Swiss scientist Hans Hertel. He was the first to study microwave dangers and investigated specifically how cooking degrades and depletes food of nutrients, which, in his research, showed up in study participants' blood. After feeding eight participants microwaved and non-microwaved food, significant changes were found in the blood samples from the intervals following the foods cooked in the microwave oven, including a decrease in all hemoglobin and cholesterol values, especially the ratio of HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) values.
Lymphocytes (white blood cells) showed a more distinct short-term decrease following the intake of microwaved food than after the intake of all the other variants. Of course, this is one of the few studies done on this research in this manner, but its findings are indeed thought-provoking. Dr. Mercola highlights the fact that each of these indicators point to degeneration, and the fact that the microwaved food might pass along toxic agents to consumers ("When the microwave radiation destroys and deforms food molecules, new harmful compounds form, radiolytic compounds. These dangerous compounds harm the body in many ways").
A prime example of this may come from the Health-Science website, "In 1991, there was a lawsuit in Oklahoma concerning the hospital use of a microwave oven to warm blood needed in a transfusion. The case involved a hip surgery patient, Norma Levitt, who died from a simple blood transfusion. It seems the nurse had warmed the blood in a microwave oven. This tragedy makes it very apparent that there's much more to "heating" with microwaves than we've been led to believe. Blood for transfusions is routinely warmed, but not in microwave ovens. In the case of Mrs. Levitt, the microwaving altered the blood and it killed her.
How do microwaves work?
Before we talk about how microwaves heat your food, let’s make a distinction between two very different kinds of radiation: 1. ionising radiation, and 2. non-ionising radiation. Ionising radiation, which can remove tightly-bound electrons from atoms, causing them to become charged, is less risky in very tiny amounts (such as x-rays) but can cause problems when exposure is high (think burns and even DNA damage). However, microwaves emit non-ionising radiation; a type of radiation that has enough energy to move atoms around within a molecule but not enough to remove electrons. What does this mean? Because the radiation from microwaves is non-ionising, it can only cause molecules in the food to move. This is good! In other words, microwave radiation cannot alter the chemical structure of food components. More precisely, when heating food in a microwave, the radiation that the microwave produces is actually absorbed by the water molecules in the food. This energy causes the water molecules to vibrate, generating heat through this (harmless) friction, which cooks the food. This mechanism is what makes microwaves much faster at heating food than other methods. Its energy immediately reaches molecules that are about an inch below the outer surface of the food, whereas heat from other cooking methods moves into food gradually via conduction, like the bottom of a saucepan directly touching a hot hob ring.
What radiation does to your body?
At very high doses, radiation can impair the functioning of tissues and organs and produce acute effects such as nausea and vomiting, skin redness, hair loss, acute radiation syndrome, local radiation injuries (also known as radiation burns), or even death.
Let’s take a closer look at exactly what microwaves do. These ovens emit their namesake, microwaves: high frequency radio waves (radiofrequency fields) and, like visible radiation (light), they are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Microwaves aren’t only used to zap your dinner; they’re used primarily for TV broadcasting, radar for air and sea navigational aids, telecommunications including mobile phones, and in industry for processing materials. These waves are reflected, transmitted or absorbed by materials in their path, much like light. As you may have discovered when you accidentally left a fork in the microwave, metallic materials totally reflect microwaves (causing those crazy sparks), while non-metallic materials such as glass and some plastics are mostly transparent to microwaves. You can heat up frozen items or foods containing water because they readily absorb microwave energy, which is then converted into heat.
“In a microwave oven, alternating current forces atoms reverse polarity at a startlingly high rate. This creates such violent friction that the water inside the food molecules begin to vibrate and heat up. Unfortunately, this action also deforms, impairs and tears molecules apart.” In other words, the food that enters the microwave just doesn’t come out the same, and may be completely ruined through the process.
Avoid using microwaves to heat your food. If you microwave your food in plastic containers, it can hasten the rate at which potentially cancer-causing chemicals can leach into your food. Additionally, microwaving creates new compounds that are not found in humans or in nature, called radiolytic compounds.
The FDA warns that you shouldn’t stand directly against your microwave while it’s heating your food. It’s especially important that children follow this rule since their bodies absorb radiation more easily than adults’. Additionally, check your microwave every now and again for any signs that the door or the seals are worn or damaged
Radiation
"No one wants to age quickly—to get gray hair faster or wrinkled skin or degenerative bone diseases. No one wants to shrink and lose their height. No one wants their fingernails and toenails to lose their vitality and color. No one wants their teeth to discolor and decay or their eyes to glaze over with cataracts or degenerative retina disease to develop. We simply don’t want to age; we’re always talking about anti-aging and never talking about the radiation exposure that contributes to it. Radiation speeds up the aging process rapidly. It causes much faster deterioration of cell tissue; vitality gets sucked out of every cell exposed to radiation.
Radiation also lowers the immune system. It’s critical to keep our immune system strong so we can fight the pathogens and battle the toxins that we come up against every day. When we fly, we already get a tremendous amount of radiation exposure. There’s still nuclear fallout floating in the sky, for one, from tragedies such as Fukushima, Hiroshima, and Chernobyl, and there’s more of it up high. For another, everybody on the plane has just been through scanners and placed their scanned luggage in the overhead bins, concentrating all that radiation directly over our heads, which gives us extra radiation exposure. With all of this—on top of the radiation exposure we get from sources other than flying, such as X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, devices such as cell phones, and even food and water—if we can take a step to protect our health, well-being, and vitality, it’s worth taking."
You might be surprised to hear that MRIs are a source of radiation exposure. The industry doesn’t tell us that there is a specific form of radiation that comes from MRI’s that’s different from the radiation emitted by X-rays and CT scans. Also, MRIs are often performed in the same medical center or area of a medical establishment where X-rays and CT scans are performed. This means you can inadvertently get some additional radiation exposure when you go for your MRI just by being in the same area where these services are offered. You can be sitting in the waiting room or lounge at your medical center and be exposed to dozens of people who are carrying radiation from having X-rays or CT scans in that same center. In addition, many people who get MRIs have already received X-rays or CT scans very recently, which means you can be exposed to the radiation they are carrying in them into the medical center. Again, we can’t avoid all exposure to radiation, which is why knowing how to remove it from your body with the information in Cleanse To Heal is so empowering.
"Here’s an unknown source of radiation: luggage that’s been through airport security. When your bags go through the scanners that allow agents to analyze their contents, the bags collect radiation that stays on them for years—centuries, even. The next time your knapsack or tote or briefcase goes through the scanner, it collects more radiation, and that accrues and accrues and accrues with every trip. Airport security is using more radiation than ever before right now. Every year, it increases. As a result, we should be discarding our carry-on bags every three trips. The checked bag scanning process tends to emit less radiation, so you can discard checked bags less often, more like every six trips. (And those are one-way trips, by the way. Round trips count as two trips.)
Now, I know this isn’t welcome information. I know it sounds drastic and jarring, especially with the popularity of expensive luggage and in this age of reuse. Can I afford to buy a new bag every few trips? Isn’t it wasteful? you may be asking yourself, and rightfully so. The bigger question is, can you afford not to? Especially if you have babies or children who spend any time near your luggage that’s been on multiple flights, can you afford to expose them? (More on protecting little ones in a moment.)
We also need to think about where we’re storing our luggage between trips, especially if we have little ones. When there are children in the house or we’re chronically ill, we need to be most mindful about not keeping well-traveled bags nearby. What if you’re using your child’s bedroom closet to store the family carry-ons that have been on five, six, or seven trips? What if you sleep four feet away from the backpack you’ve taken on 10 flights and it’s radiating there, right next to you, every night? These are questions to consider. If you have kids, do whatever you can to change luggage regularly. Be particularly careful about letting babies near bags that have been on a flight with you. If you don’t have children in the home and you can’t afford new bags, stow them as far from where you spend time in the home as possible.
What about the items that were in the luggage when it went through airport security? It’s really the largest item that collects the most radiation, and that item is the piece of baggage itself. Computers, phones, and clothing are smaller, and we store them separately and spread out when we’re not flying. That is, we don’t usually keep an exact set of shirts, pants, and sweaters from a trip shut together in one drawer, where all the radiation it picked up will be concentrated. These smaller items tend to be replaced more often than luggage too; we cycle through them, so this doesn’t need to be a big source of worry. Same with snacks you might have packed in your carry-on to eat while traveling. When we eat food that’s been through the scanner, yes, we’ll get a small dose of radiation. Food sold at the airport has been scanned too, though. You may need to eat while traveling, and you especially need to drink liquids, so go ahead and pack your snacks, drink your water, and plan to take care of yourself with cleansing steps such as the Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie afterward.
This is what I mean about living our lives. Some exposures we can’t avoid. Some, like luggage, we can limit. Either way, it helps to be aware. Then we can make smart choices, such as choosing a more economical bag next time you purchase luggage so you won’t mind letting it go before long, and sparing your kids from sleeping next to radiating carry-ons. If you’re concerned about the waste aspect of discarding your travel bags over time, think about the waste aspect of becoming ill and hospitalized—and the costs that occur on all levels of life when that happens.
Now, it’s possible that someday, radiation at airport security will get more attention. If it does, be prepared to hear experts say that the radiation levels that luggage picks up, if detectable, are safe for the body. That won’t mean the radiation really is safe—it’s like telling us mercury fillings are safe. Sometimes tools and knowledge are behind the times. Hold on to what you’ve discovered about the truth here."
Book a Healing Session or Healing Retreat with Medical Intuitive Healer Omar Botha below.
