Serious answers only please.
Is the following actually true?
1. People who ingested microwaved foods showed a statistically higher
incidence of stomach and intestinal cancers, plus a general
degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues and a gradual breakdown
of the function of the digestive and excretory systems.
2. Due to chemical alterations within food substances, malfunctions
occurred within the lymphatic system, causing a degeneration in the
immune system's ability to protect the body against neoplastic
(cancerous) growth.
3. Microwave exposure caused significant decreases in the nutritional
value of all foods studied, most significantly in the
bio-availability of Bcomplex vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E,
essential minerals and lipotropics (substances that prevent abnormal
accumulation of fat).
4. Heating prepared meats in a microwave sufficiently for human
consumption creates the cancer-causing agent d-nitrosodiethanolamine.
5. Cancer-causing free radicals were formed within certain
trace-mineral, molecular formations in plant substances --
particularly in raw root vegetables.
6. Ingestion of microwaved foods caused a higher percentage of
cancerous cells within the blood serum.
7. Microwaving foods alters their elemental food substances, leading
to disorders in the digestive system Bo,
People say these kinds of things because they don't know how radio works, or what happens when one kind of nonionizing energy enters a substance.
Take it from someone who's studied and used radios--the transmitting kind--since the late 70s: it just doesn't work that way.
A microwave is really just a high-powered radio transmitter. The cooking property of microwaves was discovered by Percy Spencer for Raytheon working on radar in 1946. A chocolate bar melted in his pocket, and he began to investigate why that happened.
Thus was born (eventually) the Amana Radarange.
Well, what happens when nonionizing energy (energy lower than X-rays and nuclear particles) enters any substance? The molecules, usually the electrons but sometimes the protons, absorb some of the energy and then retransmit it at characteristic frequencies.
The frequencies of microwave ovens are around 2.5 gigaherz, which are absorbed by water, sugar, and fats, but not well by ceramics and plastics. The electrons absorb the radio energy and then, because unlike people they don't like to be excited, they retransmit that energy at infrared frequencies. At teh same time, because this energy is being absorbed, the molecules are forced to move really, really fast. All this creates heat--the infrared, the molecular ocscillations--which cooks the food.
As a result, the food isn't really cooked by microwaves, it's cooked by heat, which is why it's hot when you take it out of the oven.
Therefore, food cooked in the microwave will be cooked in exactly the same way with exactly the same changes in it that a conventional oven or an open fire for that matter will cause. It'll do it slightly differently because the heat penetrates a little more deeply than conventional cooking, but not much, and there isn't hot air on the outside so it won't make a bread crust the same way, but it will cook, and it'll do no more to food than a normal oven does.
Let's take your questions one at a time:
1. No. Microwave ovens have been in wide use since the 1970s, and there simply isn't any evidence of an increase in cancer of any kind. In fact, "general breakdown of peripheral tissues" is a dumbfounding claim, because while we know what happens in various peripheral neuropathies, nonionizing radiation is not one of them. We've had them for over 30 years, and nothing bad has happened to us because of them. It didn't take nearly that long to find out about Vioxx, did it?
Please understand that there's a huge difference between ionizing and nonionizing radiation. You get far more dangerous radiation, because it's ionizing (it's high enough energy that it can and will knock electrons out of the atoms, thus giving them a charge and turning them into "ions," which are just charged atoms) and you're out in it much longer, just going outside. UV radiation is much worse than microwave radiation, yet we do not fear it.
All microwave oven radiation does is heat food and cook it.
2. No. Radio waves do not damage the lymph system. There have been no cancers of any kind caused by microwaves nor by any chemical changes in food heated by microwaves.
Have you found any description of these chemical changes? I haven't. Nobody's found any in any research, so what we hear is from people who repeat what someone else has said, but it's all without any laboratory or even epidemiological evidence.
3. What you describe here can be said of boiling or roasting, too. how often have we been told to boil vegetables in as little water as possible because it will leach vitamins out of them?
We seem to forget that every form of cooking changes the chemical structure of a substance. The question is, is it a change that will cause a problem? The answer is no, as long as you don't burn it over an open fire. Last I heard, microwaves don't have too many open flames in them.
4. No.This is a danger of grilling, not microwaving. Sure, if you burn meat that has been preserved, not just heat it, it does form these chemicals, but not boiling it, not heating it in an oven, and not microwaving it.
5. Good heavens--we form free radicals in our bodies by breathing and moving. Microwaving food does not form free radicals because it takes a chemical destruction and rebuilding to do that. All aerobic metabolism does this, but microwaving does not. We forget that what free radiacl production involves is oxygen, not microwaves. All we have to do is breathe in oxygen, and this very reactive gas very readily combines with all manner of other chemicals to form all sorts of metabolic products, including free radicals that damage our DNA. That's why our bodies are so very good at scavenging them. That's what a vegetable-based diet is for--it gives us the most vitamins and antioxidents that we use to protect us against them.
The main problem here is the standard western diet, meat-heavy and vegetable-poor, not microwaves.
6. No. Do you know of any research that shows this? Neither do I.
7. When was the last time that you or anyone else had a digestive system disorder (whatever those are) caused by a microwave? Irritable Bowel Syndrome occurs in the absence of a microwave oven, as does Crohn's Disease. Bacteria cause diarrhea, not microwaves.
Notice that all of these claims do not have evidence to back them up?
Microwaves cannot cause cancer because they do not damage DNA. They are not ionizing. Even the heat they cause is nothing compared to the heat we get from sunbathing or living in Phoenix or Brownsville.
We get many cancers from our diets and failure to exercise, but not from our microwave ovens.
How many people do you know have microwave ovens? How many of them have these kinds of disorders? Where do people get the statistics--actually, I haven't seen any real statistics on this--to support their claims that microwave ovens cause these kinds of diseases?
Microwave ovens are used all over the world. If they caused the problems claimed by some people, the world would be awash in cancers never seen before at rates never seen before. But we aren't. We have cancers, yes, but we know that they come from too much fat, too much protein, too much calcium, too much weight, too many chemicals, too much pollution, and too little exercise.
Eat low fat, high vegetable, and use a microwave in good health and conscience. I think studies have shown that is a myth, but there is a new riot control weapon that uses "microwave technologly" so who really knows. Microwaves are nothing but radio waves; they act on the molecules in food that respond to the particular frequency of the wave by moving it faster; they do not change the foods' molecular structure. In older microwaves...probably...but newer ones...no. Who cares any way? I'm not afraid of pain or death...it has to happen SOMETIME after all...I might as well fix some food in my microwave and then get on with what's left of my life... Yes it's true but come on- everything is harmful nowadays!
Oh but here's an interesting fact- I learned in my child psych seminar that pregnant women are advised not to stand within 5 feet of an operating microwave because the radiations are harmful to the infant in the uterus! I thought that was funny. But apparently true if I'm learning about it in college, right? All of thse have been unsubstantiated claims by people who think everything we put in our mouths will kill us. I'm from the era that cranberries were cancer causing...this at Thanksgiving! Microwave ovens have been around for over 30 years and no one case has ever come to court or been proven to have caused a carcinogenic disease. It may be true, but the occasional use of a microwave would not harm your health and cause cancer. Unless of course a person has a pacemaker. You shouldn't be concerned so much as to the effects of microwaving at home because companies now use radiation to steralize and or pastuerize some foods prior to marketing. the radiation used in heating food are harmful to our body...it rearranges some chemical inside our body that can lead to cancer... simply...
what a microwave oven does is it sends off microwaves... "these waves are made up of tiny packets of radiant energy called photons. Streams of photons, each carrying energy and momentum, travel in waves like an undulating string of cars on a speeding roller coaster."
the food heats up because when the microwaves vibrate the molecules and w/e... the molecules start to bounce around more + they bounce around faster.. causing friction... which makes things feel hotter..
...in simple terms...
now.. like someone above said.. it does not change the chemical formula of your food, surely, so therefore its not putting harmful cells into your food...
microwaves used in microwave ovens are similar to those used by TV's and radios....
now, you ask about cancerous concerns you've heard about.. which is not a bad question...
"microwaves penetrate food with waves, much like radioactive radiation does.. and that can kill someone and cause cancer!!"
and that is true.. microwaves are forms of "radiation".. however microwave radiation used in TVs, radio's and microwave ovens are not as powerful as radioactive radiation.
Radioactive radiation is dangerous because the waves are soo powerful that they can actually damage your cells. Radioactive waves are contain large amounts of energy and travel at a much more intense rate. at this rate, when the waves hit your cells, they actually have the power to change the molecular structure of the cells.. they change the molecular structure of your cells by "knocking-out" one or more of your cells electrons... this is called "ionizing"... radioactive radiation travels at 100 billion billion Hertz.(yes, billlion billion i did not make a mistake =])
Now..
Microwaves in microwave ovens only travel at 2.5 billion Hertz.. therefore they cannot change the molecular structure of the cell, because they simply are not powerful enough... and they cannot ionize the cell.
microwaves would have to travel 40000 TIMES the number of Hertz they travel now in order to be radioactive...
so all in all..
microwaves cannot change the substances in the food because waves cannot just create a cell in the food. it cannot leave behind cells that will in turn attack the food, making it damaging to your body.. cells cannot be created nor destroyed.. the only way to add a cell would be to extract a cell from something else, and stick it in or on the food.. and i wouldnt suggest doing that unless its like ketchup or something... cuz that would be kinda stupid and wierd...
microwaves cannot damage the cells, making them cancerous, because they simply are not strong enough to and travel at 1/40000-th the hertz microwaves travel at...
so in conclusion, no they are not damaging to your cells.
now you might wonder if newer microwaves, since they cook faster then older ones, create faster waves.. causing them to be more destructive... as some people above suggested possibly...
no... here this is a good way of thinking about it..
ok, you can go into a pool and swish around in it a little bit to make a wave and move the molecules in the water cells a little bit right? but you cannot humanly knock the water OUT of the pool, right (assuming your pool is not filled to the top, only half way.. since the hertz microwaves travel at are approx. half way between the hertz, near-nothing travels.. and the herz needed to ionize a cell...)
your body (the microwave oven's capabilities to create microwaves) is not strong enough to create enough force to knock the water out of the pool (as ex.. ionizing the cells in the food)
you would need help from something like a propeller...
ontop of your body (as ex.. your microwave would have to emit uranium or something into your food rofl..) to knock the water out of the pool...
some things that create more hertz or run at more hertz, but are not quite powerful to ionize cells are...
TV, FM radio, CB radio, AM radio, heating lamps (used in toaster ovens and restaraunts), and visible light (less hertz to more hertz, in that order)
some things that DO ionize cells over time and with "large" amounts of exposure, but are not immediately cancerous are...
Tobacco (yep, its radioactive too! go have a smoke now, fools =) ), UV rays, X-rays, smoke detectors, and tanning booths...
tanning booths having a little bit more radiation then it takes for cells to be ionized.. causing skin cancer...
so here.. if you wanna know if your microwave is strong enough to be mildly ionizing-capable... open it up...
if theres a half-naked girl inside of it wearing goggles.. then dont stick your cold hamburger in it !!
or.. when you turn it on, stick your hand inside of it for a little bit.. then take it out.. if you have a tan or your hand turns african-american (rofl that was not supposed to be racist i promise_) ...... then your already screwed so you might as well throw your hamburger in it for a few seconds cuz your gonna die soon anyways so you might as well enjoy a warm radioactive hamburger...
Also, if the inside of your microwave turns blue all of a sudden, and you never touched the "LIGHT" button.. you might have a problem...
OTHER THEN THAT... as long as you arent cooking your food with nuclear bombs... you're all set...
hope that helps! |
