Throw Out Your Microwaves!

I dont eat that much microwaved food, bt i laways knew it was bad for you.

The food itself is not bad.

ive heard mic ovens were invented by the japaneese to get back at us for nagasaki and hiroshima
ive also heard you will not find a single mic oven in a japaneese house hold
there is a warning on the one i bought...ill mention its top of the line one also..it says
do not stand within 7 feet when using....
and i know that mics burn the enzymes out of the foods placed inside making it very hard for your body to process them
i have a friend who exclusively cooks everything in the mic and he started having very bad problems with his liver.
i heat up nothing in this darn thing it sits there like a monolith
she wanted it not me

[Edited on 3-3-2004 by watcheroftheskies]

im never eating orrita burritos again. nice find!

Ill die before I give up my microwave burritos!!!!

Microwave paranoia is overhyped. This website that is being refered to is a typical "natural" health website that uses half-baked science (sorry about the pun, it was the first metaphor that came to mind) to prove an idea that was already strongly believed before there were any facts to substantiate them.

Part of the paranoia from microwaves can be demonstrated right in this thread: for years, people have called the microwave cooking process "nuking" the food. This all despite the fact that microwaves (not the kitchen device, the actual waves on the radiant spectrum, which includes visible light, ultraviolet, radiowaves of many bandwidths, gamma rays, etc.) have nothing in and of themselves to do with nuclear power. We therefore have come to believe that the process going on inside one of these machines is somehow "radioactive" or something of similarly fearful proportions.

When you direct visible light onto foods and other substances, many of them, particularly those of darker colors, will absorb, rather than "radiate" the light, causing them to heat up. In a similar way, if you point microwaves (as opposed to say, radiowaves) at a physical substance, some will absorb it (leftover turkey) and heat up, others will reflect it or let it pass through (ceramic dish). When the molecules of these substances absorb the microwaves, they are excited as a result, and simple high school physics tells us that when molecules speed up, they heat up. That is all a microwave does, and it has nothing to do with nuclear (fission) power! Nuclear power involves splitting an unstable isotope of a heavy atom into two pieces and releasing (rather than absorbing) energy.

The arguments on this website that was the original topic of discussion fall apart in several places. Typically, there is often a way of putting a convincing spin on science so that it "proves" a point (many "natural" health remedies do this regularly) but to most people it sounds convincing because they don't have the information to refute it. For example, on the website it talks of the dangers of subjecting food to microwaves, saying that "The same violent deformations that occur in our bodies, when we are directly exposed to radar or microwaves, also occur in the molecules of foods cooked in a microwave oven", and it uses this rationale to say that we therefore would do ourselves harm by ingesting this food. However, if we apply the same rationale to foods cooked in a conventional oven, image the deformations (molecularly and visibly) we would undergo if WE were put in an oven at 400 degrees for 5 hours (Thanksgiving turkey). The same applies to dehydrating foods (left for months), broiling (radiant heat), or freezing foods (sub-zero temps.).

All the arguments about chemical changes that foods undergo in a mic. oven are of minimal relevance. Onions caramelize when cooked for 15 minutes in hot oil, chemically converting parts of its organic composition into sugar. Enzymes in vegetables and fruits break down all the time during the regular cooking process and even when refrigerated over long periods of time.

The website also talks about the grave dangers of microwaving baby's milk. It is true, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with some creepy chemical process. When milk (breast or formula) is allowed to sit, it settles into phases where there are areas of greater density as well as concentrated pockets of certain molecules. These phases and pockets, because of the physical properties of their molecules, absorb the microwaves more freely, thus heating quicker than other parts of the milk. If the milk is not mixed thoroughly the cooler areas may lead a parent to believe that the milk is a suitable temperature for the baby. The baby then ingests a hot spot and scalds the mouth and throat. My wife and I have a 10 month old son and have read numerous "baby-books". This advice is common knowledge and is presented in most of them.

The website article very quickly jumps right into the nuclear interpretation. It states that radiation is "the electromagnetic waves emitted by the atoms and molecules of a radioactive substance as a result of nuclear decay" to then jump to the conclusion that somehow nuclear power is involved in "ionizing" the molecules in the food. This is where the science falls right through the floor, even if we don't get to the next point I'll make. Nuclear decay involves destable isotopes (not ions, as they suggest) breaking down into more stable atoms on the periodic table. The fact that they refer to radiation and nuclear decay as "ionization" is the first clear indicator that the person writing the paper does NOT KNOW WHAT THE HECK THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT, and certainly couldn't have been awake during high school science.

That aside, the real deception isn't the fact that they don't know what they are talking about (that is embarassing, not deceiving), it is the fact that the used the definition of radiation strictly in the context of NUCLEAR radiation, which is only one type, rather than using the definition of radiation relating to microwaves, which are two VERY significantly different types. That is just plain bunk, and definitely not an example of someone using sound science to present factual information.

I'm not throwing away my microwave, but I hardly use it because I like to cook real meals.

They taste better.

Originally posted by EliteXizer
For some reason I doubt my microwave is that harmful.

And...

Originally posted by EliteXizer
o_O

That's peculiar. I never feel anything when I am near my microwave.

I gotta ask you... are you debunking? Saying that I can't feel anything and that it's all in my head? Are you suggesting that hundreds of researchers are wrong because YOU doubt it? Seriously... about 90% of the posts I read by you are 1 or 2 sentences with comments such as these. Please state your point...

I know it's not particular to this thread, but I'm gonna quote it anyways:

from You Can't Bring Me Down by Suicidal Tendencies

Just cause you don't understand what's going on don't mean it don't make no sense
And just cause you don't like it, don't mean it ain't no good
And let me tell you something;

Before you go taking a walk in my world
You better take a look at the real world
Cause this ain't no Mister Roger's Neighborhood

Can you say "feel like #"?
Yea maybe sometimes I do feel like #
I ain't happy 'bout it, but I'd rather feel like # than be full of #!

And if I offended you, oh I'm sorry...
But maybe you need to be offended
But here's my apology and one more thing...

can't finish it, lol... fans will know why

-----

Ok... now that that is over with...

Never heard about the China getting back idea... kinda cracks me up! I knew a kid who had an old microwave and read about how the older ones would leak, so he wrapped the entire thing in aluminum foil... it only lasted for about a week of use (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) before it started throwing sparks and shooting blue 'electrical' flames... was pretty kewl until it started the kitchen rags on fire. Then it was just hilarious

I always thought china got back at us by creating those dam furby things.

Whatever people. I lived in Japan for quite a stretch of my life and I can absolutely say as a fact that the Japanese do use microwave ovens. And anyone who get's their "scientific fact" from a holistic medicinal website is going to have that "scientific fact" skewed towards selling holistic medicine. I also noticed it was Written by Anthony Wayne and Lawrence Newell
International common Law Copyright 2000
by The Christian Law Institute & Fellowship Assembly. Any "scientific fact" coming from a Christian Law assembly is going to be misrepresented to further their agenda.

Originally posted by EmbryonicEssence
Whatever people. I lived in Japan for quite a stretch of my life and I can absolutely say as a fact that the Japanese do use microwave ovens. And anyone who get's their "scientific fact" from a holistic medicinal website is going to have that "scientific fact" skewed towards selling holistic medicine. I also noticed it was Written by Anthony Wayne and Lawrence Newell
International common Law Copyright 2000
by The Christian Law Institute & Fellowship Assembly. Any "scientific fact" coming from a Christian Law assembly is going to be misrepresented to further their agenda.

Ya know... truthfully, the exact same could be said about the American Gov:
www.fda.gov...

lol... couldn't resist... I wan't even gonna post that link, but I'd say the occasion is right


[Edited on 3-3-2004 by Earthscum]

I've read the same thing about eating cooked food. Supposedly cooked food causes cancer, loses it nutritional value etc. They even go so far as to say if you eat raw food you diseases will go away.

I like my cooked food & I like my microwave popcorn. The only other thing I use the microwave for is thawing food when I don't plan properly.

Of course the government lies. Still, anything you eat has the ability to kill you. The way things are going with pseudoscience, anything can give you cancer. Anyone want to test the radioactive cancer causing effects of your microwave? Get a geiger counter!

www.seintl.com...
sargentwelch.com...
www.forestry-suppliers.com...

And you know what you'll find after purchasing one? That there are no radioactive particles coming from your microwave and that you just lost quite a bit of money. You want to know what the ironic part is? The same monitor that you're reading and posting from (if it is a CRT) is emitting all those harmful radiations that your microwaves are "supposedly" doing. CRT's may have a protective layer on them to circumvent this but it's still there nonetheless and cheap brands to a very poor job of it. You'll sooner get cancer from your monitor than you will your microwave.

And one other thing, every object in the universe emits radiation. Some more so then others. Some harmful, some not. There are many different types of radiation. The human body emits a fair amount of radiation and it can be measured - just like every object.

[Edited on 3-4-2004 by EmbryonicEssence]

god damnit - i might as well have replaced my drinking water with rat poison!!!

ohhhhh well another day i thought was going well down the tubes

I am sure that most of these microwave facts are true. BUT, IMHO I think you'd have to eat microwaved foods persistantly for years and years before seeing any drastic changes in your body.

Like goose said earlier there is in fact a new form of oven that uses heat from a powerful light on the roof of the oven.(probably similar sort of lights that u can get for ur bathroom)
They are more expensive, but obviously the prices will come down over time.

It seems to me that everything these days is bad for you. I've seen many many topics here on ATS lately about things that are "bad" for you. Listen up people....Anything and everything will be bad for you if you take it in excessive amounts. I rarely use my microwave. The article used to present the so-called evidence is obviously crap. It may have a hint of truth but mostly I dont believe it. Everything in excess will cause harm to your body.

Try boiling an egg in a microwave. It should work just fine without the water right? Wrong, it will explode all over the room when you try to peel it. Be careful.

Originally posted by TgSoe
Try boiling an egg in a microwave.

Weren't you told?
Poke a tiny hole in it before you microwave/nuke/mutate your egg
Really a tiny hole will prevent that.
And like everything else as other posters have said ANYTHING in excess will kill you
Remember the sacharin (artificial sugar)warnings? And how it could cause cancer?
They gave those poor rats enough sacharin to last a human something like 5 years.
Hell you drink too much water in a day and you will die.

www.alpharubicon.com...

[Edited on 4-3-2004 by NetStorm]

Originally posted by SassyFella
Microwave paranoia is overhyped. This website that is being refered to is a typical "natural" health website that uses half-baked science (sorry about the pun, it was the first metaphor that came to mind) to prove an idea that was already strongly believed before there were any facts to substantiate them....

Thanks for the explanation. This makes sense to me