, harvest and store it yourself, slaughter the free-range animals you've raised yourself on your organic feeds, and eat it all raw. Except maybe for the meat. And you'd better be damn sure of the state of your soil (pesticide and other agricultural runoff) and your water source (same reasons).

In other words, there is no truly safe food left on the planet. There are only safer foods than others. The microwave and the fact it heats food by vibrating the molecules (which is what heating does on a stove, too, BTW) are the least of our worries.

I would listen to Tom Bedlam before a newage health site. He's at least educated in science and not just being an alarmist with no real research to back up his claims. (And I'm referring to your sources, not you personally).

Originally posted by AGENT_T
The only problems regarding microwaves is the container you are cooking them in can contaminate your food..

Exactly! Leaching plastics are probably the real reason for the dangers some neo-luddites associate with microwaves. Correlation doesn't equal causation, as I've always said. The solution? Stop using plastic materials to reheat your food. Use porcelain or clay. I'm not even sold on melamine.

Marg: Man-made products carry a certain risk, yes. But rather than throw it all out, I say just take it in moderation. Take everything in moderation and it'll all be okay. People just have a tendency to go to the extreme.