Are microwave ovens dangerous?
Home » Blog » Are microwave ovens dangerous?In Good #10, we wrote that they're not. One reader very much disagrees. Read his letter and links, and tell us what you think!
Photo by Pasukaru76 via Flicr
A loyal reader writes …
I’ve been a fan, even a cheerleader, for Good magazine since its inception, enjoying how you balance being informative, topical and upbeat. But three items in your Dec/Jan issue have really let me down, to the point where I now question your editorial standards.
Why face off Butter vs Margarine? It’s no contest. Let’s encourage people to eat real food. Margarine and kindred spreads are crap—artificial, processed substances containing preservatives. If one’s metabolism cannot handle much butter, try the genuinely healthy alternative: olive oil. Or, offer us an article on making one’s own healthy spreads.
Your response to the query on microwave oven safety could have been written by a corporate spinmeister—the tone is don’t-worry-be-happy instead of caveat emptor. These kitchen devices have been suspect since their appearance in 1954, for (non-iodizing) radiation leakage, carcinogenic by-products, and nutrient destruction. And those who organically cultivate and eat food with reverence, know intuitively that this type of radiation destroys the vital life force in real food. The word ‘zapped’ is so apt. No chef worth his salt would microwave a dish and serve it to a customer.
Any Google search will heave up screeds of recent research (often covered up or mocked by the manufacturers and sceptics). Try www.microwavenews.com or www.mercola.com. Microwaved food is also ‘fast food.’ Let’s see an article on the Slow Food movement.
The real shock came within the advertorial for a Brita water purifier, which I considered buying until I read that it removes most impurities "but leaves in minerals and fluoride essential for wellbeing". The water fluoridation debate has raged throughout NZ communities for decades without ever proving fluoride’s "essential" health value. In fact, fluoridation chemicals in our drinking water are waste products from aluminium and fertilizer plants, and contain arsenic, lead, mercury and hydrogen fluoride residues. Many people develop fluorosis from its use. And fluoride’s dental effectiveness is a myth (see 'Teeth to Die For', in Healthy Options magazine, July 2007).
For a moment I thought I was reading the Herald, or the Women’s Weekly. Of greater concern is the gradual co-option of environmental groups and media by corporate infiltration, affluence and dumbing-down. Don’t compromise the LOHAS standards. Give us bright, edgy journalism that is accurate, and duly cautionary.
I don’t mean to rant. We all deserve better after you made such a Good start. (Just don’t get me started on cell phones, aspartame, MSG and canola oil…)
Yours sincerely,
Michael Fleck
The ed responds
Thanks very much for your feedback, and I'm sorry we've let you down! I appreciate the letter to the editor and would like to publish it in the next issue.
We'll be tackling fluoride in a 'Should I be worried about...' health article soon. Unfortunately we can only make suggestions to clients about what is included in advertorial copy, such as the Brita ad—since it is an advertisement they pay for, they get the final say on its content (just like a regular pictorial-style ad).
Here's an explanation of the editorial position Good takes on science-based articles.
In much the same way as we rely on the research of climate scientists in order to write about climate change, we turned to a microwave engineer to help us write about microwave ovens. I feel it would be hypocritical for the magazine to accept mainstream science in one field, but reject it in others. Having said that, we also report alternative views where the scientific evidence is strong, such as the debate over BPA in plastic (good.net.nz/bpa). In this instance, I was unable to find any significant weight of strong scientific evidence for health risks around microwave ovens (ie. peer-reviewed in scientific publications), so only the mainsteam view was reported.
I realise that this stance means sometimes our coverage will seem to reinforce the status quo and ignore those who so often rightfully challenge it, but I hope I can reassure you that we go into every story with an open mind, talk to experts, do our own research and look at where the evidence falls. We won't always have the space to go into every aspect of an issue, and sometimes we may miss something, but we hope to at least give readers enough information to be a starting point for them to come to their own conclusions. Thanks so much for your support in the past, and for keeping us on our toes!
Best wishes
Annabel
Michael replies
Thank you for your helpful response to my letter. I respect your task as an editor, having done that one myself some years ago.
Re the Brita ad: I don't understand your position ("we can only make suggestions to clients about what is included in advertorial copy"). In fact, I am stunned. Where do you draw the line? Would you accept tobacco advertising from American Spirit cigarettes with all-natural ingredients? From Diet Coke instead of Phoenix? It would appear that the advertising dollar is your bottom line. I thought it was health and sustainability. Brita’s statement "minerals and fluoride that are essential for wellbeing" is a lie. If we don’t demand truth in advertising, corporate money and clever PR will greenwash us all. It's time to show some spine.
Re science-based articles: the scientific evidence is very strong that microwave ovens are harmful both to food and to our own EMFs.
From 'The Hidden Hazards Of Microwave Cooking' by Anthony Wayne and Lawrence Newell:
Microwave oven manufacturers insist that microwaved and irradiated foods do not have any significantly higher radiolytic compounds than do broiled, baked or other conventionally cooked foods. The scientific clinical evidence presented here has shown that this is simply a lie.
In America, neither universities nor the federal government have conducted any tests concerning the effects on our bodies from eating microwaved foods. Isn't that a bit odd? They're more concerned with studies on what happens if the door on a microwave oven doesn't close properly.
Once again, common sense tells us that their attention should be centered on what happens to food cooked inside a microwave oven. Since people ingest this altered food, shouldn't there be concern for how the same decayed molecules will affect our own human biological cell structure?
The article goes on, referring to industry cover-ups and the suppression of contrary evidence. It is the same old story that we should recognise now—as seen with Big Tobacco, Monsanto, and now Exxon (among others in the petroleum industry funding the global warming sceptics).
There is very little independent science ongoing today; most is corporate-funded. If your magazine does not challenge the 'mainstream science' story—at least by co-presenting the research of 'non-mainstream science'—you are part of the co-option problem. In situations where there is conflicting evidence, the precautionary principle must be applied.
Your editorial position hinges on how you define "mainstream science" and who you consider "experts". We should know from the climate change debacle that scientists can be biased, can be bought, and they can and do make errors. One microwave engineer does not make the case. (By the way, I could find no mention of Mirjana Bogosanovic in the Auckland directory or through a Google search.)
Good owes its readers an article on the hazards of microwave ovens, as your Dec/Jan item leads us to conclude that they are safe. A sample of the peer-reviewed published research you require follows; more is forthcoming in the mainstream media on cellphones and cellphone towers.
From 'Microwaved food: is it healthy?' by Trudy Bialic, editor of PCC Sound Consumer:
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has regulated the manufacture of microwave ovens since 1971 and has authority over food safety. But a review of 200 references on its Web site reflects more attention to potential radiation leakage than the effects of eating microwaved foods. The only reference to food quality that I found says, "foods cooked in a microwave oven may keep more of their vitamins and minerals because microwave ovens can cook more quickly and without adding water."
A Spanish study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture in 2003 contradicts that. The Spanish scientific research council, CEBAS-CSIC, found that microwave cooking destroys at least some important nutrients in vegetables. Microwaved broccoli lost 97 percent, 74 percent and 87 percent of three cancer-protecting antioxidants (flavonoids, sinapics and caffeoyl-quinic derivatives). Steamed broccoli lost 11 percent, 0 percent and 8 percent of these compounds.
In 1992, a team of Stanford University researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics that re-heating human breast milk in a microwave even at low settings can destroy lysozyme, a compound that fights bacterial infections.
Japanese research reported in Science News in 1998 said microwaving destroys vitamin B12. Six minutes of microwave cooking destroyed half the B12 in meat and dairy, a much higher rate than from conventional cooking.
In 1989, the Lancet medical journal [Lancet, 1989; 9] reported that heating baby formula in a microwave changed its chemistry. Dr. Lita Lee found that microwaving converts some trans-amino acids into synthetic substances similar to unhealthy trans-fatty acids; one amino acid, L-proline, reportedly converted to a substance that’s reputed to be toxic to the nervous system and kidneys.
Russian research reported by The Journal of Natural Sciences in 1998 [Journal of Natural Sciences, 1998: 1] found that people who ate microwaved food had a statistically higher incidence of stomach and intestinal cancers, digestive disorders, and lymphatic malfunctions causing degeneration of the immune system.
Microwaving milk and cereal grains and plants such as root vegetables reportedly created cancer-causing agents. The Russians found that thawing frozen fruits or microwaving vegetables, raw or cooked—even briefly—caused chemical alterations. Microwaving reduced availability of vitamins B, C, E and essential minerals in all foods tested, and destroyed the nutritional value of nucleoproteins in meats.
Yet the most compelling concerns come from a study in 1989 by Swiss food scientist Dr Hans Hertel. Eight volunteers from the Macrobiotic Institute at Kientel ate raw, conventionally cooked and microwaved food at regular intervals.
Significant changes were seen in their blood samples after eating microwaved food, including reduced hemoglobin and cholesterol values, especially the ratio of good vs bad cholesterol. White blood cells for immune function showed a distinct short-term decrease. Hertel also found irregularities in the structure of the microwaved food — the creation of new compounds called "radiolytic" compounds that are unknown in nature.
Clearly there’s a need for more research, but regulators seem more interested in what happens if a microwave oven door malfunctions than the impact of eating microwaved food. As a consumer, I’ll choose to cook the old-fashioned way.
Author's note (March 2006): The Nutrition Action Newsletter alleged in April 2005 that two of the seven studies cited above were not peer-reviewed or published (not necessarily a contradiction of findings) and that one food scientist says too much water was used to microwave broccoli excessively in another study. Yet research at Stanford University and research published by the Lancet, Pediatrics [Pediatrics, 1992; 89], and the Journal of Natural Sciences was not addressed.
What concerns me most as a consumer is the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) failure to review any of the research conducted on microwaved food in the past 38 years. A radiation expert at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition told me the FDA decided in 1968 that microwaved food was safe. He said the FDA has not ever conducted any research of its own and no, the FDA wasn’t aware of and has not reviewed any of the studies cited.
"It hasn’t been on the agenda to review the literature," he said. From a consumer's perspective, the this "don’t look, don’t find" position highlights the need for more research. The FDA's response took months to obtain, following several unanswered email and phone queries, and was not received in time for the above article.
So to conclude, Annabel, for accurate information we have to dig deeper and look to cultures that have their citizens’ best interests at heart. If you look into the Swedish research on microwaves, you will see a very different picture.
I recommend that you interview Dr Klaus Bosselmann, a professor of environmental law at the University of Auckland, on some of the current dimensions of this issue.
I’m not giving up on Good yet, but your current position on science and health issues is not good enough. And those water filters and microwave ovens are definitely not ‘eco-fabulous.’
Your sincerely,
Michael Fleck
Wed April 14, 2010 @ 03:54 PM
www.shannondunn.com