Over 90% of American homes have microwave ovens used for meal preparation. Because microwave ovens are so convenient and energy efficient, as compared to conventional ovens, very few homes or restaurants are without them. In general, people believe that whatever a microwave oven does to foods cooked in it doesn't have any negative effect on either the food or them. You may be surprised what you learn when you read on.

How do microwave ovens work?
Microwaves are a form of electromagnetic energy, like light waves or radio waves, and occupy a part of the electromagnetic spectrum of power, or energy. Microwaves are very short waves of electromagnetic energy that travel at the speed of light (186,282 miles per second). In our modern technological age, microwaves are used to relay long distance telephone signals, television programs, and computer information across the earth or to a satellite in space. But the microwave is most familiar to us as an energy source for cooking food.

Every microwave oven contains a magnetron, a tube in which electrons are affected by magnetic and electric fields in such a way as to produce micro wavelength radiation at about 2450 Mega Hertz (MHz) or 2.45 Giga Hertz (GHz). This microwave radiation interacts with the molecules in food. All wave energy changes polarity from positive to negative with each cycle of the wave. In microwaves, these polarity changes happen millions of times every second. Food molecules – especially the molecules of water – have a positive and negative end in the same way a magnet has a north and a south polarity.

In commercial models, the oven has a power input of about 1000 watts of alternating current. As these microwaves generated from the magnetron bombard the food, they cause the polar molecules to rotate at the same frequency millions of times a second. All this agitation creates molecular friction, which heats up the food. The friction also causes substantial damage to the surrounding molecules, often tearing them apart or forcefully deforming them.

By comparison, microwaves from the sun are based on principles of pulsed direct current (DC) that don't create frictional heat; microwave ovens use alternating current (AC) creating frictional heat. A microwave oven produces a spiked wavelength of energy with all the power going into only one narrow frequency of the energy spectrum. Energy from the sun operates in a wide frequency spectrum.

How safe are microwave ovens...really?
The bottom line is that microwave cooking is not natural, nor healthy, and is far more dangerous to the human body than anyone could imagine.

Think of it this way. Radiation, as defined by physics terminology, is "the electromagnetic waves emitted by the atoms and molecules of a radioactive substance as a result of nuclear decay." Radiation causes ionization, which is what occurs when a neutral atom gains or losses electrons. In simpler terms, a microwave oven decays and changes the molecular structure of the food by the process of radiation. Had the manufacturers accurately called them "radiation ovens", it's doubtful they would have ever sold one, but that's exactly what a microwave oven is.

Here are ten reasons, based on Swiss, Russian and German clinical studies, to not use a microwave:

1. Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term, permanent, brain damage by "shorting out" electrical impulses in the brain (de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue).
   
   
2. The human body cannot metabolize (break down) the unknown by-products created in micro-waved food.
   
   
3. Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered by continually eating micro-waved foods.
   
   
4. The effects of micro-waved food by-products are residual (long term, permanent) within the human body.
   
   
5. Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all micro-waved food is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit, or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down.
   
   
6. The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free radicals when cooked in a microwave oven.
   
   
7. Micro-waved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths (tumors). This has been a primary contributor to the rapidly increased rate of colon cancer in the United States.
   
   
8. The prolonged eating of micro-waved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood.
   
   
9. Continual ingestion of micro-waved food causes immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.
   
   
10. Eating micro-waved food causes loss of memory, concentration, emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.

Ultimately, each of us is responsible for what we eat everyday. Using a microwave, while convenient, is something to think twice about. And breaking free from your microwave is easier than you think. Here are some tips that can help:

• Plan ahead. Take your dinner out of the freezer that morning or the night before so you don't end up having to scramble to defrost a 5-pound chunk of beef two hours before dinnertime.
  
  
• Make soups and stews in bulk, and then freeze them in gallon-sized freezer bags or other containers. An hour before meal time, just take one out and defrost it in a sink of water until it's thawed enough to slip into a pot, then reheat it on the stove.
  
  
• A toaster oven makes a GREAT faux-microwave for heating up leftovers! Keep it at a low temperature–like 200-250 degrees F–and gently warm a plate of food over the course of 20-30 minutes. Another great alternative is a convection oven. They can be built in or purchased as a relatively inexpensive and quick, safe way to heat foods.
  
  
• Prepare your meals in advance. This way you always have a good meal available on those days when you're too busy or too tired to cook.
  
  
• Try eating more organic raw foods. This is the best way to and improve your health over the long run if you don't know what foods to eat that fit your DNA.

Ingo Logé is an author, clinical nutritionist and lifestyle educator who specializes in the creation of individual lifestyle and nutritional programs. His Mini Food Finger Print Special will help you learn what to eat, when to eat, and how to eat so you can turn healthy recipes into delicious meals that reduce fat and help you lose weight! Ingo's clients receive expert coaching, assistance and recovery with hormone imbalances, immune system dysfunction, sleep, stress and digestive issues, cleansing/detuning, revitalization, advanced food finger printing and metabolic typing, relief of chronic and acute symptoms, allergies, mind-emotion re–pattering (NLP) and therapeutic lifestyle coaching. Learn more at www.TheWellnessCSI.com.