When it comes to convenience, few devices can compare to the microwave. Over 90 per cent of homes in North America have them and their popularity in Jamaica is rising rapidly. There is evidence to suggest that millions of people may be exchanging their health for the convenience of microwave ovens. Before you use your microwave one more time, you might want to consider some facts.
Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with a wavelength shorter than that of a normal radio wave. Microwaves are used in radar, in communications, and for heating in microwave ovens. The Germans used the first microwave units during the Second World War. The Russians researched their biological effects after the war, and because of what they learned, banned microwave ovens over 30 years ago.
IS ANYTHING WRONG?
In 1991, a United States lawsuit involved a woman who had hip surgery and died because the blood used in her blood transfusion was warmed in a microwave. The microwave altered the blood and it killed the woman.
Microwaves heat your food by causing it to resonate at very high frequencies. This may effectively heat your food, but also causes changes in the chemical structure of the food. Ordinary heating of food can cause problems by itself, but when you heat it with microwaves, you have additional damage from the negative energy frequencies.
HEALTH CONCERNS
The most compelling evidence supporting the dangers of microwaves comes from a study done by Dr Hans Hertel, a Swiss food scientist, who concluded that microwave cooking significantly altered food. Dr Hertel's findings showed significant and disturbing changes in the blood of indivi-duals consuming microwaved milk and vegetables. Volunteers ate various combinations of these foods cooked in different ways. All foods that were cooked in microwave ovens caused changes in the blood of the volunteers. Haemoglobin levels decreased and overall white blood cell levels and cholesterol levels increased.
UNEVEN COOKING
Microwaves do not cook food evenly. Using microwaves to heat frozen hamburgers, to cook fish or chicken, and to rewarm dishes may result in cool areas remaining in the centre of the food. This could promote the survival of disease-causing germs and lead to food poisoning.
HUMAN EXPOSURE
No one knows what are safe levels of exposure to microwaves. Researchers have found that low-level exposure to microwaves can cause eye damage, resulting in cataracts. Experts also report a reduction in personnel efficiency, and even a possible link to cancer. Although the significance for humans of repeated exposure to low- levels of microwave radiation is still unclear, there is enough evidence to warrant certain commonsensical precautions:
Stay at least an arm's length from an operating microwave oven.
Do not operate an oven when it is empty.
Do not operate an oven if the door will not close properly or is damaged in any way.
Never tamper with the safety switches or the fuse.
Minimise your use of microwave ovens.
MICROWAVES ALTER FOOD
Microwave oven manufacturers insist that microwaved foods are no more damaged than broiled, baked or other conventionally cooked foods. The scientific evidence has shown that this is not so.
Many of the vitamins in food are destroyed by cooking. Microwaving destroys vitamins five times more quickly than does regular cooking. Microwave heating, for example, inactivates vitamin B12. Researchers found that after just six minutes of microwaving, nearly half of the vitamin B12 in food was destroyed. Vitamin B12 was singled out for study since it is of vital importance in preventing several chronic major diseases.
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 per cent of the beneficial antioxidant chemicals it contains. By comparison, steamed broccoli lost 11 per cent or less of its antioxidants.
IMPACT ON PLASTIC
Do not use a microwave to heat fatty foods in plastic containers because the combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases chemicals called dioxins into the food. Dioxins are carcinogenic (cancer-forming) and highly toxic. If you cook with microwaves, carcinogenic toxins could be leached from your plastic plates or covers right into your food.
Microwaves heat your food by causing it to resonate at very high frequencies. This may effectively heat your food but also causes changes in the chemical structure of the food.
Test your microwave (2004)
By Larry Cook
If you have ever wondered whether or not microwaved food is safe, here’s an experiment you can do at home: Plant seeds in two pots. Water one pot with water that has been microwaved, the other with regular tap water.
The seeds that received microwaved water won’t sprout. If microwaved water can stop plants from growing, think of what microwaved food can do to your health!
In 1989, Swiss biologist and food scientist Dr. Hans Hertel studied the effects of microwaved food. Eight people participated in the study. For eight weeks, they lived in a controlled environment and intermittently ate raw foods, conventionally cooked foods and microwaved foods. Blood samples were tested after each meal. They discovered that eating microwaved food, over time, causes significant changes in blood chemistry:
1. A decrease in hemoglobin and cholesterol values, in the HDL (good cholesterol) versus LDL (bad cholesterol) ratio and in white blood cells, weakening the immune system, and an increase in leukocyte levels, which tends to indicate poisoning and cell damage—conditions ripening the body for degenerative diseases and/or cancer.
2. "The measurable effects on man through the ingestion of microwaved food, unlike untreated food, are blood alterations, that can also be found at the beginning of a pathological condition, also indicative of a beginning cancerous process," wrote Dr. Bernard Blanc, who assisted in the study.
3. Microwave ovens "cook" food by forcing the atoms, molecules and cells within the food to reverse polarity billions of times per second, causing friction—the more the friction, the more the heat. This oscillation tears and deforms the molecular structure of food. New compounds, called radiolytic compounds, which are not found in nature, are formed.
Interestingly, microwaves are actually used in gene-altering technology to deliberately break cells and neutralize their "life-force" so they can be manipulated. Microwaves destroy the life force that gives food its vitality and nourishment. When this life force dissipates, microorganisms start breaking food down and it begins to rot.
In early 1991, a lawsuit was filed against an Oklahoma hospital because a patient died from receiving a microwaved blood transfusion. Hospitals routinely heat blood for transfusion, but not in a microwave.
The effects of microwaving breast milk have also been researched. John Kerner, M.D. and Richard Quin, M.D. from Stanford University said, "Microwaving human milk, even at a low setting, can destroy some of its important disease-fighting capabilities."
4. After more research, Kerner wrote in the April, 1992 edition of Pediatrics that "Microwaving itself may in fact cause some injury to the milk above and beyond the heating."
In addition, a radio announcement at the University of Minnesota said, "Microwaves are not recommended for heating a baby’s bottle Heating the bottle in a microwave can cause slight changes in the milk. In infant formulas, there may be a loss of some vitamins. In expressed milk, some protective properties may be destroyed."
5. Another study in Vienna warned that microwaving breast milk "can lead to structural, functional and immunological changes," and that microwaves transform the amino acid L-proline into D-proline, a proven toxin to the nervous system, liver and kidneys.
6. In Russia, microwave ovens were banned in 1976 because of their negative health consequences and many studies were conducted on their use. Here are some of their findings on microwaving food:
* Microwaved foods lose 60 to 90 percent of the vital-energy field and microwaving accelerates the structural disintegration of foods.
* Microwaving creates cancer-causing agents within milk and cereals.
* Microwaving alters elemental food-substances, causing digestive disorders.
* Microwaving alters food chemistry, which can lead to malfunctions in the lymphatic system and degeneration of the body’s ability to protect itself against cancerous growths.
* Microwaved foods lead to a higher percentage of cancerous cells in the bloodstream.
* Microwaving altered the breakdown of elemental substances when raw, cooked, or frozen vegetables were exposed for even a very short time and free radicals were formed.
* Microwaved foods caused stomach and intestinal cancerous growths, a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues, and a gradual breakdown of the digestive and excretive systems in a statistically high percentage of people.
* Microwaved foods lowered the body’s ability to utilize B-complex vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotropics.
* The microwave field next to a microwave oven caused a slew of health problems as well.
Aside form these studies, many people find that microwaving their food doesn’t help them feel good. Stephanie Relfe, Kinesiologist, found herself feeling "gray and rather low" one day and discovered that she had inadvertently eaten microwaved food at a restaurant.
In her practice, Relfe found that all of her patients gave body signals of having allergic reactions to microwaved foods.
Another Kinesiologist, David Bridgeman, said, "Of all the people I test for allergies, 99.9% so far show severe sensitivity to any microwaved food."
Note: The London Telegraph reported Sept. 19, 2004, that microwave weapons will be fitted to U.S. military vehicles already in Iraq in an effort to disperse angry crowds. The weapons, which may be operable as early as this spring, are an attempt by the U.S. to calm growing concern regarding increasing numbers of innocent civilians being killed in Iraq.
The U.S. Department of Defense claims microwave weapons, which cause unbearable pain to the target until he moves out of the beam, cause no long-term damage. "The skin gets extremely hot, and people can’t stand the pain, so they have to move - and move in the way we want them to," said Col Wade Hall of the Office of Force Transformation.
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