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The fear of microwave ovens bringeth a snare..


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"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.

WW, can we really trust someone named Swanson???

I mean... he could possibly have an ulterior motive...

Edited by Tom Strange
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:biglaugh:

I could launch a study, that proves the moon is actually constructed from green cheese..

darn documentation though.. gets in the way. Useless questions from my "colleagues" like:

1. what kind of chemicals were you consuming when you came to this conclusion..

2. what's the deal with your proclivities with green cheese..

3. ....

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I heard that it was the roasting uranium over a campfire built inside a giant microwave oven

that was the big breakthrough in the development of the atom bomb.

...but I could be wrong.

...but this post may someday be cited as the origin of a late 2007 urban legend, so I don't mind being wrong.

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:biglaugh:

Well, since this isn't a scientific study, as a colleague, I won't bother you with useless questions like:

1. What kind of chemicals were you consuming when you came to this conclusion?

2. What's the deal with the proclivities with green cheese..

:biglaugh:

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I heard that it was the roasting uranium over a campfire built inside a giant microwave oven

that was the big breakthrough in the development of the atom bomb.

...but I could be wrong.

...but this post may someday be cited as the origin of a late 2007 urban legend, so I don't mind being wrong.

Funny, ya know-----

I was just thinking this same thing today as I was roasting uranium over a campfire built inside a giant microwave oven.

BTW

Speaking of the atom bomb-----------Paul Tibbetts died today.

Of course, that was actually the H-Bomb but the connection seemed obvious.

Edited by waysider
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Speaking of the atom bomb-----------Paul Tibbetts died today.

Of course, that was actually the H-Bomb but the connection seemed obvious.

Ok, let's get technical.

Paul Tibbets dropped a Nuclear Fission Bomb in 1945. It works by splitting the Uranium NUCLEUS, and the results are no longer Uranium atoms. As a result, the term "atom bomb" does not apply well here.

Several years later the H-bomb was developed. It works by smashing together Hydrogen nuclei, and is best called a Nuclear Fusion Bomb. It's much bigger than Fission Bomb, although the fission process is employed to execute the smashing stage.

An "atom bomb" or an "atomic bomb" is how Hollywood and the media labeled both of the above devices, but technically, those terms would fit better with chemical explosives like nitroglycerin, dynamite, and gunpowder. These use unaltered atoms and their outer electron shells only and don't involve their nuclei.

Edited by Mike
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But.. one could pop popcorn in the light of a fission "device" as well as a campfire, could one not?

:biglaugh:

I don't know if anybody here ever saw the original Dr. Who.. they went back and gave fire to the cave men..

the old woman didn't like the idea.. "in the end, fire will destroy us all".. or something like that..

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Sounds serious.

Odd how Hans Hertel didn't treat it as serious.

Not true. For over a decade Dr. Hans Hertel has been fighting for the right to let the world know what he has discovered. Of course there is a reason [a legal one] behind that fight. (For details, see the non-bolded blue comment outside of this quote below.)

=======

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.

While some of Hertels findings remain to be replicated, other recent research in Britain and the U.S. has unearthed other possible hazards. In 1990 at the University of Leeds, two scientists in the Department of Medical Microbiology studied the uneven heating that can be caused by microwave ovens. They found that the salt content in a specified portion of mashed potatoes influenced its inside temperature - the greater the salt content, the lower the temperature. The authors concluded that "the poor penetration of microwaves into the test food with high ionic concentrations may result from the induction of electrical / ionic flow in the surface of the food. This would also explain why commercial food heated in microwaves boils on the surface but is cool on the inside" (Nature, 1990; 344:496).

"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.

Mr. Swanson simply may not be aware of these facts: Dr. Hertel, a food scientist who worked for several years for one of the international Swiss food companies, joined forces with Professor Bernard Blanc of the Federal Institute of Technology to conduct an extensive research programme on the effects of microwaved food on humans. Although the programme was turned down by the Swiss National Fund, the two scientists decided to fund a smaller research programme themselves.

They selected eight people from the Macrobiotic Institute at Kientel in Switzerland all of whom, including Hertel himself, adherents to strict macrobiotic diets to minimise the presence of confounding elements affecting blood measures. Except for Hertel who was 64 at the time, all were aged between 20 and 40. As Hertel told "What Doctors don't tell you":

We all lived in the same hotel for eight weeks and there was no smoking, no alcohol and no sex. At intervals of two to five days, the volunteers received one of eight possible food sources on an empty stomach: raw milk from a biofarm; the same milk conventionally cooked; the same raw milk cooked in a microwave oven; pasteurised milk from conventional sources; raw vegetables from organic farm; the same vegetables cooked conventionally; the same vegetables frozen and defrosted in a microwave; and the same vegetables cooked in a microwave. Blood samples were taken from each volunteer immediately before eating, then at specified intervals after eating the above preparations.

Significant changes were observed in the blood of those who had consumed microwave food, which included a reduction in all haemoglobin and cholesterol values, both the high-density lipoproteins ('good' cholesterol) and low density lipoproteins ('bad' cholesterol) (Nexus, 1995; April-May: 25-7).

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.

It was not until the 1970's that the first reports started appearing casting doubt on the safety of food cooked in a microwave. Histological studies with microwaved broccoli and carrots revealed that the molecular structures of nutrients were deformed to the point of destroying cell walls whereas, in conventional cooking, the cell structures remain intact (Journal of Food Science, 1975; 40:1025-9). BTW - Microwave ovens were banned in Russia in 1976; the ban was lifted after Perestroika.

While Hertel and Kopp are no longer around, their unsubstantiated charges are all over the Internet.

Only WW could make an unsubstantiated claim like this. The truth of the matter is, Dr. Hertel's discoveries are being corroborated by evidence cropping up here and there all over the world.

"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.

This could well be true. But food usually ends up being overcooked when one uses a microwave oven to do the cooking. I know because I've done it many times myself.

"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."

Even the convential overcooking of raw vegetables can destroy enzymes in the food which is vital to health. Whether or not other vitamins and nutrients are destroyed by microwave cooking is an entirely different matter.

...

Microwave ovens heat the food from the inside out. Microwave ovens use a device called a magnetron tube which causes an electron beam to oscillate at very high frequencies, producing microwave (MW) radiation. Microwaves are beamed from the magnetron into the oven compartment, where they heat the food from the inside out - unlike conventional ovens, which do the reverse. Heating the food from the inside first is what gives rise to cold spots in the food - hence the need to rotate the dish constantly.

A Swiss food scientist, Dr. Hans-Urich Hertel made some worrying discoveries about microwave ovens. Nevertheless, for more than a decade he has been fighting for the right to let the world know what he has found. The point that he has been desperately trying to make public is vital to consumer interests: Any food eaten that has been cooked or defrosted in a microwave oven can cause changes in the blood indicative of a developing pathological process that is also found in cancer. Nevertheless, for all this time, Hertel has been effectively gagged by the manufacturers of micro-wave ovens who have effectively used trade laws and the Swiss court to muzzle him - even to threaten him with personal ruin.

In March 1993, the Canton of Bern Commercial Court, following a complaint filed by the Swiss Association of Dealers for Electro-apparatuses for Households and Industry, prohibited Dr. Hertel from publicly declaring or writing that microwave ovens were dangerous to health. Flouting the order could incur a fine up to SF5000 or even land him up to a year in prison. The Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne confirmed the verdict in 1994. The court based its verdict on the Swiss Law Against Unfair Competition, which prohibits "discriminating, untrue, misleading and unnecessarily harming statements against a supplier or his products" (Journal of Natural Sciences, 1998; 1:2-7) - a law that solely considers the inhibition of trade per se and not malicious intent. That law effectively muzzles the Swiss press as well, as any statements which could be viewed as critical of microwave ovens could easily lead to litigation.

The view of the Swiss on Dr. Hertel's findings are not shared by the rest of Europe. In August 1998, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the gag order issued by the Swiss courts against Dr. Hertel was contrary to the right of freedom of expression. The European Court also ordered Switzerland to pay a compensation of SF40,000. Despite his victory, which is two years old, Dr. Hertel is still waiting for the Swiss courts to reverse their earlier decision and lift a SF8000 fine against him. In the meantime, his explosive discoveries are being corroborated by evidence cropping up here and there all over the world. (Source: Microwave Ovens, A recipe for Cancer.)

Even after I learned all this, do you think I am going to throw out my microwave oven because of it? (Maybe if I were still in TWI and fearful of all those cancerous: "microwave devil spirits!")

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Afraid of microwave ovens? Oh brother you can can radation outside by exposeing yourself to sunlight. What about going to the doctor or dentist and getting youself x-rayed? There was this thing about cell phones a few years back. You can't worry about every little thing in like or you live live like a hermit.

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I really wish WTH would stop pretending he understands science.

He keeps pretending he understands what peer-review, the scientific method, and proper experimentation are.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m081...32/ai_n13664949

"Hertel didn't actually find that microwaved food caused cancer. And his "study," which no researchers have tried to reproduce, was never peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal."

That means that any of hundreds of things could have interfered with, and thus INVALIDATED, his findings.

It's a CURIOUSITY, but scientifically, it's MEANINGLESS since it wasn't controlled properly.

WTH also thinks it's relevant that someone found that microwave cooking is uneven (as if any other type of cooking is),

and that the relative densities and chemical compositions of the cooked food affects the heating.

The differences he's getting from elsewhere make it sound like altering the salinity radically affects whether

heat even penetrates into the food, which is silly. Either it's being misread, or was written poorly.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m081...32/ai_n13664949

"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."

WTH, of course, never read the linked article, which gave the same description WTH announced like it was news.

The description, contrary to what WTH thinks, is the difference between knowing "NOTHING" about the study,

and "knowing more" about the study. He didn't hide everything, but he didn't release enough information

for scientists to consider the results VALID, which is why respected scientists have waited for something

USEFUL and only the fringe-and the financially-benefitting- are embracing this preliminary study.

"Hertel has dropped out of public view." He hasn't followed up with something actually USEFUL, nor

supplied the data that SCIENTISTS could use.

"The Soviet research was never published and the institute where it was conducted, in what is now the Republic of Belarus, no longer exists."

That means that all information on their research is third-hand at best, and all hearsay.

Nothing any scientist could trust.

That didn't stop WTH from quoting someone on it, which is about as reliable as

"this happened to a friend of a friend..."

Supposedly, some tests-which were never published and never duplicated- showed that the earliest microwave

ovens in Belarus were not safe. That's FAR too removed from reliability to consider them useful or

applicable to us.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m081...32/ai_n13664949

"While Hertel and Kopp are no longer around, their unsubstantiated charges are all over the Internet."

WTH replied to this with

"Only WW could make an unsubstantiated claim like this."

Which shows that WTH skipped the article and where I said it was a quote, and is ready to believe someone substantiated

their claims.

WTH said

"The truth of the matter is, Dr. Hertel's discoveries are being corroborated by evidence cropping up here and there all over the world."

And the link he provided is- wait, supposedly, this has been well-documented, and there's no links?

Supposedly, any lab with access to a microwave oven, a few scientists, and food,

is able to conduct all sorts of experiments to confirm this. And there's been, what, more than 30 years for them

to do so?

But WTH says they've been proven, and we're supposed to just believe him blindly.

(I linked my answers...)

=======

Wait, here's some non-scientists without labs who make money convincing people to buy their products,

who have something to say on the subject!

"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)."

=========

Does WTH even understand this subject well enough to evaluate his sources?

Apparently not, because after everything else, he still was foolish enough to quote

this from one of his sources:

"Microwave ovens heat the food from the inside out."

"Heating the food from the inside first is what gives rise to cold spots in the food - hence the need to rotate the dish constantly."

After they come up with both statements of considerable ignorance,

they embrace Hertel's findings.

===========

Anybody who bothered reading my first post on this thread saw a number of links, each of which

explained how microwave ovens work- CORRECTLY.

Anyone who bothered but was too lazy to click any of the links saw me post this:

"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."

I also reposted some other people saying the same thing:

"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."

WTH might have noticed this if he understood the subject.

After all, his own post said this in one place:

"This would also explain why commercial food heated in microwaves boils on the surface but is cool on the inside" (Nature, 1990; 344:496).

and then his own post said further down:

"Microwave ovens heat the food from the inside out."

So, if WTH is to be believed,

microwave ovens heat food from the inside out, and this means the inside can remain cool while the outside cooks.

It's no crime not to understand something,

but if he wanted, I posted plain links from governments, and universities, in plain English.

To choose to refuse all those in favour of tinfoil-hat websites is his own choice, but not one

the rest of us would make.

Sharing it with the rest of us, however, is just plain foolish. It's so easily refutable. It's so easy to see the

actual scientists said "A", and the "anti-establishment" said "not-A".

"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.)

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maybe some people are hopelessy addicted to fringe science, fringe history..

I don't know what the attraction is..

maybe the same kind of attraction some people have to the Jerry Springer show..

or saturday night wrestling..

I'm not saying there isn't entertainment value in it for some.. but really.. pound a guy in the face fifteen times, and produce no blood or bruises..

for MOST people, that little fact sets off a few light bulbs..

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Hmm. The only poster here that would have a legitimate fear of microwaves would probably be Potato..

:biglaugh:

:doh: busted! I don't have one in my house! since I got married, mr. potato keeps asking for one, so I guess I'll have to keep some sour cream and chives on hand just in case it results in a sad fatality.

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Hey, leave Twinky out of the microwave!!!

That goes for Twinkle too. She don't want to be in the microwave either.

And Tom Strange, you especially stay away from twinkies and microwaves (graaowww!)

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