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Podcast 139: Microwave Ovens Destroy Nutrients

Martin and Scott discuss yet one more way to get sick, and that is by mircowaving your food.

“Microwave cooking ovens were originally researched and developed by German scientists to support mobile operations during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Had they perfected electronic equipment on a mass scale, the Nazis could have eliminated the logistical problems connected with cooking fuels while producing edible products in far less time than they could using traditional cooking tools.

After the war, the Allies discovered the medical research and documentation concerning microwave technology. The papers and experimental microwave equipment were transferred to the U.S War Department and classified for reference and scientific investigation. The Soviet Union also retrieved some of the devices and began to experiment on them separately.

The Russians – who have done the most diligent research into the biological effects of microwave ovens – HAVE OUTLAWED THEIR USE, and issued an international warning about the biological and environmental damage that can result from the use of these and of similar frequency electronic apparatuses.”

Microwaving raw broccoli drastically diminishes, and in some cases nearly eliminates, some natural health-promoting chemicals, a new study says.

Of particular note in the research was the post-microwaving disappearance of almost all – 97 per cent – of flavonoids. Flavonoids, substances often found in many brightly colored fruits and vegetables, have been linked to a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and lung cancer.

Microwaving reduced other similarly desirable chemicals in broccoli by anywhere from 74 to 87 per cent.

Some of these substances have been associated with slowing the effects of aging, reducing the risk of heart disease and preventing Alzheimer’s, Type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

Podcast 139: Microwave Ovens Destroy Nutrients

Scott: Welcome back everybody you are listening to the Life Enthusiast online radio network restoring Prada to you and the planet I am your co-host and bottle washer Scott Patton along with the founder of Life Enthusiast co-op Martin Pytela. Hey Martin how are you doing today?

Martin : Great Scott, thank you. Today we’re coming to you on several wave spectrums from short wave to long wave, AM and FM waves and even microwave.

Scott: A good way to bring up today’s topic. We’ve been discussing things to do to help you get ill and become really sick and we just had some amazing comments on our podcast page which is lifeenthusiast.podomatic.com. Keep those comments coming, we appreciate them, and one of listeners asked us a couple of questions about microwaving and the impact microwaves have on the food that we heat in them. And I think that’s kind of an important topic because you were telling me before we went on the air Martin that at one point the Russians researched microwaves and microwave ovens and banned microwaves.

Martin: That’s right, Yes, yes. Their earlier research suggested to them that this was not a good technology to have and this was still in the communist days. So finally in 1976, they actually put a ban on them, on the ovens in Russia. Um, that since has been lifted so now the Russian Citizens are just as capable of wrecking their health with microwaves as the rest of us.

Scott: Yeah heaven forbid that they’d do anything over there that keeps them healthier.

Martin: Well it’s not that, it’s the freedom. Remember we brought them freedom.

Scott: Yes freedom to be able to run to the hospital and have all sorts of cancers zapped with all sorts of drugs. Wonderful.

Martin: Well, you know, we’re jumping ahead of ourselves here. We should explain how this works and why we’re saying what we’re saying. Yes?

Scott:Yup. So, do you have a microwave at your home?

Martin: No sir, Uh-uh. We gave that up.

Scott: Yeah I gave it up, too and it was weird because in the beginning (because I had one for years) it was oh here’s some food, you know, it was leftover from a couple of weeks ago or whatever, a couple of days ago probably more likely. Throw it in the microwave, heat it up, kind of swish it around, make sure there wasn’t a part of it that was so hard, so hot it would burn your mouth, and then, chow down on it. And then, I really thought that when I got rid of it, I got basically a small toaster oven type oven. Because I thought I’m not gonna heat it up in my oven, correct?

Martin: Yes

Scott: Because usually there was small portions. And I thought well this is gonna take like forever. You know, its not gonna take like 90 seconds, its gonna take 20 minutes or whatever.

Martin: Yes

Scott: But what I didn’t realize was, and my children are the same way. Is they would think, Ah, you know this looks good, throw it in the toaster oven, push a couple of buttons, you know, it’s got a timer, bings in 20 minutes or 30 minutes, They go do something, I’d be doing something on my computer – 20 minutes goes by in no time. And then I’ve got warm food to eat.

Martin: That’s right

Scott: And so it’s a lifestyle change. You know, obviously if you wanted to do that 30 seconds before you’re heading out the door, that’s not gonna work but it really was just the way we thought of how we heated up our food.

Martin: Yes, you can certainly learn to live with the inconvenience of having to take extra 6 or 7 minutes for your food to be warm.

Scott: laughter, Ok.

Martin: But I wanted to actually talk about how this thing works.

Scott: Yes, so how does the microwave work?

Martin: Microwave essentially is like a radio transmitter. Just like the radio station or the cell phone tower, in the wave length, that is quite short. You know, closer to the radioactive spectrum than to the visible spectrum. So, essentially you have a radio antenna in, in the oven and the antenna typically rotates or if the antenna is stationary, then the plate would rotate. And what you do, is you essentially send a radio signal to, to the chamber, and what is in it, is getting these waves. And because it’s a polarity shifting wave, you know, you’re shifting the positive negative, positive negative really quickly. It’s this jiggling of the radio wave that is essentially shaking the water, because water is magnetic in its nature. We have discussed previously how there is a positive pole and a negative pole in every water molecule?

Scott: O.K., no, I don’t think we have. That’s interesting.

Martin: Ok, well I guess when we return back to talking about water and prills, and all of the basics about water, we will go back to talking about how water and its memory and its structuring, is all dependent on the fact that every water molecule has a positive pull and a negative pull just like a miniature magnet. So when you send electric polarized signal – an electric magnetic wave – into the liquid, it’ll flip it. You know, positive to negative. Negative to positive.

Scott: So, that’s the vibration that causes the friction, that causes the heating?

Martin: Yes, that’s right. It’s the jiggling that causes the heat.

Scott: O.K.

Martin: And it only happens in wet things, it does not happen in dry products. You cannot put dry grain into your microwave and have much anything happen.

Scott: O.K.

Martin: Yes.

So, it’s water that causes this to happen.

Martin: Right, and we already talked in our other talks and have websites, pages and all of that – about water and what happens that water does have memory, and that when you send harmonious thoughts to water, or harmonious words, or harmonious energies to water – it will create harmonious symmetrical patterns, and when you send disruptive, disharmonious patterns to the water, it will create ugly pictures.

Scott: Right

Martin: And this very thing happens in your body too. When you ingest food that’s been hated as prepared, it will create much less health, or much less energy in your body. In fact, you told me about an experiment that you saw somewhere. What was that?

Scott: Yeah, well it was actually a school project. And this girl took two plants, went down and bought two plants exactly the same. Put them in the same spot in her kitchen, and she watered one for a week with tap water and she watered the other one a week with water that had been microwaved to boiling and then allowed to go back to room temperature, and then poured on. And within a week the tap water plant was, you know, doing great and flowering and the other one was dead.

Martin: Yup, That makes sense.

Scott: And then they asked the other kids, and other schools to start replicating and seeing what happens. And then they were all reporting to have the same problem.

Martin: So equally watered plants with microwaved water they cannot thrive.

Scott: That’s right, that’s right. I mean how often do you see people microwaving their coffee, or microwaving their tea and then they’re wondering why – you know why their health isn’t as good as it should be.

Martin: Yup, point made. And so, of course warming your food that way is counter-productive, it’s definitely not helping your health. In fact when you do this, you do create carcinogenic type of foods in your food itself. You know carcinogenic compounds.

Scott: Well yeah, and you were mentioning before we went on the air, that if you just imagine taking plastic, putting food in the plastic, whether it’s a plastic container or it’s been covered with saran wrap, and putting it in the microwave. Now all of the sudden the radiation from the microwave has an impact on that plastic.

Martin: Oh it will drive a lot of this hydrocarbon type of elements, molecules out from the plastic into the food. So when you ingest it, I think the effect was measured, about ten thousand times greater – carcinogenic effect as compared to no plastic, no saran wrap.

Scott: Yeah and this was another seventh grade student who did this, her name was Clare Nelson. And she decided that she was gonna do for her project, studying the effect of microwave radiation on plastic wrapped food. And so, she got Dr. John Wilks at the National Center for Toxicological Research to help her, and the research center is affiliated with the FDA so she took microwave plastic and she put it in virgin olive oil and she tested four different plastic wraps and found not just the carcinogens but also like an estrogen type material migrating into the oil. So this estrogen is linked to low sperm counts in men and to breast cancer in women. So throughout her junior and senior years she made a couple of trips each week to the research center which is 25 miles from her home to work on her experiment. And they basically reported that DHEA was migrating into the oil at between 200 parts and 500 parts per million. The standard that the FDA set is .05 parts per billion which is I guess, would be 5 parts per million. Or fifty parts per million. So, her results have been published in science journals and she received the American Chemical Society’s top science prize for students during her junior year and fourth place at the International Science and Engineering Fair as a senior.

Martin: So here we have this bright kid that upstages the agency that is supposed to protect you from all this stuff.

Scott: Yeah

Martin: I mean they used their own facility, but have they published it? Have they banned the microwaves? I mean this is, the natural.

Scott: Or banned plastic!

Martin: The natural outcome of this study should have been pulling from the market of the microwaves and big black letter signage all over these, um what are they called? Saran wrap and related – each of these boxes should be labeled about as badly as cigarettes that would say “Do not use in microwave ovens”.

Scott: Yeah, that’s right.

Martin: So this thing that happens or course, are free radicals, right.

Scott: Yup

Martin: When you do this high friction heating, you release a whole lot of free radicals which means oxygenation, which means runaway, well what are the illnesses of oxygenation in your body. Starting with dandruff, going onto wrinkles, and then anything that’s an inflammatory like cholesterol in your veins, arthritis, diabetes.. I’d probably be here for a long time just rattling off these things that happen. Right?

Scott: Yup, yup. Uh-huh.

Martin: Your vitamins, your vitamins are rendered useless in the process.

Scott: Well, and the thing too, is if you , say Ok, we put plastic in the microwave and all of the sudden our food is totally contaminated. You know, have we studied what happens if you put stuff in that the microwave companies say that you can put in, or you put glass in, or you put china in, or any of these other materials? I mean, we just… do you end up having… it just…. it’s just the beginning… you know, its just like…

Martin: Yeah Pandora’s box, right?

Scott: It is, it really is. It’s better to say, you know what. Just get rid of the microwave. And I’m thinking too, you know, what if, when you go to a Fast Food place, they’ve cooked a whole bunch of burgers, or whatever and they have them sitting in the back and all they do is take them and put them on a plate and throw them in the microwave and bring them out to you heated, like, ..

Martin: Actually Scott, this is a common practice in higher end restaurants not just Fast Food, you know, they have all that stuff prepared or frozen ..

Scott: Yup

Martin: And um, you know, it’s just a fast heat to plate. And they just warm up the last bit. Or they warm up, let’s just say they would have veggies and whatever ready on the plate, and then they warm it up and maybe the meat is or the sauce is warmed up or something like that. It’s being added to the plate before it goes to you.

Scott: Right, right.

Martin: I actually make this a habit. I mean for one time I don’t care much. But if I’m going to a restaurant that I expect to visit more than once, I ask them, do you use convection ovens or do you use microwaves to reheat your or heat your ingredients? Because actually convection ovens are nearly as fast as the microwaves . Well, you already talked about the fact that your little toaster oven is not that inconvenient either.

Scott: No, and it’s, the thing is, it’s all what we become used to and what we’re conditioned to do. And we’ve kind of been conditioned to this instantaneous heating up of stuff and we don’t realize the connection between that and disease later on down the road. We’ve talked about that in many of our previous shows. And I think it’s really important that we keep hammering this point. Right, till you know… umm I don’t know why I have cancer, you know, I exercise and I ride my bike miles and miles. Like our last show.. miles and miles. It’s because you ‘re riding your bike for 50 miles a day at top speed that you’re wearing out your body and when your body wears out, the parts that wear out first are the parts where your sickness shows up first. And that’s, we’re just making it worse by looking for quick and easy ways to heat our foods that will cause a lot of problems. And of course, the sad part about it, I mean, if it was a proper debate, right, that would be one thing. But when we were doing a bit of research before this show, there was a couple scientists, I guess they were Swiss scientists

Martin: Yup, Switzerland.

Scott: Who found, you know there’s some concerns here about this microwaving stuff, and the Swiss Government, you know there was a law and there was a gag order and there was, I don’t know all the details.. but there was like “no no no, we can’t tell anybody about all this stuff that might be happening”, Oh it’s ok for them to you know, go to the hospital because they’re sick, but not ok for them to know why they really got sick?

Martin: Well, you know this is where the industry interests override the, what would you call it, the health, the small voice of reason, because somebody with billions of dollars invested in the industry says well, we would like you to not publish this.

Scott: Right.

Martin: Well we remember something like this happened with the cigarette industry. Remember?

Scott: Yeah.

Martin: It took a few decades, you know. At first, it was Dr Brown, only smokes Camels advertising. I mean, I remember watching some ads from the olden days, it’s almost comical where you see actually doctors recommending a specific brand of cigarettes.

Scott: Yeah, yeah, just crazy, So, I think in the interest of balancing that, I actually found the article, a food Scientist, Dr Hans Jurak Hertel, he fought for 10 years to have his findings concerning the dangers of microwave ovens acknowledged. His statement that inspired the microwave manufactures to use the Swiss court to silence him was, food, so he basically said, food cooked or defrosted in a microwave oven causes changes in the blood indicative of a developing pathological process as is also found in a carcinoma. So, simply put, microwaved food causes cancer. Now, you know, if you had, we’ve got cigarettes with smoking will kill you, I mean, what would happen, if we put a label, microwaving will give you cancer?

Martin: Yes.

Scott: And this isn’t new, like we’re dredging up old stuff here. In 1989 he teamed up with Professor Bernard Blanc, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technologists. This wasn’t two dim bulbs, they proposed the University of Lausanne,

Martin: Yes, Lausanne

Scott: Lausanne. A research program to look into the effects of microwaved foods on humans. Now, you would think that would be a reasonable thing to research. Their application for funding was turned down on the grounds that there was no need for research in this area. So undeterred, they decided to fund a smaller research program themselves. They selected eight individuals, fed them a range of raw, conventionally cooked and microwaved foods. So basically, some people got raw food, some people got cooked food, some people got microwaved foods. Then they took blood samples from each volunteer before and after eating. Serious irregularities were found both in the structure of the food microwaved, and in the blood of those eating the microwaved samples. The microwave industry reacted to the research by taking Hertel to court. He was convicted under Swiss unfair competition laws. Now, excuse me, if you are a research Scientist, it doesn’t sound like he had the microwave oven that he was trying to sell.

Martin: This fellow was vindicated back in 1993 actually, because he took it to a higher court and the Swiss Government paid him some amount of money, I don’t know which, to apologize.

Scott: Yes, and actually the decision was reversed in Austria, not in Switzerland.

Martin: Ok, Yes, I see.

Scott: The European court of Human Rights held that there had been a violation of his rights in the 1993 decision.

Martin: Ok, so that was really nice. He had his apology. So his personal life was undestroyed.

Scott: After like 15 years of going through this.

Martin: Yeah 15 years of hell and scientific ostracism and a career that once was promising but now he was some kind of a untouchable black-balled dude, right?

Scott: Yup

Martin: So 15 years later, they sent him some money and apologized. But in the meantime, this news didn’t make it into North America, did it?

Scott: No, no. And not only that but you know, you would think that it would be relatively easy to do a whole pile of studies on what happens when people, over time, what happens when people eat, you know, I mean we have the drug companies that say they’re doing that all the time, eating microwaved foods, and its very interesting because we assume that there’s no problem but its one of those things where nobody, we used to assume that the exhaust from the cars in the 50’s and 60’s was not a problem, and now of course, you know they have catalytic converters, they’ve got all the stuff to get the..

Martin: Hydrocarbons out of there, yup.

Scott: Yup, get the hydrocarbons out of there, because well, you know we found out something that we didn’t know before. And I think by sticking our head in the sand on this issue and not having people study it, is just criminal. Particularly if, you’re getting 10,000 times more carcinogens in your body through microwaving than you would if you just conventionally cooked something.

Martin: Oh hold on, you’re mixing two metaphors, this is only if you use saran wrap.

Scott: Oh yeah, only if you use saran wrap. Yes, we don’t know if any of the other stuff that you put in there, if it leaches or not.

Martin: Well, I mean, we should make an assumption that if you are going to use any plastic containers to reheat your food in the microwave, you’re giving yourself if not 10,000 at least several orders of magnitude increase in the carcinogens from the plastic so you will certainly give yourself an estrogenic effect which means the men will start growing man-boobs and losing their sexual interest, and the women will go estrogen dominant which makes them pms-ey and all of that, right?

Scott: Yup, Is there anything you put in the microwave with your food that is not plastic?

Martin: Well you can do it in ceramic, right. You can do it in a glass jar or whatever.

Scott: Yeah, ‘cause I don’t seem to see any of that stuff around.

Martin: Well.

Scott: We get back to the choice. Even if you didn’t believe that microwaving was bad for your food, but microwaving food in plastic seems to be

Martin: Definitely a problem.

Scott: Definitely a problem. Uh, how are you going to get something else to stick in there. That’s the issue, right?

Martin: Well if you insist on doing the microwave bit, and don’t believe us that the water structuring actually makes a difference, if you don’t believe that Dr Emoto’s pictures really showed anything worth knowing, or if you don’t believe that homeopathy works, or if you don’t believe that the water from the springs in Lourdes is any different than the water from the sewer in Paris… then why are you listening to us? (Laughs)

Scott: These two crazy Canadians? (laughs) Might as well listen to somebody else.

Martin: Yup

Scott: So all I can say is get rid of your microwave. I haven’t had a microwave for 7 or 8 years and my kids don’t mind at all, I don’t mind. I don’t miss it. It’s really quite funny when people come in and they say, oh yeah I’m gonna heat up something, where’s your microwave?

Martin: (Laughs) Oh yeah, and the popcorn thing…

Scott: And the popcorn thing. And actually I’m looking it differently now because when I visiting people and I see how much they use their microwave unconsciously, they don’t even know what they’re doing. And I’m looking at that and all I see is a skull and crossbones. White skull and crossbones on a black background on their food as it comes out. And I’m constantly “Don’t heat mine, I’ll eat it cold. Thank you very much.” And they’re like “what, no we need to defrost it!” “No, no.. pull my muffin out of there, don’t heat it! My food. no thanks, don’t, don’t” and they look at me like, what?

Martin: That’s exactly what happens to me in a Fast Food restaurant. I asked for, you know something and the clerk says do you want it reheated? And I point my finger and is that a microwave? And it’s a yes. No, thanks, I’ll have it cold!

Scott: That’s right.

Martin: Well, and there you have it. I mean, do we need to say more? Or we should point people why don’t we put this link to these two pages onto the podcasts. It’s under Health Education, nutrition, to avoid. There are two articles. One is The Microwave, Effects on Humans and the other one is Microwaving destroys nutrients. Those articles, if you not read it yet, pardon me, if you are not convinced yet at the end of this podcast that you should do what we’re suggesting, then please read those two articles and then call me back if you are still wanting to hang on to your microwave.

Scott: Yeah, or at the very least, get on and do a little bit more research because there is a lot of stuff out there about what we’re talking about. So, if somebody did want to take you up and chat with you about this some more Martin, how could they get a hold of you?

Martin: I’m sitting waiting here at 1-866-543-3388 from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening, in the Pacific Time Zone.

Scott: Awesome. And if you want to find those articles or other information on different health related topics, there’s thousands and thousands of pages at www.life-enthusiast.com and we’ve got over 137 shows online at lifeenthusiast.podomatic.com. Go through them, and there’s just a ton of information there. Take some time if you do listen to the shows to leave us a comment, we always enjoy getting your comments and hearing what you’ve got on your mind.

Martin: Yes, so thank you everybody. This is Life Enthusiast Co- op, restoring vitality to you and to the planet.

Scott: Bye bye.

Martin: Thanks for listening.