Microwaving has been known to cause anemia

[SF]

My dad saw this on TV so I, claiming superior internetz documentation skills, said I would investigate fully:

Never use a microwave (for yourself, your children or your dogs & cats), because it heats by vibrating molecules at 2.5 million times per second causing serious damage in the breaking up of the molecules, and the body considers them foreign objects; therefore, the pancreas doesn't even recognize the substance as food and does not know what enzymes to produce to digest these microwaved foods. Microwaving has been known to cause anemia, high cholesterol levels, high radiation levels of light-emitting bacteria, and a major decline in lymphocytes, with the body responding as if the food were an infectious agent. Studies have shown that babies have died from consistently having their bottles and/or baby food warmed in a microwave.

 

[_Mayday_]

SF, it would be a lot better if you offered a direct link or source of this information, as what you are saying may have been misinterpreted. I struggle to believe a lot of it, but then I am no expert in such a field.

If microwave use has been known to cause such problems then I would have thought it would be serious enough to stop use of microwaves. I can't play with a tennis ball at school because of health and safety issues, but people can risk their health. In fact as everyone just about has a microwave, I would have thought I would have heard of some cases.

 

[SF]

this is where I got that text: http :// www . breathing . com /articles/microwaves . htm

I stumbled on that link on a google search looking for that precise thing. I live in Romania, so the specific sources of the guy my dad's watching are unavaliable, although I assume they're the same, since they make the same claims.

So do microwaves make the food "unrecognizible" by the body?
The claim seems absurd: proteins are still proteins, right? There's no chemical alteration, just physical heating.

Do microwaves remove water from food? I never saw my dinner leak.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Cripes! What a load of nonsense!

This was one of my favorites:

Soviet studies show residual magnetism affects receptor components in the brain, affecting behavior. Transmitting radio signals at controlled frequencies, caused subjects to comply involuntarily and subliminally - to commands received through microwave transmissions - thus prompting their ban.

That is just stupid.

Almost all of the claims sound absurd and I know that many of them are, but they make so many claims that I'm going to leave this open for discussion. There seems to be quite an anti-microwave cult out there.

One key feature to note is how many claims are made but with no supporting evidence. That is a sure sign of crackpottery. So is using scientific papers from Russia that are 50 years old as a justification for the argument. There has certainly been volumes of research done since, and we don't even know if the original work cited is or ever was respectable or just more crackpottery.

Note that back then Russian scientists were famous for their telekinesis experiments... Since we don't see Russians levitating cars with their minds, I have to assume that was all nonsense as well. In fact they were duped by simple magicians - tricksters. There is an element of Russian science that has a very strange history in this regard.

 

[_Mayday_]

Don't put your head in the microwave guys.

 

[Moonbear]

Well, all those things might happen if you microwave YOURSELF, but not if you microwave your food. There is some truth to the claim one shouldn't microwave infant formula or breast milk stored for infants, and that's because microwaving, like boiling, can destroy vitamins. Infant formula or breast milk should just be slowly heated to a warm temperature for drinking. Microwaving can also aid in leaching BPAs from bottles into the milk/formula (BPAs have recently been in the news again...microwaving has been well known for some time now to be a risk for leaching them out of plastics). But it's not a direct effect of microwaving so much as it is a nutrient deprivation from any form of overheating.

 

[CEL]

First of all, molecules in the microwave oven vibrate 2.5 billion and not 2.5 million times per second. This frequency was chosen because it is one of the ressonant frequencies of water molecules.
Even this frequency is not enough to break food molecules. Only ionizing radiation can do that and ionizing radiation only begins at the ultraviolet band of EM spectrum.

 

[mgb_phys]

Don't put your head in the microwave guys.

Unless you are in a zombie attack - it might make your brains unrecognisable to them as food and so save your life!

 

[_Mayday_]

Haha! That is a plan now isn't it.

 

[TheMetalChick]

So do microwaves make the food "unrecognizible" by the body?
The claim seems absurd: proteins are still proteins, right? There's no chemical alteration, just physical heating.

Do microwaves remove water from food? I never saw my dinner leak.

First of all, molecules in the microwave oven vibrate 2.5 billion and not 2.5 million times per second. This frequency was chosen because it is one of the ressonant frequencies of water molecules.
Even this frequency is not enough to break food molecules. Only ionizing radiation can do that and ionizing radiation only begins at the ultraviolet band of EM spectrum.

Well, when the water boils that can cause molecular changes, AKA cooking. The water itself boiling is a physical change, but if something cooks- like say a raw egg cooking in the microwave- that can be a chemical alteration.


Heh- when I was a middle school science teacher I found it unbelievable how many students were certain that microwaves cause cancer, kill you if you stand near them, etc. The kids weren't afraid of radio waves or visible light, but microwaves inexplicably terrified them!