i wont go near one. it makes the food taste terrible . Also it gives off an incredibly high electromagnetic field rating that is also suposed to affect brain activity.

Thank you for this article

I happen to personally know one of the authors of the study quoted by Philip Day. This Swiss scientist has undergone great hardship because of his publishing the study and not withdrawing it when "asked" to do so by the microwave industry. He has been assessed heavy fines and has had a gag order placed on him that even to this day still forbids him to publicly speak out or publish anything against microwaves in Switzerland. It is unbelievable! And even though the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg/France has ruled in favour of this man and cleared him of all charges, the supreme court of Switzerland still shows no intention to abide by the ruling of the European Human Rights court and refuses to lift the gag order or the fines imposed on the man. It is time that something be done about this microwave situation, because even here in Europe, in almost every household there is one of these satanic (pardon my French) devices. They are killing people, and nobody does anything simply because,

a) they do not know about it (well, then it is time they are told!)

b) they do not dare to stand up against the omnipotent microwave industry, for fear of personal consequences

c) they are not interested in taking action because there is so much money (and therefore power) involved of which they profit in one way or the other...

Believe me, gross injustice is being done here, and it is about time that something happens! If you know anybody who is interested to hear, tell them about this tribe on tribe.net! Unfortunately, most of my personal friends and acquantances are from Switzerland or Germany and are not proficent enough in the English language to join and be a part of this network...

Hugo

The conclusions they reach are incomplete. A few things. One here said that properly working built in sheilds protect you from microwave ovens. Not true.

I own a gauss meter and while almost no microwave radiation leaked, the power supply area (usually behind the buttons you press) gives off a huge electromagnetic field, that is above the 3 milligauss limit as far out as 10 to 20 feet depending on the model. Up close, it's ridiculously high.

Lesson one, if you turn it on, walk away, but not straight back, off to the side. Second, microwave links to cancer are totally unproven in this study. Truth is, cooking carbohydrates without microwaves causes much more acrylamide to form than using microwaves. Acrylamides are proven carcinogents. Meat cooked without a microwave also makes chemcals that are carcinogenic in studies. Again, real studies, not a pooling of beleifs or non-legit studies.

The cells in microwaved foods speed up and move around, that friction causes heat. That's how it works, period. I use it now and then, not all of the time, I'm more concerned about acrylamides, the glycemic load index, and things like that proven to have substantial health impact.

Mark

Plus, they're fucking ugly and take too much space!

I'm so happy to come across this tribe! No one believes me when I tell them these things are bad for them. I threw out my microwave in 1998 :)

peace,

jule

"One clue that might encourage you to regard these claims with some skepticism is that fact that ever since microwave ovens came on the market in 1954, not one person has ever exhibited a single symptom of any illness resulting from having eaten microwaved food, or from having used water that had been microwaved. Burns are the exception, but burns are caused by heat from any source; that's not unique to microwaves. But if you believe the claims by the anti-microwave fringe, whom I call the Microwave Militia, practically everyone on the planet should be gravely ill with cancer, radiation poisoning, malnutrition, and mental retardation.

The same chain email, and many of these web sites, also state that giving a plant water that has been microwaved will kill it. There is even a series of unsourced photographs of two plants, one of which withers and dies while its sibling flourishes. The awesome web site Snopes.com tested this particular claim. They took three plants of each of several types, and watered one with tap water, one with water that had been boiled over a stove, and the third with water that had been boiled in a microwave. Unlike whoever took the pictures that often accompany the chain email, Snopes actually controlled for other variables. I'm sure you won't have to stretch your imagination very far to guess how the plants did. They all did exactly the same. Snopes has complete details and photographs on their web site. Somehow these plants managed to escape the guaranteed death sentence that believers say microwaved water carries.

This whole paranoid suggestion is based on the presumption that a microwave oven somehow changes or poisons water. If true, wouldn't you be able to perform some kind of a test on water, and see if it has ever been microwaved? Water is H2O, whether it's ever been microwaved or not. But here's an even deal for you. If you truly believe that H2O carries some permanent damage as a result of being microwaved, and that it's possible to detect this damage through any means you choose, there's a million dollars in it for you. As you may know, the Skeptoid podcast is a qualifying media outlet for the James Randi Educational Foundation's Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. I'll walk it through for you and I'll become your biggest cheerleader. Are microwaves really a danger to humanity? If so, it would be immoral for you to do anything else but take that million dollars and use it to educate and save the world.

Probably the most flagrant error that the Microwave Militia propagates is that microwaved food or water contains what they call "radiolytic compounds" — new chemicals created by the tearing apart of molecules in a microwave. These new chemicals are said to be dangerous, cancerous, radioactive, unnatural, or otherwise harmful. This is a demonstrably false claim. Radiolysis, which is a real process and which the Militia believes creates these radiolytic compounds, is the process by which molecules are dissociated under ionizing radiation. Water can be dissociated under ionizing alpha particle bombardment, which is a natural process. Microwave radiation, as mentioned earlier, is not ionizing radiation. It is thus scientifically incapable of causing radiolysis. The differences between microwave radiation and alpha radiation are huge. With the claim that microwaves cause dissociation of water molecules, the Microwave Militia is either deliberately lying, or they are grossly ignorant of the very subject on which they claim superior expertise.

Swiss vegetarianism advocate Dr. Hans Hertel is perhaps the most vocal of the Microwave Militia fringe group. He is quoted in virtually every book written on alternative foods or holistic health. A top-selling book on Amazon called Perfect Balance, by an author known simply as "Atreya", writes:

In spite of the political pressure, Hertel has continued his studies and won the support of many other scientists in Europe for his findings and methodology. Hertel concludes that microwaved food alters the blood chemistry of people who eat it. The manufacturing companies are trying to keep this information suppressed through court orders.

Dr. Hertel seems to have managed to gain this claimed following even without producing the most basic of information that prospective groupies should request: a specific, testable claim about what this change in blood chemistry might be; or a single victim. He is best known for his most publicized test. In 1989, he and seven fellow vegetarians confined themselves to a hotel and consumed only milk and vegetables, prepared in different ways, for two months. When he emerged, he announced his results: That microwave ovens cause cancer and degenerative diseases, despite no cases of cancer or illness among he or his group. His research, if you want to call it that, was never peer reviewed or published in any reputable journal, and yet it has become the foundational magnum opus of the anti-microwave agenda.

You'll also find that there are a large number of studies out finding changes to the nutritional content of food that has been microwaved, and the Microwave Militia loves to point to these. Chemical reactions happen whenever any food is cooked, so this has more to do with cooking than with the cooking method. Moreover, such changes are generally well below any perceptible threshold, and have always been found to be safe.

The Microwave Militia also makes claims such as microwave ovens are illegal in Russia or other parts of Europe. This is just a straight-up lie. Microwaves are perfectly legal in Russia and everywhere else in Europe. In fact I was not able to find a single country in the world that bans microwave ovens. They're regulated, of course, like all electric appliances; but regulation should not be mischaracterized as a ban.

So what's the sum total of our evidence? Billions of people have been eating microwaved food for decades, with no ill effects, and no plausible expectation of ill effects. The best evidence put forward by anti-microwave activists is based on shameless lies and irresponsibly bad science. Thus, a truly skeptical process leads us to the conclusion that there's nothing at all wrong with microwaving your food. However, I'm drinking coffee right now made from microwaved water, and it's entirely possible that this has caused profound mental aberration, and made me spout nonsense."

skeptoid.com/episodes/4080