Change is hard, painful but many times necessary. Today I want to make a very drastic statement that will be hard to implement but is extremely necessary. It’s time to DITCH YOUR MICROWAVE! Yes, microwaves are harmful.
I know you want to ask me, but how will we warm up our leftovers? How will we heat the baby’s milk? How will we defrost chicken? etc.etc. Well, let me suggest we go back to the old-fashioned way and here is why…
Let’s start with the chemistry – irradiation is the process of exposing food to a controlled amount of energy called “ionizing radiation’. This is done using one of three different types of radiation; Gamma rays, X-rays or electron beam radiation.
Microwaves heat food by causing water molecules in it to resonate at very high frequencies and eventually turn to steam which heats your food. The heat is then conducted throughout the food; In the process the chemical structure of the food is changed. From our basic high school chemistry, we all know that when we change the chemical structure of an item/object, its use and fundamentally its effectiveness is also changed. Take a lay man’s example of water H2O. if the chemical structure of water is changed to be say O2H or O2H2, it is no longer water and is no longer effective to hydrate or cleanse. The same principle is true for microwaved food. Microwaves are harmful on the basis that they change the chemical structure of the food.
REASONS
- Microwave exposure causes significant decreases in the nutritive value of foods. Broccoli cooked in the microwave lost up to 97% of its antioxidants while by comparison, steamed broccoli lost only 11% of its antioxidants in the cooking process.
- Under the heat of the microwave, carcinogenic toxins can leach out of plastic containers into your food
- Microwaving creates free radicals which are notorious in the development of cancers
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU PUT A LIVING THING IN THE MICROWAVE? If you were to put a human in a giant microwave, simply put, they would die – being 80%water, the water in the body would heat up and the person would cook from inside out causing massive cellular damage – if this would happen to you in a microwave, why put your food through it and assume it is good to eat? If microwaves are harmful to a living creature, I dare say they don’t do much good to our food either.
DID YOU KNOW?
Microwaves were developed by German Scientists during the invasion of the Soviet Union. They figured using a microwave to cook meals would eliminate all the logistical problems of cooking with fuel during a war! Consequently, Russia is the country known to have done the most research on the effect of Microwave ovens and it comes as no surprise that microwaves have been banned and outlawed in Russia!
AND DID YOU KNOW ?
Letting your child or yourself stand near your microwave while it’s operating exposes you to very high levels of radiation ( upwards of 400milliGauss) which have been firmly linked to various cancers. You should especially avoid standing near an operating microwave when pregnant.
AND ALSO DID YOU KNOW?
There is such a thing as microwave sickness! This happens when your tissues are directly exposed to microwaves and people present symptoms like; Insomnia, headaches, nausea and appetite loss and vision problems. I hope you are now convinced that despite the convenience, microwaves are harmful.
A FEW TIPS TO BREAK FREE FROM YOUR MICROWAVE
- Plan Ahead – Remove your dinner from the fridge in the morning, so that it can be well defrosted by cooking time
- NEVER, EVER microwave breast milk – it destroys the disease-fighting agents in breast milk and vitamin content in breast milk or formula is depleted by microwaving. Instead, heat breast milk by inserting the bottle in a bowl of hot water
- Use your stovetop or oven to heat up leftovers
