Microwaves bad for our health?

rangercal · February 4, 2005

http://www.jrussellshealth.com/microwaves.html

Ten reasons to throw out your Microwave oven (taken from research):

1. Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term, permanent, brain damage by ‘shorting out” electrical impulses in the brain (de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue).

2. The human body cannot metabolize (breakdown) the unknown by-products created in microwaved food.

3. Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered by continually eating microwaved foods.

4. The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual (long term, permanent) within the human body.

5. Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit, or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down.

6. The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free radicals when cooked in microwave ovens.

7. Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths (tumors). This may explain the rapid increased rate of colon cancer in America.

8. The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood.

9. Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and serum alterations.

10. Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory, concentration, emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.

Soxy · February 4, 2005

This lady sounds psycho.

rangercal · February 4, 2005

QUOTE(ChiSoxyGirl @ Feb 4, 2005 -> 09:47 AM)

This lady sounds psycho.

To become educated is to move from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

Author: Unknown

Queen Prawn · February 4, 2005

This "person" doesn't seem to think they are deadly.

The salesperson you spoke to was simply wrong. If you’ll allow me to stand on my soapbox for a minute, I’ll tell you that this is a perfect example of how important it is for everyone to truly learn basic science while they’re in school and not to simply suffer through the classes as a way to obtain a degree. The salesperson is apparently oblivious to the differences between types of “radiation,” to the short- and long-term effects of those radiations, and to the importance of intensity in radiation.

Let’s start with the differences in types of radiation. Basically, anything that moves is radiation, from visible light, to ultraviolet, to X-rays, to microwaves, to alpha particles, to neutrons, and even to flying pigeons. These different radiations do different things when they hit you, particularly the pigeons. While “ionizing radiations” such as X-rays, ultraviolet, alpha particles, and neutrons usually have enough localized energy to do chemical damage to the molecules they hit, “non-ionizing radiation” such as microwaves and pigeons do not damage molecules. When you and your organic friend worry about toxic changes in food or precancerous changes in your tissue, what really worry you are molecular changes. Microwaves and pigeons don’t cause those sorts of changes. Microwaves effectively heat food or tissue thermally, while pigeons bruise food or tissue on impact.

Wearing a lead apron while working around ionizing radiation makes sense, although a simple layer of fabric or sunscreen is enough to protect you from most ultraviolet. To protect yourself against pigeons, wear a helmet. And to protect yourself against microwaves, use metal. The cooking chamber of the microwave oven is a metal box (including the screened front window). So little microwave “radiation” escapes from this metal box that it’s usually hard to detect, let alone cause a safety problem. There just isn’t much microwave intensity coming from the oven and intensity matters. A little microwaves do nothing at all to you; in fact you emit them yourself!

If you want to detect some serious microwaves, put that microwave detector near your cellphone! The cellphone’s job is to emit microwaves, right next to your ear! Before you give up on microwave ovens, you should probably give up on cellphones. That said, I think the worst danger about cellphones is driving into a pedestrian or a tree while you’re under the influence of the conversation. Basically, non-ionizing radiation such as microwaves is only dangerous if it cooks you. At the intensities emitted by a cellphone next to your ear, it’s possible that some minor cooking is taking place. However, the cancer risk is almost certainly nil.

Despite all this physics reality, salespeople and con artists are still more than happy to sell you protection against the dangers of modern life. I chuckle at the shields people sell to install on you cellphones to reduce their emissions of harmful radiation. The whole point of the cellphone is to emit microwave signals to the receiving tower, so if you shield it you spoil its operation! It would be like wrapping an X-ray machine in a lead box to protect the patient. Sure, the patient would be safe but the X-ray machine would barely work any more.

Soxy · February 4, 2005

QUOTE(rangercal @ Feb 4, 2005 -> 10:27 AM)

To become educated is to move from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

Author: Unknown

I'll take my scientific information from JAMA, Nature, Science, and other peer-reviewed journals before some person that just has a website and antedotes...

AngelasDaddy0427 · February 4, 2005

QUOTE(rangercal @ Feb 4, 2005 -> 09:10 AM)