A look at how microwaved food can negatively affect your health
by Catherine Ebeling - RN, BSN & Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist
co-authors - The Fat Burning Kitchen
Do
you know what (besides a television) is in almost every home in
America? It’s a microwave oven. Because microwave ovens are quick and
easy and don't take up much space, they are used for meal preparation in
the home, at the office, and even restaurants. Even your favorite
healthy restaurant may depend on these electrical devices to quickly
heat up or cook foods. So, the question here is —
Are microwave ovens safe, and is it ok to eat the food cooked in them?
Before we look at the science of how
microwaved food can affect your blood chemistry and negatively affect
your health, let's look at a bigger picture, common-sense thought
process about this...
If you think about it from this
perspective, the human digestive system evolved over hundreds of
thousands of years to digest food that was either raw or cooked in water
or by heat. However, food cooked via microwaves is a totally alien
and unknown cooking method to the human digestive system.
It's just common sense that such a
radically different cooking method will alter the chemistry of the food
to negatively impact our health.
Now onto a little more science...
Let’s take a look at how microwaves ovens work
Microwaves are a part of the whole electromagnetic spectrum of energy
that includes light waves and radio waves. They travel at the speed of
light--which is about 186,282 miles per second. So how does that oven
heat up the food so fast?
Inside the microwave oven, there is a “magnetron” which is a tube
full of electrons. The electrons in the microwave oven react with
magnetic and electronic energy and become micro wavelengths. This is the
radiation that interacts with the molecules in food.
Food molecules have a positive and negative end, kind of like the way
a magnet has a north and a south polarity. The electrons from the
magnetron produce wavelengths that react with the positive and negative
parts of the food molecules. The food molecules then start vibrating, up
to several million times a second. This molecular “vibration” is what
creates the heat in the food.
This agitiation deforms the molecules in food and creates new unnatural radiolytic compounds previously unknown to nature. These strange foreign compounds in microwaved food have been shown to
damage the blood, the digestive system, and our immune systems.
Microwave ovens have been actually been around for about 40 or so
years, but so far, only a couple of in-depth scientific studies have
been done on them.
Research showing negative health impacts of eating microwaved food
Extensive research, though, was conducted in both Switzerland and
Russia on microwaved foods and their effects on the human body. Both
studies concluded that microwaving foods significantly deteriorated the
nutrient value of the food, distorted protein molecules in the food, and
created new, radically unnatural compounds. Most alarming, however, was
that the subjects' health deteriorated from eating the microwaved
foods.
Their findings included:
- Blood hemoglobin (the extremely important oxygen-carrying component
of the blood) decreased significantly after eating microwaved foods.
- White blood cell count rose, (as it does in response to an infection).
- LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) increased, and HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) decreased.
- Carcinogenic (cancer-causing) agents in foods increased.
- Higher incidence of digestive system cancers.
The Russian scientists found the microwave oven significantly scary enough to actually ban its use--up until recently.
When food is cooked in a microwave oven, it has:
- Significantly less B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, essential minerals and fats.
- Broken down and de-natured proteins.
- Loss of vital enzymes and phytochemicals.
And here is a really interesting study—done on grain germination:
The grain watered with microwaved (and cooled) water would not not
even germinate or grow! It’s pretty obvious that microwaving changed the
water chemically and destroyed its ability to nourish a plant.
Ok, so maybe it’s ok to just heat leftovers in the microwave oven once in a while?
NO! Actually, food
heated in a microwave is heated unevenly creating super-heated spots and
cool spots. Those cool spots may actually harbor bacterial growth such
as salmonella, and you end up with food poisoning.
In addition, when you use plastic containers or plastic wrap in
contact with your food, you end up getting all sorts of nasty chemicals
like di(ethylhexyl)adepate, or DEHA, (a carcinogen), Bisphenol-A or BPA
(a cancer-causing agent in plastics) and xenoestrogens (synthetic
estrogens) in your food!
In one recent study, it was found that carcinogenic ingredients in plastic wrap were 10,000 times the FDA limit for safety!
Exposure to
BPA, used in the manufacture of polycarbonate and other plastics, has been shown to cause
reproductive problems and erectile dysfunction, and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans.
Xenoestrogens are really nasty synthetic estrogens that seem to show
up everywhere. In men, xenoestrogens can cause low sperm counts and
feminization (like the dreaded “man boobs”) and breast cancer and
reproductive problems in women. Xenoestrogens promote weight gain around
the belly and chest in men, and in women, it shows up as fat in the
butt, hips, thighs and the back of arms.
So, in addition to being really unhealthy,
microwaved foods can make you fat!
Parents should
never
warm breast milk or formula in the microwave oven—not only can it
superheat the milk and burn the baby, but microwaving destroys the very
valuable nutrients, enzymes and protein vital to babies' growth!
And here is something really scary: in 1991, a patient received blood
that had been warmed in a microwave oven. That patient died of a severe
anaphylactic reaction to the blood. The microwaving created something
totally unrecognizable by the body!
If you want to be safe, healthy and LEAN, avoid your
microwave—totally. Personally, I threw out my microwave about 6 years
ago and haven't even missed it!
There are far healthier and better alternatives:
- Eat vegetables and fruit raw preferably, or if cooked, sauté lightly
(with a little water and some grass-fed butter) or steam until tender
crisp in a pan on the stove.
- Heat water for tea, etc in a pan or tea-kettle instead of the
microwave—or, better yet-- is to get a steaming hot water tap—I love
these things!
- Plan ahead and defrost frozen foods in the refrigerator.
- Heat up ALL leftovers over low heat in a pan or in a toaster oven in
aluminum foil (it still only takes 4-5 minutes to heat leftovers)
- If you must use a microwave (and I don’t know why you would!), use only glass containers instead of plastic.
Or you may want to try this-- small countertop convection ovens are great for cooking foods faster and more evenly than a regular oven or on the stove.
You can actually cook a frozen 15-oz. grass-fed ribeye in 20 minutes,
and it is delicious; browned, tender and juicy. These little convection
ovens will broil, bake, fry, roast, grill or steam your favorite foods,
including meat, chicken, and vegetable. It takes 20-30% less time than a
regular oven, and uses about 75% less energy.
This is a far healthier option than a
cancer-causing, nutrient-robbing, microwave oven!
Please feel free to
email the link to this page to your friends and family so they can make
the smart decision to throw out their microwaves and protect their
family's health!
If you liked this article, please
Share it below for Facebook, google+, or twitter:
To your good health,
Catherine Ebeling & Mike Geary
Co-authors -
The Fat Burning Kitchen: Your 24-Hour Diet Transformation to Make Your Body a Fat-Burning Machine
I
just started doing this recently, and it's been a great way to "sneak"
more nutrition into certain types of dinners. This can also help you get
leaner, because higher nutrient density in your meals means lower
appetite and controlled cravings for you later.
I've
been traveling a lot for business in the last year, and I've noticed
that most people totally fall off their fitness routines while
traveling...
Example Substitutions:
