For many years we’ve personally refused to eat micro-waved foods. We feel it our duty to pass on to our readers some important research about microwave ovens so that they, too, can make informed decisions about these machines.
We’ll summarize some of this information here, and provide you a link to a web page containing much more detail.
1. What are microwaves? Microwaves are extremely short electromagnetic waves, similar to radio waves. They exist at very high frequencies of about 2.4 billion cycles per second. Compare this to ordinary FM radio waves of about 100 million cycles per second – microwaves are about 20 times higher in frequency than the waves that make your FM radio work.
2. What are microwaves used for? Microwaves are used in radar, telephone relay towers, cell phones and microwave ovens.
3. How do microwave ovens work? By exposing food to a high-power microwave beam, the molecules in the food are made to vibrate in response, over a billion times per second, and these vibrations cause friction and thus heating of the food. This heating is very rapid and very intense.
4. How is microwave heating different than conventional heating? This is THE important distinction between microwave ovens and ordinary ovens, stoves, campfires or other ways to heat food. In addition to being MUCH faster and more intense, microwave heating alters the molecules of the food in ways other methods do not.
Have you ever played with those toys called “tinker-toys”? They have a round piece that is a disc with holes around the edges, and sticks about 3 or 4 inches long that can be inserted into the discs. You can make all kinds of shapes with them by joining discs and sticks. Now imagine you built a model of a molecule with these toys. Now take the model and move the whole thing back and forth slowly (cold) and then faster (hot). The molecule retains it shape but is simply moving back and forth. That’s what ordinary heating does – it makes the molecule move faster but does not necessarily significantly
alter its shape or break up the molecule. Sometimes the molecules are significantly altered but our bodies are somewhat “used” to that and are able to deal with is because we as a species have been cooking things this way for a long long time. Our bodies are still somewhat able to “recognize” and deal with some of the molecules in ordinarily cooked foods.
Now microwave the “molecule.” You will squish, stretch, bend and eventually break apart the molecule into pieces. THAT is what microwaves do. They literally tear molecules apart and create NEW and UNNATURAL molecules that do not exist or which are very rare in nature. Our bodies can NOT recognize or properly deal with these Frankenstein molecules that the microwave oven created.
5. So what? Well, these unnatural molecules just happen to be, some of them, toxic or carcinogenic (cancer causing). Other molecules are nutrients that are perhaps not rendered dangerous but are simply deactivated and now useless the to body. The creation of toxic molecules combined with the reduction of nutrient value makes micro-waving food a very bad idea, so much so that in 1976 Russia BANNED microwave ovens for cooking food! You never heard this mentioned in our media, however. We’ll let you guess why not.
For a much more in-depth look at this topic, you can go to this webpage: http://blpublications.com/html/body_microwaveovens_.html
The information on the webpage can get a bit technical but it’s good data and tells a great deal about the history of microwaves, their use and the studies that have revealed the hazards.
6. What’s the solution? Simply stop using microwaves? We leave that up to you. We hope you do look over the info and make your own informed decision on this. Since convenience/speed are the main reasons people use microwaves, we suggest you look into convection ovens, which are not as fast as microwaves but are faster than ordinary ovens. And, frankly, we feel food tastes much better cooked with ordinary heat that by being “nuked.”
7. What about RAW FOODS? None of this would be an issue if we as a people were used to eating mostly raw foods. Who would dream of micro-waving a salad? In our opinion, the debate should not be so much on HOW to cook foods, but WHETHER to cook them at all in the first place. Ample evidence exists to show that while microwaves may be REALLY bad for food, conventional cooking itself is also a real nutrient-buster. The more we can shift our habits toward fresh raw fruits and vegetables (and fresh-squeezed juices made from these) the less tempted we’ll be to use those “convenient” microwave machines! Maybe the companies that make juice-extractors should offer a “trade-in” progam – “Turn in your old microwave oven and we’ll give you a deal on our juicer!”
Hope you find this information of value. Here’s to health and long life for you and your family!
🙂
Evan