Today, the microwave oven is an important cooking accessory found in most kitchens. If you’re leading a busy lifestyle, it can be quite the convenient cooking alternative too.
Ever wondered what happens behind that glass window? Microwave ovens pass electromagnetic waves through your food. This makes the molecules move and heat up as they begin to respond to the passage of microwave radiation. The microwave oven possesses a magnetron that creates wave energy, converting molecule polarity from positive to negative. The polarity also changes multiple times each second in an oven.
These microwaves then bombard the food molecules and make the polarized molecules to radiate at the same frequency. Consequently, food gets heated up and can get structurally damaged at the molecular level because of the friction that’s generated.
Things People Won’t Tell You About Microwave Ovens
These things will not be mentioned when people talk about microwave safety. Apart from the obvious fact of not using any “metal” based boxes or cutlery.12
- Heating your food in a microwave oven destroys all the nutrients, minerals, and vitamins in it.
- Regular consumption of microwave oven-heated food can contribute to permanent brain damage.
- Eating microwaved food every day can lead to you experiencing immune system deficiencies through a series of lymph gland and serum alterations.
- Daily consumption of microwaved food can lead to an increased number of cancerous cells in the blood.
- Regular consumption of microwaved food can mean a higher risk of developing intestinal and stomach tumors.
- Overeating microwave oven-heated food could trigger poor concentration, memory loss, low intelligence, and emotional instability.
- Heating cereal grains and milk in the microwave can transform some of the amino acids into carcinogenic agents.
- Heating frozen fruits in the microwave can also transform some of their galactoside and glucoside fractions into harmful carcinogenic agents.
- Even a short exposure of raw, cooked, or frozen vegetables to microwaves converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.
Is Microwaved Food Bad For You?
There are plenty of studies that were carried out examining the effects of microwaved food. One of the more popular and significant ones was carried out by Hans Hertel, a Swiss food scientist, and biologist.
In the study, 8 people lived in a controlled environment and intermittently ate raw foods, conventionally cooked foods, and microwaved foods for 2 months. Their blood samples were tested immediately after every meal. It was found that the microwaved food caused significant changes in the participants’ blood chemistry.
[pullquote]Dr. Hertel concluded that no atoms, molecules, cells of any organic system can withstand such destructive energy like microwaves for any extended period of time.[/pullquote]
As the cooking heat in a microwave oven is generated because of friction from this kind of violence in water molecules, structures of molecules are torn apart and molecules are forcefully deformed. This process is called structural isomerism. In this way, your overall food quality becomes impaired.
About The Food Heated In The Microwave
Are you wondering why your food is often unevenly heated when it’s taken out of the microwave? This uneven heating happens because microwaves work with what water molecules are already present in the food. Usually, not all areas of your food contain the same amount of water, thus leading to uneven heating.
Another study by Stanford University investigated the effects of microwaving breast milk. The study’s findings showed that even at a low setting, human milk can lose some of its important disease-fighting capabilities when it’s microwaved. In addition, a number of other disturbing alterations were found in the milk too.3
[pullquote]There are even records of patients having died after receiving blood that was heated in a microwave oven.[/pullquote]
In Russia, microwave ovens were banned in 1976 because of their ill-effects on people’s health and overall well-being.4
Besides these negative effects, consuming microwaved foods regularly is also known to cause infertility in men. Most importantly, it denatures many of the essential proteins in your food making it virtually indigestible.
References
| ↑1 | Yakymenko, Igor, et al. “Long-term exposure to microwave radiation provokes cancer growth: evidences from radars and mobile communication systems.” (2011). |
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| ↑2 | Zhang, Xia, Wen-Juan Huang, and Wei-Wei Chen. “Microwaves and Alzheimer’s disease.” Experimental and therapeutic medicine 12, no. 4 (2016): 1969-1972. |
| ↑3 | These Diseases Are All Caused by Microwave Ovens, and You’ve Probably Ignored Them! Organic and Healthy. |
| ↑4 | Delaney, Anthony. “Reliability of modern microwave ovens to safely heat intravenous fluids for resuscitation.” Emergency Medicine Australasia 13, no. 2 (2001): 181-185. |