If you are one of the millions of microwave users out in the world, then might I suggest that you read on! Your life may depend on it! By “nuking” your food you are literally “zapping out” the nutrition and “shorting out” the electrical impulses in your brain! And your chances for developing cancer is up! By the time your microwaved food hits your mouth, you no longer have food, you have a radiated pile of garbage! I believe this to be true and there are plenty of studies proving the horrible effects of microwave usage.When we microwave foods, structures of the water molecules are ripped apart and deformed, severely damaging any minerals and nutrients. The process of which foods are cooked is called microwave radiation, normally operating in 2.45 gigahertz within a normal wavelength of 122 mm. This wave of energy passes through the food and interacts with the molecules. Water molecules are known to be naturally electric dipoles or having positive and negative polarities and the polarities gradually changes at millions times in every split of a second!

Microwaves cause dielectric heating, which means they spin around very rapidly inside your oven in such an electric field at high frequencies, and the molecular friction eventually causes the water to turn to steam and that heats up the food. But this can also change the food’s chemical structure and cause damage to your body.

Microwave radiation is a very serious concern that many people will overlook in order to maintain their busy lifestyles. These modern devices can cause a variety of health problems in humans that our ancestors dreamed of. Here are just a few of the possible health effects related to microwave ovens.

Cancer. One of the main reasons not to use a microwave is the increased cancer numbers among microwave users. Microwave ovens turn some minerals into cancerous agents and regularly eating microwaved foods can cause an increase in cancerous cells in human blood. Studies show that stomach and intestinal tumors and cancer is higher in those who use a microwave regularly. Also, it’s linked to the increased rate of colon cancer in America.

Decreased Immune System. The radiation dangers involved with microwaved food can cause decreased immune system function in any human but the most damage has been seen small infants. If you heat infant formula (or even expressed breast milk!) in a microwave, it will destroy the bacteria-digesting enzymes and antibodies that the infant needs as protection against infections. Studies show numerous immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.

Memory Loss. Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term memory loss, emotional problems, and a decrease in intelligence. What is this doing to our children and grandchildren who most likely use it a number of times a day?

Hormone Imbalances. A steady diet of microwave-cooked food may cause your body to shut down its hormones production making your hormone levels completely out of balance. This effect has been seen in both males and females. There are so many hormonal imbalance related disorders and psychological disorders that may be linked to microwave usage.

Added Toxins. Why put more toxins into your body? Our bodies get enough toxins by just the environment we live in, so why add more? Toxins “zap” our energy and make us sick and sluggish. They clog up our liver which is our main fat burning organ. Studies and reports indicate that microwave ovens can cause carcinogenic toxins to leach out of your plastic and paper containers/covers, and into your food. The January/February 1990 issue of Nutrition Action Newsletter reported the leakage of numerous toxic chemicals from the packaging of common microwavable foods, including pizzas, chips and popcorn.

Loss of Nutritional Value. Microwave radiation has some effects on the food that can reduce its nutritional value due to the deformation of the molecular structures. Studies show that foods cooked in the microwave oven has great impact on the levels of vitamins and nutrients present in the foods. When you “nuke” vegetables in the microwave, you loose 97% of it’s food benefits and value. A study published in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found that broccoli “zapped” in the microwave with a little water lost up to 97 percent of its beneficial antioxidants. By comparison, steamed broccoli lost 11 percent or fewer of its antioxidants. Also, any minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free radicals when cooked in a microwave oven, making it no longer healthy or nutritious food. When I began to do research on the dangers of microwaves, these studies were the ones that really caught my attention! I had been working so hard to be healthy and then I would “zap” away all the good stuff when I would cook my food in the microwave oven. All those nutrients were gone in less than a minute!

Most hospitals do not use microwaves, especially when dealing with the human blood. In 1991, there was a lawsuit in Oklahoma concerning the hospital use of a microwave oven to warm blood needed in a transfusion. The case involved a hip surgery patient, Norma Levitt, who died from a simple blood transfusion. It seems the nurse had warmed the blood in a microwave oven. This tragedy makes it very apparent that there’s much more to “heating” with microwaves than we’ve been led to believe. Blood for transfusions is routinely warmed, but not in microwave ovens. In the case of Mrs. Levitt, the microwaving altered the blood and it killed her.

Also, in 1991, Dr. Hans Ulrich Hertel and a Lausanne University professor published a research paper indicating that food cooked in microwave ovens could pose a greater risk to human health than food cooked by conventional means. An article also appeared in issue 19 of the Journal Franz Weber in which it was stated that the consumption of food cooked in microwave ovens had cancerous effects on the blood. The research paper itself followed the article.

Dr. Hertel was the first scientist to conceive and carry out a quality clinical study on the effects microwaved nutrients have on the blood and physiology of the human body. His small but well controlled study documented that the heat created by microwave ovens produces a degenerative force on the foods cooked in them. The scientific conclusion showed that microwave cooking changed the nutrients in the food; and, changes took place in the participants’ blood that could cause deterioration in the human system. Hertel’s scientific study was done along with Dr. Bernard H. Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University Institute for Biochemistry. (www.health-science.com)

I am happy to say that I stopped using my microwave oven all together when I learned of the numerous dangers of it. I don’t even put water in there! Don’t worry, you won’t miss it as much as you think you might. I find it very easy now to quickly re-heat food by using a stove-top, steamers or toaster oven. You can always plan ahead, or eat more raw foods!

So although I didn’t cover each of the many, many studies that are out there on this topic, I hope this has been an eye-opening blog post. I understand that not all research studies are valid, and I always question the ones that are funded by a company who benefits from the results. (We always have to question the results of sponsored/funded research studies!) I want to encourage you to look deeper into the numerous studies and make a decision based on your findings and beliefs. Or just take my word for it … if it’s not safe for infants and hospitals, then why would it be safe for us?

In this video Carol discusses the dangers of microwave usage for food and how it effects our nutrition.

Transform your health through the power of smart choices.

2 Comments

  1. Every kitchen should have MCT Oil! on October 2, 2011 at 8:34 am

    […] more on the amazing benefits coconut oil. Don’t forget the dangers of using microwave oven to melt […]



  2. AJ on January 31, 2014 at 7:36 pm

    Most microwave ovens are unsuitable for food because they apply too much energy over too short of a time. Think of whether you would eat a steak thrown directly INTO the hot coals of a roaring fire. (Hint: burnt food is carcinogenic.) Whether by microwave or old-fashioned fire, too much energy over too short of a time ends up denaturing food and making it deleterious to health.

    That’s why we’re urged to slow-cook food for better health. Apply the same total amount of energy, but spread it over a longer period of time.

    So it’s not microwaves per se that are so dangerous, but the way they are being applied in most ovens: too much wattage. And microwave ovens are extremely efficient at delivering that wattage to the food inside. It’s like cooking with a flame-thrower that doesn’t leave scorch marks.

    If you get a microwave oven equipped with an inverter magnetron, however, you can reduce the intensity of the microwaves to a safe level. We have one made by Whirlpool. Panasonic also makes them. Even so, they are hard to find. Whirlpool calls theirs “AccuWave” while Panasonic just labels theirs “Inverter” technology. Google these to learn how they differ from typical microwave ovens.

    Our basic house rule is that we never use any power above 3 for food. My general preference is power 2. I just have to wait longer for my food to heat up, but it’s still quicker than using a conventional oven or pulling out a pot for the stove. The best thing is I don’t end up with the plastic-textured food I remember in our older microwave ovens.

    Power 10 (full power) comes in handy for sanitizing kitchen sponges. That’s about all we use it for.

    I wanted to throw this out there because these inverter magnetron ovens are far too under-publicized. If enough people are educated to demand them, the manufacturers will stop making the old dangerous types.