Why the Russians Banned Microwave Ovens

reply to post by rhinoceros

What does structural degradation of essential minerals mean? Is for example iron going to turn into something else in the microwave (like fusion in stars? )? I know a little chemistry (more than most) and that claim sounds.. how to put it.. ridiculous.

Now that was just pointless trolling. Why would you take it out of context and claim it's ridiculous?

Here is the first part:

"Structural degradation leading to decreased food value was found to be 60 to 90 percent overall for all foods tested"

Not too hard a sentence to grasp is it? Microwaving potentially decreases nutritional value.

Here is the second part:

"with significant decreases in bioavailability of B complex vitamins, vitamins C and E, essential minerals, and lipotropics (substances that prevent abnormal accumulation of fat). "

Maybe you had trouble with 'bioavailability'? It means the ability for the body to absorb the essential minerals.

Now, I'm of the personal opinion that the response was just your typical general troll response as you curiously decided to pick and choose and recombine to form a new sentence devoid of meaning to the original text. Then decided to call it ridiculous.

Well of course what you said was ridiculous. You said it out of context.

reply to post by zzombie


S&F

Doesn't really matter what method of cooking is used, they all create carcinogenic compounds. Some methods create more, some create less. I'm currently researching and figuring out how to start eating more raw. Haven't seen many recipes for it yet, at least none I'm willing to buy a book to find.

Off-Topic

You can make the best damned ice cream with just frozen bananas! No sugar, no dairy, no salt. Nothing but straight bananas blended in a blender. You can add cocoa to make it taste like chocolate, or add strawberries for strawberry ice cream. Since it contains nothing but bananas, I can give it to my five month old. First kid out of three to taste a cold treat this young! Pretty damn cool stuff. Never thought to do that before.

reply to post by rhinoceros


I think it is saying that the foods break down, which they do. Putting food in the microwave does indeed change it, making it rubbery. I can see that affecting the nutritional value.

Something SOME THING is giving us cancer. It's something common, that we all use, undiscovered as yet, or kept hidden, secret.

I suspect plastic.

I have no proof whatsoever.

And heated plastic: double trouble.

Plastic heated in the microwave: Triple trouble.

*Takes sip of iced tea from plastic cup, just stirred with plastic spoon*

Plastic heated in the microwave: Triple trouble.

Lol I was just about to post the same thing. I rarely use my microwave, but I never put plastic in there.

Microwaved food doesn't taste as good as food heated using traditional methods. Except for spaghetti leftovers, am I the only one who thinks reheated spaghetti from a microwave tastes bomb?

Originally posted by sirnex
Maybe you had trouble with 'bioavailability'? It means the ability for the body to absorb the essential minerals.

Having written essays about ecotoxicology, biomagnification, bioaccumulation, bioavailabity, biotransformation, etc. during my undergrad years I'm off opinion that I have fairly good idea (probably better than yours) of what bioavailability means.

I'm quoting one of my own very old essays here:

The prerequisite for uptake is bioavailability of a chemical. The term refers to the fraction of a chemical that can be taken up by an organism. It depends on a number of factors of physico-chemical, physiological, biological, temporal and spatial nature. There are many routes for uptake. Often it’s a case of eating or drinking. Other mechanisms are for example adsorption, diffusion, sorption, active cellular transport and endocytosis.

Now tell me how exactly heating food in microwave effects bioavailability of iron (an essential mineral) in said food.

[edit on 18-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


Don't forget good ole aluminum! They can now have it in microwaves safely! You'll get a clean Alzheimer; fast and radical! It's much better than having a few "germs" that'll boost your immune system...

reply to post by rhinoceros


Really? You tell me all that and then ask how cooking might decrease the bioavailability of iron? Seriously?

Did you consider that perhaps it binds with other molecules during the cooking process? Christ, that &*#$'s just basic if what your telling me about yourself is true.

reply to post by sirnex

Irons atoms bind with other molecules during heating in microwave? What molecules and why? Also why can't our body make use of them afterwards?

ps. I'm a big fan of irony and love your signature

[edit on 18-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

Originally posted by rhinoceros

Now tell me how exactly heating food in microwave effects bioavailability of iron (an essential mineral) in said food.

[edit on 18-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

There is very little iron in food, but if you need an explanation for say magnesium, or calcium go back and read my second post in this thread.

As for Iron bio availability being decreased, lets say that most of it is going to be heme complexed iron. Microwave destroying heme complexed iron into iron oxide isn't too much of a stretch....is it ?

Is heme complexed iron more or less bio available than iron oxide ?



[edit on 18-5-2010 by zzombie]

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
Plastic heated in the microwave: Triple trouble.

Especially BPA plastics that leach pthalates. These are known to cause breast an prostate cancer, and leach under heat.

Originally posted by zzombie
As for Iron bio availability being decreased, lets say that most of it is going to be heme complexed iron. Microwave destroying heme complexed iron into iron oxide isn't too much of a stretch....is it ?

From what I remember from some biomolecules course iron is bound rather strongly to those heme groups. Microwave destroying them being too much of a stretch.. don't know. I can't think of a force (at play) other than heat that might lead to this and heat being kind of given with any method of cooking I can't see how microwave would be any worse than the alternatives.

Is heme complexed iron more or less bio available than iron oxide ?

No idea.

[edit on 18-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

Originally posted by rhinoceros

I can't see how microwave would be any worse than the alternatives.

Dipolar Polarisation with radio waves is how microwaves heat polar molecules such as water.. A heme group such as hemeglobin is iron surrounded by nitrogen macrocyclic porphorin ring.
en.wikipedia.org...



The nitrogen lone pair of electrons is polar.

Is heme complexed iron more or less bio available than iron oxide ?

No idea.

Iron is primarily found in the body as heme complexes, so it is much more bio available.




[edit on 18-5-2010 by zzombie]

doesnt matter if you use a microwave
eating meat will kill you anyway

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
Plastic heated in the microwave: Triple trouble.
*Takes sip of iced tea from plastic cup, just stirred with plastic spoon*

Is using plastic in a microwave problematic? In some cases, no, in other cases, yes.

Factors such as the type of plastic (some types of plastic are more likely than others to release toxins when heated in the microwave), water content of the food being heated (High water content limits the temperature to not much above the boiling point of water, low water content is much riskier to heat because the the food can get way hotter than the boiling point of water, to temperatures where the plastic releases toxins it wouldn't release at the boiling point of water).

If you don't know all the details and ins and outs, you're probably better off avoiding the use of plastics in the microwave. It CAN be dangerous in some cases. It can also be safe in other cases.

I found a similar story on thespoof.com:

www.thespoof.com...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The US FDA has banned the use of microwave ovens since food which is heated in a microwave inevitably causes cancer as the molecular structure of the food, and even human blood is changed, FDA Chief Ralph Roachman said at a well-attended news conference here on Monday.

"Microwave cooking is one of the most important causes of ill health," Roachman stated. "People are often killed by a simple blood transfusion when some nurse accidentally warms the blood for the transfusion in a microwave oven."

The ban of microwave ovens and microwaving was advised in FDA notice WTF/OMG-5678-9145625.

A great many scientific studies have looked at the effects of eating microwaved food and their impact on human health.

Top FDA researcher Dr. Felix Minderbinder has confirmed that microwave cooking significantly changes food nutrients into toxic chemicals, even during large-scale food processing in industry.

"Blood samples taken immediately after eating shows that microwaved food lowers human hemoglobin levels," said Dr. Minderbinder. "These results show anemic tendencies. The poor bastards in my study continued to eat microwaved food until they had no more red blood cells left and had turned white. This was particularly alarming since several of them were negroes."

The claims in that story are about as believable as the claims in the OP story: not very. I like the way the FDA notice number begins, nice touch

reply to post by rhinoceros


haha, you're such a genius! I wish I could be half as smart as you buddy. Not. It's not just "heat" It's Radiation. Radiation mutates things.

•A study published in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found that broccoli "zapped" in the microwave with a little water lost up to 97 percent of its beneficial antioxidants. By comparison, steamed broccoli lost 11 percent or fewer of its antioxidants. There were also reductions in phenolic compounds and glucosinolates, but mineral levels remained intact. [1]

•A 1999 Scandinavian study of the cooking of asparagus spears found that microwaving caused a reduction in vitamin C [2]

•In a study of garlic, as little as 60 seconds of microwave heating was enough to inactivate its allinase, garlic’s principle active ingredient against cancer. [3]

•A Japanese study by Watanabe showed that just 6 minutes of microwave heating turned 30-40 percent of the B12 in milk into an inert (dead) form. [4]

•A recent Australian study showed that microwaves cause a higher degree of “protein unfolding” than conventional heating. [5]

•Microwaving can destroy the essential disease-fighting agents in breast milk that offer protection for your baby. In 1992, Quan found that microwaved breast milk lost lysozyme activity, antibodies, and fostered the growth of more potentially pathogenic bacteria. [6]

[1] Vallejo F, Tomas-Barberan F A, and Garcia-Viguera C. “Phenolic compound contents in edible parts of broccoli inflorescences after domestic cooking” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (15 Oct 2003) 83(14);1511-1516

[2] Kidmose U and Kaack K. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica B 1999:49(2):110-117

[3] Song K and Milner J A. “The influence of heating on the anticancer properties of garlic,” Journal of Nutrition 2001;131(3S):1054S-57S

[4] Watanabe F, Takenaka S, Abe K, Tamura Y, and Nakano Y. J. Agric. Food Chem. Feb 26 1998;46(4):1433-1436

[5] George D F, Bilek M M, and McKenzie D R. “Non-thermal effects in the microwave induced unfolding of proteins observed by chaperone binding,” Bioelectromagnetics 2008 May;29(4):324-30

[6] Quan R (et al) “Effects of microwave radiation on anti-infective factors in human milk,” Pediatrics 89(4 part I):667-669.



[edit on 19-5-2010 by Anjaba]

[edit on 19-5-2010 by Anjaba]

Originally posted by zzombie
I think they were seriously on target with this. I'm considering throwing out my own Microwave Oven.

Is a few minutes of convenience worth a lifetime of bad health, in the form of carcinogens?

Twenty years of Russian research (and German studies as far back as 1942 Berlin) make a strong argument against the safety of microwave cooking.

Their findings led the Russian government to issue an international warning about possible biological and environmental damage associated with the use of microwave ovens and other similar frequency electronic devices (e.g. mobile phones).
....

>snip

Originally posted by abecedarian
And I guess you know that baking potatos is bad too, right?

Do you mean it's better to microwave potatoes than to bake them? Source?

Microwaves themselves are dangerous, even at so called safe levels out side your microwave. I heard of this more than 15 years ago from a friend in Foreign Affairs. Here it is from a web site with a bit more detail than I was told:

"Project Bizarre followed MKULTRA subproject 119 in 1965. The purpose of Bizarre was to record and analyze the complex microwave signal allegedly being beamed at the American Embassy in Moscow by the Soviets from a building across the street. The interesting thing about Project Bizarre is that while the United States has denied to this very day that there could be adverse health effects from microwave radiation, it immediately suspected that “the Moscow signal” was producing a variety of health effects in Embassy personnel, particularly in the successive ambassadors at whose office it was claimed the signal was being beamed. At the same time that the State Department was testing embassy personnel for DNA breaks produced by the Moscow signal, it felt constrained from complaining to the Soviets because the power of their signal was a tiny fraction of what the US said was a safe, human exposure level."

This is from Bio-electromagnetic Weapons: The ultimate weapon

Originally posted by Yowie13
Microwaves themselves are dangerous, even at so called safe levels out side your microwave.

Personally I wouldn't press my nose up against the microwave oven door and stare inside.

I read that a long time ago some soldiers were exposed to microwaves and only one part of their body was affected, the corneas of their eyes, which apparently can get cataracts when heated by microwaves. But it wasn't a microwave oven, the microwaves came from something else, I forgot the source, it might have been some kind of antenna.

Cataracts causes

7- Radiation cataracts.... It also can be caused by exposure to microwave radiation especially when you look directly and closely to the microwave. For more information about radiation cataract click here

But even knowing this, I'm always keeping a few feet away from my microwave while it's running and I think that's perfectly safe. Pressing your nose up against the front of the microwave to look inside for an extended time may be unsafe, possibly leading to cataracts. When I look inside I still try to keep my eyes at least a foot or more from the oven, and ONLY for a very brief period of time.

It would be interesting to chart the incidence rates for cataracts before and after introduction of the microwave oven and see if there's been a change.

[edit on 19-5-2010 by Arbitrageur]