I'm sure there's probably more about it in some of the Y2K threads and the ridiculous lengths they expected us to go through.
I most likely did NOT take any notes on the microwave portion of the meeting as I distinctly remember being shocked and then extremely amused at his whole take on microwaves and how scared of them he is. I wonder if he's still scared of 'em and if he uses them since he most likely has to fix his own meals these days.... :unsure:
There are two “dangers” with microwave ovens that are no longer brought up much in public debate, but many years ago they were. I haven’t kept up with the subject for years, but maybe someone here has.
1. Leaking radiation from the oven might cause unwanted chemical reactions in the living cells of humans operating the device. I think this has been largely solved with shielding, but it still raised concerns in some. It’s a lot like the dangers of using cell phones excessively or living under high voltage power transmission lines. All three of these “dangers” are admitted by all to be very subtle and needing much more study to be definitive. Of the three, I suspect cell phones to be the worst.
2. Radiation within the oven is thought to POSSIBLY break some food molecules at unusual spots, making them susceptible to unknown chemical reactions in said food, which may possibly yield carcinogenic material that is consumed with the food. I just recently heard that these kinds of chemical reactions are even more likely with the molecules in the plastic containers that house the food.
Arguments against #2 (and somewhat for #1) note that the energy needed to do this is higher than what the microwave can produce, but the idea of resonant frequencies casts some uncertainty here. Normally sound doesn’t have the energy to break a Champaign glass, but if the sound just so happens to be at the resonant frequency of the glass, then it does break.
I too take my chances with my microwave, but I do try to remove the food from the plastic packaging first. I figure there’s much worse out there to “worry” about. For instance, I will not eat anything that comes from China or a "99 cent store." Nor will I plug in any device from said locations into my house electrical outlets.
At any rate, I think LCM may have had some sound thoughts on this subject, but they may have gotten out of hand later on in his life, or in the rumor mill.
For instance, I will not eat anything that comes from China or a "99 cent store." Nor will I plug in any device from said locations into my house electrical outlets.
Tom, I guess vee pee never used that word before.
Mike, how do you know what's coming from China to avoid? I e-mailed a bunch of companies after the pet food scare and not one of them would tell me which of their products use imported ingredients from China. There aren't even any laws in place that require companies to label where the ingredients in the foods come from.
In fact, Kelloggs gave me more information than any of the companies I contacted and, even that was very limited:
We can confirm that none of our raw ingredients originated from Zuzhou Anying Bioligic Technology, which was implicated in the pet food recall. We do not use wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, rice gluten, rice meal, rice protein concentrate, soy isolate or soy meal sourced from China.
Kellogg sources vitamins, freezedried strawberries and water chesnuts from a number of countries, including a very small amount from China. Because of the Quality Assurance programs we have in place, we are confident if the safety of these ingredients. These are the the only items that a small portion could be from China.
So, since you're avoiding all things Chinese, I'd sure like to know what that is. I'll gladly join you in your boycott.
Chinese-made ingredients are probably found in every aisle of American supermarkets. Consider that American favorite, the Hostess Twinkie. Of its 39 ingredients, at least half a dozen — such as vitamin B compounds, the preservative sorbic acid and red and yellow colorings — are most likely made in China, says Steve Ettlinger, author of the book, "Twinkie, Deconstructed."
1. Leaking radiation from the oven might cause unwanted chemical reactions in the living cells of humans operating the device.
Normally, not with non-ionizing radiation. That's one thing Einstein proved, that the energy involved for the photoelectric effect to occur does not depend on how strong the "radiation" is (i.e. such as the difference between the radiation emitted by a hundred watt light bulb vs. a 40 watt one), but on FREQUENCY. No matter how much the oven "leaks", it will never be sufficient to ionize the ordinary molecules in the human body. Now it can ionize neon.. which is a pretty neat thing to see. You can take an old neon lamp, and move it around the door of the microwave oven, and if there is a sufficient leak, it lights up.
I think microwaves MAY ionize gold, maybe silver and a few other metals.. interesting to see if you put them in the oven by themselves.
Most of us don't realize what kind of bath we're taking in radiation, day and night. Even if the power is off. There's so much from natural sources that we cannot detect. Seems we can only detect a rather thin sliver of the spectrum- visible light and what produces heat in human tissue.
Camp fires are a pretty good source.. probably 90 percent or more can't be seen with the eye.
Yes, each photon energy is described by E=hf, but I didn't want to get that technical.
Camp fires are a pretty good source.. probably 90 percent or more can't be seen with the eye.
Yes, this is the exact example that settled it for me years ago.
Like with campfires, I just make sure I don't fall into the oven.
***
I think I've seen neon bulbs light up when held close to an electrical outlet, and not making contact. Maybe it was when held close to the spark plug wires of a running car engine.
One of the major complaints about microwave cooking is that microwave cooked food "changes" the nutrients in the food, and because of this, many changes take place in the blood of those who also consume microwaved food. It is said that these are not healthy changes, and these changes can cause a rapid deterioration in the human system. A study was conducted to determine the effects on microwaved nutrients and their effect on the blood and physiology of humans by Hans Hertel, a food scientist who worked with major Swiss food companies along with Tom Valentine, who published the results in Search for Health back in the spring of 1992.
Blood samples were taken from participants at defined intervals after they ate a number of milk and vegetable preparations that were cooked in a microwave oven. Significant changes were found in the blood of the volunteers who consumed the food prepared in a microwave. Also in 1991 there was a lawsuit brought up in Oklahoma where a woman, Norma Levitt who was having hip surgery ended up being killed by a blood transfusion after a nurse warmed the blood in a microwave. Blood for transfusions is normally warmed, but not in microwave ovens.
Many people today assume heating up food is all there is to microwaves, and therfore it really doesn't matter what technology or the mode of heating one chooses to do that. But in the case with the warmed blood by the microwave oven, there could be more to heating with microwaves than what we've been led to believe. The majority of people today I believe think that only the "health nuts" are concerned with the value and quality of nutrition, and it is they who have discerned that there is a widespread problem with microwaved food.
Microwave ovens is a subject where I'm reminded of the saying that "A LITTLE learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." (Alexander Pope.)
Plus microwave ovens have been targets of urban legends for a long time- and twi was a great place to accumulate
urban legends. I'd heard several when I was in, passed along as if the person was an eyewitness to something
they passed along. (Nowadays, it's SO easy to disprove them.)
Microwave ovens use radiation to cook food.
So does a campfire, just in a different wavelength and frequency.
"Dubbed the Enegreen, the oven doesn't simply offer two ways to cook your food, instead putting both cooking technologies to use simultaneously, with the IH component cooking food from the outside in and the microwave cooking from the inside out. Supposedly, that'll translate to about an 85% reduction in cooking times"
The replies:
"What a scam. Microwaves don't "cook from the inside out", but rather "outside in" just like any other form for heating."
"Since when does a microwave cook from the inside out? Haven't you ever seen Mythbusters?"
"Microwaves cooking from the inside out is a myth from the 70's, and I've seen it on Engadget before.
Try heating something frozen in the microwave. The outside gets boiling hot while the inside is still frozen."
There are two “dangers” with microwave ovens that are no longer brought up much in public debate, but many years ago they were. I haven’t kept up with the subject for years, but maybe someone here has.
1. Leaking radiation from the oven might cause unwanted chemical reactions in the living cells of humans operating the device. I think this has been largely solved with shielding, but it still raised concerns in some. It’s a lot like the dangers of using cell phones excessively or living under high voltage power transmission lines. All three of these “dangers” are admitted by all to be very subtle and needing much more study to be definitive. Of the three, I suspect cell phones to be the worst.
"A Federal standard limits the amount of microwaves that can leak from an oven throughout its lifetime to 5 milliwatts (mW) of microwave radiation per square centimeter at approximately 2 inches from the oven surface. This limit is far below the level known to harm people. Microwave energy also decreases dramatically as you move away from the source of radiation. A measurement made 20 inches from an oven would be approximately one one-hundredth of value measured at 2 inches."
"There have been allegations of radiation injury from microwave ovens, but none as a direct result of microwave exposure. The injuries known to FDA have been injuries that could have happened with any oven or cooking surface. For example, many people have been burned by the hot food, splattering grease, or steam from food cooked in a microwave oven."
2. Radiation within the oven is thought to POSSIBLY break some food molecules at unusual spots, making them susceptible to unknown chemical reactions in said food, which may possibly yield carcinogenic material that is consumed with the food. I just recently heard that these kinds of chemical reactions are even more likely with the molecules in the plastic containers that house the food.
As to the first, microwave ovens cook UNEVENLY, which is why some spin to even out the cooking.
The "dangers" are eating food that's too hot in spots, or food that's insufficiently cooked.
Microwave ovens have not been shown to "change" food, except to make it hot, cold, or dry by
cooking off all the water. (Read the above links and that will make a lot more sense.)
Arguments against #2 (and somewhat for #1) note that the energy needed to do this is higher than what the microwave can produce, but the idea of resonant frequencies casts some uncertainty here. Normally sound doesn’t have the energy to break a Champaign glass, but if the sound just so happens to be at the resonant frequency of the glass, then it does break.
I too take my chances with my microwave, but I do try to remove the food from the plastic packaging first. I figure there’s much worse out there to “worry” about. For instance, I will not eat anything that comes from China or a "99 cent store." Nor will I plug in any device from said locations into my house electrical outlets.
At any rate, I think LCM may have had some sound thoughts on this subject, but they may have gotten out of hand later on in his life, or in the rumor mill.
Mind you,
I still like to keep a wall between me and a microwave oven that's running.
That's more paranoia than caution, but I don't lose any sleep over it.
One of the major complaints about microwave cooking is that microwave cooked food "changes" the nutrients in the food, and because of this, many changes take place in the blood of those who also consume microwaved food. It is said that these are not healthy changes, and these changes can cause a rapid deterioration in the human system. A study was conducted to determine the effects on microwaved nutrients and their effect on the blood and physiology of humans by Hans Hertel, a food scientist who worked with major Swiss food companies along with Tom Valentine, who published the results in Search for Health back in the spring of 1992.
Blood samples were taken from participants at defined intervals after they ate a number of milk and vegetable preparations that were cooked in a microwave oven. Significant changes were found in the blood of the volunteers who consumed the food prepared in a microwave. Also in 1991 there was a lawsuit brought up in Oklahoma where a woman, Norma Levitt who was having hip surgery ended up being killed by a blood transfusion after a nurse warmed the blood in a microwave. Blood for transfusions is normally warmed, but not in microwave ovens.
Here's how to separate microwave fact from fiction.
It all started with Hans Hertel.
The Swiss food chemist and seven fellow vegetarians confined themselves to a hotel for two months in the late 1980s. There, they consumed milk and vegetables prepared in the microwave oven and in other ways.
Hertel emerged with an astonishing pronouncement. Eating microwaved milk and vegetables caused changes in the men's blood that "appear to indicate the initial stage of a pathological process such as occurs at the start of a cancerous condition."
Hertel didn't actually find that microwaved food caused cancer. And his "study," which no researchers have tried to reproduce, was never peer-reviewed of published in a scientific journal.
"Without knowing more about how he conducted his study, what he measured, how he measured it, and what he found, it's impossible to even begin to evaluate his findings," says Barry Swanson, a food scientist at Washington State University in Pullman.
Hertel has dropped out of public view. So has William Kopp, described only as a "U.S. researcher," who wrote an article in 1996 claiming that Cold War research in the Soviet Union had proven the dangers of microwave ovens.
"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," Kopp wrote.
The Soviet research was never published and the institute where it was conducted, in what is now the Republic of Belarus, no longer exists. (The former Soviet Union may have banned microwave ovens for a short period, but no countries ban them today.) Kopp himself reportedly changed his name and vanished, believing that the appliance industry was out to persecute him.
While Hertel and Kopp are no longer around, their unsubstantiated charges are all over the Internet.
"The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood," says "10 Reasons to Throw Out your Microwave Oven," an article by Joseph Mercola, an Illinois alternative-medicine physician who operates what he says is the "#1 Natural Health Site" on the Internet (www.mercola.com).
Foods cooked in microwave ovens are "a recipe for cancer," adds medical journalist Simon Best on his Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy Web site (www.em-hazard-therapy.com)."
======
Same article:
"If you microwave your food, "you're zapping away nutrients and risking your health," charges physician Joseph Mercola, who recommends that consumers get rid of their microwave ovens and eat at least a third of their food raw.
"Actually, microwaving retains more nutrients than other forms of cooking, if you don't use a lot of water and don't overcook the food," says food scientist Barry Swanson.
"For some reason, people think heat breaks down vitamins, but most vitamins are really very stable to heat. Nutrients are mostly lost into the water, and there's no reason to add water to vegetables or anything else that already contains a lot of water."
Too much water was apparently the problem in a 2003 study in which European researchers reported that microwaving broccoli in a bowl of water destroyed nearly all of several flavonoids, while steaming had only a mild effect on them. (2) (Flavonoids are plant compounds that may help protect against heart disease and cancer, though the evidence is scanty.)
That research isn't relevant to household microwaving, says Swanson. "Basically, the researchers added far too much water and microwaved the living daylights out of the broccoli."
================
Tinfoil should never be used in microwaves,
and it's not useful for hats, either.
That's why it's such a tragedy regarding the twinky...
There's 2 schools of thought concerning the Twinkie.
1) Since there's no chocolate outer coating, germs can get in through the pores.
2) The preservatives give it a 20year shelf life.
I like eating Twinkies that are 10 years old, but not 20, myself. ;)
I'm reminded of being whisked away from the front of the NEW colored TV in the mid- 60's, as "the waves cause cancer. At LEAST 3 feet, dear! You don't want to end up like Grampa!" BTW, glad to say that Grampa lived at least another decade after cobalt treatment!
We left a Twinky on the dashboard of our van for a few weeks in the summer once, it completely turned into a milky pool of slime with no semblance to the tasty tubular cake it once was... :blink: :blink:
Dying from eating a Twinkie heated in a microwave seems pretty painless while being good tasting to boot
Hi there, Mo.
So nice to "see" you.
Ok, back to topic.
When microwaves first hit the market, Gr@ce B!iZZ said that they destroyed the nutritional value of the food being cooked, especially vitamins. Maybe she was partially right. I don't know.
Well, I loved Grace B., but somehow everything she said was treated like it was delivered on a stone tablet.
As far as I recall, that's the origin of the "Great Microwave Scare". in TWI.
Not too exciting or spiritually heavy but there it is.
Not that I'm aware of. But my kids used to microwave marshmallow peeps. They'd expand to about ten times their normal size within thirty seconds or so..
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Belle
Here's one post about it.
And another
I'm sure there's probably more about it in some of the Y2K threads and the ridiculous lengths they expected us to go through.
I most likely did NOT take any notes on the microwave portion of the meeting as I distinctly remember being shocked and then extremely amused at his whole take on microwaves and how scared of them he is. I wonder if he's still scared of 'em and if he uses them since he most likely has to fix his own meals these days.... :unsure:
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Belle
Oh, geeze - this is on one of those threads (which are good, by the way... especially the top one)
I might have nightmares now.
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Tom Strange
I'm really glad to find this thread... I've long thought there was something very devilish about the things!
I mean... think about it... you put the food in and it 'magically' gets cooked??? ...what's up with that?
and not only that but IT SPINS AROUND as well!!! ...if that doesn't prove it I don't know what will!
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Mike
There are two “dangers” with microwave ovens that are no longer brought up much in public debate, but many years ago they were. I haven’t kept up with the subject for years, but maybe someone here has.
1. Leaking radiation from the oven might cause unwanted chemical reactions in the living cells of humans operating the device. I think this has been largely solved with shielding, but it still raised concerns in some. It’s a lot like the dangers of using cell phones excessively or living under high voltage power transmission lines. All three of these “dangers” are admitted by all to be very subtle and needing much more study to be definitive. Of the three, I suspect cell phones to be the worst.
2. Radiation within the oven is thought to POSSIBLY break some food molecules at unusual spots, making them susceptible to unknown chemical reactions in said food, which may possibly yield carcinogenic material that is consumed with the food. I just recently heard that these kinds of chemical reactions are even more likely with the molecules in the plastic containers that house the food.
Arguments against #2 (and somewhat for #1) note that the energy needed to do this is higher than what the microwave can produce, but the idea of resonant frequencies casts some uncertainty here. Normally sound doesn’t have the energy to break a Champaign glass, but if the sound just so happens to be at the resonant frequency of the glass, then it does break.
I too take my chances with my microwave, but I do try to remove the food from the plastic packaging first. I figure there’s much worse out there to “worry” about. For instance, I will not eat anything that comes from China or a "99 cent store." Nor will I plug in any device from said locations into my house electrical outlets.
At any rate, I think LCM may have had some sound thoughts on this subject, but they may have gotten out of hand later on in his life, or in the rumor mill.
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Tom Strange
Well... I like my popcorn from an "old fashioned" popper anyway...
...and microwaves are the enemy of the snowcone!
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Belle
Tom,
I guess vee pee never used that word before.
Mike, how do you know what's coming from China to avoid? I e-mailed a bunch of companies after the pet food scare and not one of them would tell me which of their products use imported ingredients from China. There aren't even any laws in place that require companies to label where the ingredients in the foods come from.
Heck, many of them don't even know where the ingredients they buy come from!
In fact, Kelloggs gave me more information than any of the companies I contacted and, even that was very limited:
So, since you're avoiding all things Chinese, I'd sure like to know what that is. I'll gladly join you in your boycott.Link to comment
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Tom Strange
OH NO!!!! NOT THE TWINKY!!! (second only to the snow cone on my food chain)
along those lines Belle/Mike: do you know where a lot of the produce in your grocery store comes from? ...are you sure?
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Belle
NO! I don't! And, that's the problem....
I've been shopping more and more frequently at the LOCAL farmers market, but even some of that's not really local and it's rather limiting.
And, even with the "local" stuff, you have the pesticide paranoia.
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Tom Strange
That's why it's such a tragedy regarding the twinky...
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Belle
Don't hate Twinkie!
Don't cry for Twinkie
Just eat Twinkie
Ode to a Twinkie
Oh, Twinkie with your golden hue,
You have delicious goop in you.
There you are! Were you waiting long,
Between Sno-balls and stale Ding Dong?
My friends all think I'm kinda kinky
Cause my role model is a twinkie.
But they don't know what we've been through.
Dear Twinkie, I can count on you.
I tell my troubles as I bite.
You never tell me, "That's not right."
You listen to each foolish fear,
Then slowly, deliciously disappear.
I hold you close when we're alone
And think the thoughts that are my own.
Then turn to you, my dear sweet yummie.
You clear my mind, tickle my tummie.
Your outside is a little plain,
But inside you are "mellow lane."
I like you better than these folks,
Who look at me and then make jokes.
People should be more like you.
You don't judge the things folks do.
Inside is where your beauty lies.
Within the plain, there's sweet surprise.
—Grandpa Tucker
Copyright ©1997 by Bob Tucker
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Ham
Normally, not with non-ionizing radiation. That's one thing Einstein proved, that the energy involved for the photoelectric effect to occur does not depend on how strong the "radiation" is (i.e. such as the difference between the radiation emitted by a hundred watt light bulb vs. a 40 watt one), but on FREQUENCY. No matter how much the oven "leaks", it will never be sufficient to ionize the ordinary molecules in the human body. Now it can ionize neon.. which is a pretty neat thing to see. You can take an old neon lamp, and move it around the door of the microwave oven, and if there is a sufficient leak, it lights up.
I think microwaves MAY ionize gold, maybe silver and a few other metals.. interesting to see if you put them in the oven by themselves.
Most of us don't realize what kind of bath we're taking in radiation, day and night. Even if the power is off. There's so much from natural sources that we cannot detect. Seems we can only detect a rather thin sliver of the spectrum- visible light and what produces heat in human tissue.
Camp fires are a pretty good source.. probably 90 percent or more can't be seen with the eye.
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Mike
Yes, each photon energy is described by E=hf, but I didn't want to get that technical.
Yes, this is the exact example that settled it for me years ago.
Like with campfires, I just make sure I don't fall into the oven.
***
I think I've seen neon bulbs light up when held close to an electrical outlet, and not making contact. Maybe it was when held close to the spark plug wires of a running car engine.
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What The Hey
One of the major complaints about microwave cooking is that microwave cooked food "changes" the nutrients in the food, and because of this, many changes take place in the blood of those who also consume microwaved food. It is said that these are not healthy changes, and these changes can cause a rapid deterioration in the human system. A study was conducted to determine the effects on microwaved nutrients and their effect on the blood and physiology of humans by Hans Hertel, a food scientist who worked with major Swiss food companies along with Tom Valentine, who published the results in Search for Health back in the spring of 1992.
Blood samples were taken from participants at defined intervals after they ate a number of milk and vegetable preparations that were cooked in a microwave oven. Significant changes were found in the blood of the volunteers who consumed the food prepared in a microwave. Also in 1991 there was a lawsuit brought up in Oklahoma where a woman, Norma Levitt who was having hip surgery ended up being killed by a blood transfusion after a nurse warmed the blood in a microwave. Blood for transfusions is normally warmed, but not in microwave ovens.
Many people today assume heating up food is all there is to microwaves, and therfore it really doesn't matter what technology or the mode of heating one chooses to do that. But in the case with the warmed blood by the microwave oven, there could be more to heating with microwaves than what we've been led to believe. The majority of people today I believe think that only the "health nuts" are concerned with the value and quality of nutrition, and it is they who have discerned that there is a widespread problem with microwaved food.
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WordWolf
Microwave ovens is a subject where I'm reminded of the saying that "A LITTLE learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." (Alexander Pope.)
Plus microwave ovens have been targets of urban legends for a long time- and twi was a great place to accumulate
urban legends. I'd heard several when I was in, passed along as if the person was an eyewitness to something
they passed along. (Nowadays, it's SO easy to disprove them.)
Microwave ovens use radiation to cook food.
So does a campfire, just in a different wavelength and frequency.
How do microwave ovens work?
Pick your link.
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae379.cfm
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/consumer/microwave.html
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents...wave_ovens.html
http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/...x.html?quid=163
http://www.arpansa.gov.au/radiationprotect...s_Microwave.cfm
One of the most common myths is that it "cooks food from the inside-out".
Many of you've proven otherwise, cooking something and finding the insides still cold.
Mythbusters did it too, just to make it official.
Then again, some of the companies have been spreading this one around.
Check out this article- then check out the replies!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/22/sanyo-a...ih-oven-hybrid/
"Dubbed the Enegreen, the oven doesn't simply offer two ways to cook your food, instead putting both cooking technologies to use simultaneously, with the IH component cooking food from the outside in and the microwave cooking from the inside out. Supposedly, that'll translate to about an 85% reduction in cooking times"
The replies:
"What a scam. Microwaves don't "cook from the inside out", but rather "outside in" just like any other form for heating."
"Since when does a microwave cook from the inside out? Haven't you ever seen Mythbusters?"
"Microwaves cooking from the inside out is a myth from the 70's, and I've seen it on Engadget before.
Try heating something frozen in the microwave. The outside gets boiling hot while the inside is still frozen."
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WordWolf
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/consumer/microwave.html
"A Federal standard limits the amount of microwaves that can leak from an oven throughout its lifetime to 5 milliwatts (mW) of microwave radiation per square centimeter at approximately 2 inches from the oven surface. This limit is far below the level known to harm people. Microwave energy also decreases dramatically as you move away from the source of radiation. A measurement made 20 inches from an oven would be approximately one one-hundredth of value measured at 2 inches."
"There have been allegations of radiation injury from microwave ovens, but none as a direct result of microwave exposure. The injuries known to FDA have been injuries that could have happened with any oven or cooking surface. For example, many people have been burned by the hot food, splattering grease, or steam from food cooked in a microwave oven."
On the second, you just recently heard wrong.http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cookplastic.asp
As to the first, microwave ovens cook UNEVENLY, which is why some spin to even out the cooking.
The "dangers" are eating food that's too hot in spots, or food that's insufficiently cooked.
Microwave ovens have not been shown to "change" food, except to make it hot, cold, or dry by
cooking off all the water. (Read the above links and that will make a lot more sense.)
Mind you,
I still like to keep a wall between me and a microwave oven that's running.
That's more paranoia than caution, but I don't lose any sleep over it.
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WordWolf
Sounds serious.
Odd how Hans Hertel didn't treat it as serious.
=======
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m081...32/ai_n13664949
Here's how to separate microwave fact from fiction.
It all started with Hans Hertel.
The Swiss food chemist and seven fellow vegetarians confined themselves to a hotel for two months in the late 1980s. There, they consumed milk and vegetables prepared in the microwave oven and in other ways.
Hertel emerged with an astonishing pronouncement. Eating microwaved milk and vegetables caused changes in the men's blood that "appear to indicate the initial stage of a pathological process such as occurs at the start of a cancerous condition."
Hertel didn't actually find that microwaved food caused cancer. And his "study," which no researchers have tried to reproduce, was never peer-reviewed of published in a scientific journal.
"Without knowing more about how he conducted his study, what he measured, how he measured it, and what he found, it's impossible to even begin to evaluate his findings," says Barry Swanson, a food scientist at Washington State University in Pullman.
Hertel has dropped out of public view. So has William Kopp, described only as a "U.S. researcher," who wrote an article in 1996 claiming that Cold War research in the Soviet Union had proven the dangers of microwave ovens.
"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," Kopp wrote.
The Soviet research was never published and the institute where it was conducted, in what is now the Republic of Belarus, no longer exists. (The former Soviet Union may have banned microwave ovens for a short period, but no countries ban them today.) Kopp himself reportedly changed his name and vanished, believing that the appliance industry was out to persecute him.
While Hertel and Kopp are no longer around, their unsubstantiated charges are all over the Internet.
"The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood," says "10 Reasons to Throw Out your Microwave Oven," an article by Joseph Mercola, an Illinois alternative-medicine physician who operates what he says is the "#1 Natural Health Site" on the Internet (www.mercola.com).
Foods cooked in microwave ovens are "a recipe for cancer," adds medical journalist Simon Best on his Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy Web site (www.em-hazard-therapy.com)."
======
Same article:
"If you microwave your food, "you're zapping away nutrients and risking your health," charges physician Joseph Mercola, who recommends that consumers get rid of their microwave ovens and eat at least a third of their food raw.
"Actually, microwaving retains more nutrients than other forms of cooking, if you don't use a lot of water and don't overcook the food," says food scientist Barry Swanson.
"For some reason, people think heat breaks down vitamins, but most vitamins are really very stable to heat. Nutrients are mostly lost into the water, and there's no reason to add water to vegetables or anything else that already contains a lot of water."
Too much water was apparently the problem in a 2003 study in which European researchers reported that microwaving broccoli in a bowl of water destroyed nearly all of several flavonoids, while steaming had only a mild effect on them. (2) (Flavonoids are plant compounds that may help protect against heart disease and cancer, though the evidence is scanty.)
That research isn't relevant to household microwaving, says Swanson. "Basically, the researchers added far too much water and microwaved the living daylights out of the broccoli."
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Tinfoil should never be used in microwaves,
and it's not useful for hats, either.
There's 2 schools of thought concerning the Twinkie.
1) Since there's no chocolate outer coating, germs can get in through the pores.
2) The preservatives give it a 20year shelf life.
I like eating Twinkies that are 10 years old, but not 20, myself. ;)
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/twinkies.asp
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templelady
Of all the ways of dying.........
Dying from eating a Twinkie heated in a microwave seems pretty painless while being good tasting to boot
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cinderpelt
I'm reminded of being whisked away from the front of the NEW colored TV in the mid- 60's, as "the waves cause cancer. At LEAST 3 feet, dear! You don't want to end up like Grampa!" BTW, glad to say that Grampa lived at least another decade after cobalt treatment!
~Cinder
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potato
has anyone here ever tried microwaving a twinkie?
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cinderpelt
I bet it'd get really hard on the outside, and who knows what form the gushy stuff would take? Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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now I see
We left a Twinky on the dashboard of our van for a few weeks in the summer once, it completely turned into a milky pool of slime with no semblance to the tasty tubular cake it once was... :blink: :blink:
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cinderpelt
YIKES!!!!
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waysider
Hi there, Mo.
So nice to "see" you.
Ok, back to topic.
When microwaves first hit the market, Gr@ce B!iZZ said that they destroyed the nutritional value of the food being cooked, especially vitamins. Maybe she was partially right. I don't know.
Well, I loved Grace B., but somehow everything she said was treated like it was delivered on a stone tablet.
As far as I recall, that's the origin of the "Great Microwave Scare". in TWI.
Not too exciting or spiritually heavy but there it is.
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Ham
Not that I'm aware of. But my kids used to microwave marshmallow peeps. They'd expand to about ten times their normal size within thirty seconds or so..
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