Microwaves have disadvantages

Apr 21, 2003

For as long as I can remember, my mother and father have quietly resisted technological advances going on in the outside world. My parents were the last of my peer group’s to convert from black-and-white TV to colour, and still profess to finding no need at all for a video recorder.

For as long as I can remember, my mother and father have quietly resisted technological advances going on in the outside world. My parents were the last of my peer group’s to convert from black-and-white TV to colour, and still profess to finding no need at all for a video recorder.

Bearing in mind my folks’ quasi-Luddite ways, it was inevitable that my first experience of microwave cooking was not to be in my own home. At a school friend’s house for tea, I was quite fascinated when piping-hot cod-in-batter slabs emerged from some space-age contraption after only a few minutes. When I came of age and got a place of my own, I saw a microwave as much of a must-have item as a fridge, washing machine and video recorder.

Over the years, however, my enthusiasm for microwave cooking has cooled considerably. The way microwaves heat food has given me cause for disquiet. Traditional means of cooking give off radiant heat which makes its way into food, cooking it from the outside in.

Microwave ovens generate an alternating current, causing food molecules to gyrate quite unnaturally, billions of times each second.

All this movement creates frictional heat, effectively cooking the food from the inside out.

The unique effects microwaves have on food appear not to be altogether healthy. One study from the 1970s revealed that microwave cooking deformed the cellular structure within vegetables. Research published in The Lancet found that microwaving milk led to structural changes in the proteins that might well pose hazards for the body.

Some scientists have suggested that one particular protein formed in this way (D-proline) is toxic to the nervous system, kidneys and liver.

In 1989, Swiss research revealed that consuming food thawed and/or cooked in a microwave oven could cause undesirable changes in blood chemistry, such as a reduction in levels of the pigment haemoglobin (predisposing to anaemia) and an increase in the number of immune cells in the bloodstream (generally taken to be a sign of stress, infection or inflammation).

Also, exposing light-emitting (luminescent) bacteria to blood drawn after the consumption of microwaved food caused them to glow more brightly. The suggestion is that microwaves may lead to unnatural energetic changes in food that could pass on to those who eat it.

There is no irrefutable proof that microwave cooking is hazardous to health. But, in the absence of large, properly conducted studies, there is no irrefutable proof that it is safe. What exists is evidence that microwaving can have undesirable effects on food, and that eating it can have undesirable effects in the body.

Two years ago I chucked out my microwave, and have not knowingly eaten microwaved food since. I have come to the conclusion that, in this instance at least, my parents’ less-than-enthusiastic attitude to new technology is right on the button.

Guardian News Serivice

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