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pawelk1986
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15 Nov 2012, 7:55 am

I know it sounds weird but in my kitchen, and actually my mom's kitchen, no microwave oven, my mom is terrified of them. Well, maybe I exaggerate a little. My mom is an electrician by profession, in fact she was an electrician in his youth, then worked mainly in the office, but I think that the electro-technical education of my mother made her oversensitive over radiation
I wanted to buy a microwave oven for home, my mom in fact is not the opposition but also not very happy, says that microwaves emit dangerous electromagnetic radiation on human health, my mom is very sensitive over radiation issue,


After all, microwave does not produce radiation that could harm human?



Kenjuudo
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15 Nov 2012, 9:05 am

Ever wondered why microwave ovens always have some sort of net on the door window? That functions like a Faraday cage. The Faraday cage will prevent the microwaves from escaping the oven. It's safe. Promise.


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15 Nov 2012, 9:26 am

Of course the radiation that microwave ovens produce is dangerous. I wouldn't recommend putting a living object in it unless you intend on killing it. The microwave radiation heats up any water present in the object in the oven, so any biological tissue is very efficiently heated up. The radiation from a microwave is relatively low in energy, which means it doesn't ionize things it hits. That means that microwave radiation doesn't cause cancer in the way that ionizing radiation can.

Fortunately, microwave radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation and electromagnetic radiation, especially low energy forms, can be very effectively shielded by a Faraday cage, a metal cage surrounding the source of the radiation. Since a microwave oven will not turn on when the door is open, there is no way for the radiation to escape the Faraday cage formed by the metal "fence" that lines all the sides of the oven.



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15 Nov 2012, 9:31 am

The fact that microwave ovens is safe is irrelevant.

This is an argument that you can't win. I'd wait until I moved out of her home, then I'd get myself a microwave.



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15 Nov 2012, 9:54 am

I'm gonna argue that they're not very safe. Used sparingly, they're OK I guess, but it's definitely not something you wanna use everyday. With your mother, you're Polish, the Soviets actually banned microwave ovens over safety concerns until the 70s or later I believe. So she might have her ideas from that.

It's hard to prove causation/correlation as far as the food heated with them, as food nowadays is just worse and everyone eats processed food, so whether or not it's because of microwave ovens, who knows. I think in Poland this whole thing is less of an issue, as it seems like in Poland people actually eat real food they cook themselves rather than getting all their food from cans, boxes, and frozen like in America (which is why America is so fat and unhealthy, btw.)

Anyway, as far as dangers go, the most documented case was where blood in the hospital for a transfusion was heated with a microwave. It killed the patient, due to being altered by the microwave. There's studies done, but the problem with studies is you can kinda make them say whatever you want, but that case there happened.

The electromagnetic fields is probably somewhat of an issue. It depends on the quality of the microwave, when it was manufactured, etc. My friend had a microwave from the 90s or 80s that would disrupt his wifi signal whenever it was on. It'd probably be quite dependent upon what brand you buy, how old it is, etc.

If you do get a microwave, I'd say just not use it too often. They're good to have around for occasional use, but I pretty much never use the microwave ever anymore. Food to me always tastes worse in the microwave. I use the microwave to heat up single cups of hot water for tea or instant coffee, and that's about it.

If you spend a little time on Google, you'll see the arguments for and against microwaves. Decide for yourself. I personally don't like them, though.



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15 Nov 2012, 10:15 am

1000Knives wrote:
I'm gonna argue that they're not very safe. Used sparingly, they're OK I guess, but it's definitely not something you wanna use everyday. With your mother, you're Polish, the Soviets actually banned microwave ovens over safety concerns until the 70s or later I believe. So she might have her ideas from that.

It's hard to prove causation/correlation as far as the food heated with them, as food nowadays is just worse and everyone eats processed food, so whether or not it's because of microwave ovens, who knows. I think in Poland this whole thing is less of an issue, as it seems like in Poland people actually eat real food they cook themselves rather than getting all their food from cans, boxes, and frozen like in America (which is why America is so fat and unhealthy, btw.)

Anyway, as far as dangers go, the most documented case was where blood in the hospital for a transfusion was heated with a microwave. It killed the patient, due to being altered by the microwave. There's studies done, but the problem with studies is you can kinda make them say whatever you want, but that case there happened.

The electromagnetic fields is probably somewhat of an issue. It depends on the quality of the microwave, when it was manufactured, etc. My friend had a microwave from the 90s or 80s that would disrupt his wifi signal whenever it was on. It'd probably be quite dependent upon what brand you buy, how old it is, etc.

If you do get a microwave, I'd say just not use it too often. They're good to have around for occasional use, but I pretty much never use the microwave ever anymore. Food to me always tastes worse in the microwave. I use the microwave to heat up single cups of hot water for tea or instant coffee, and that's about it.

If you spend a little time on Google, you'll see the arguments for and against microwaves. Decide for yourself. I personally don't like them, though.


please corroborate some of these myths and superstitions with actual fact.

proccessed foods are processed foods, when you cook it at home you are processing it as well,

it is true that many brands use a high ammount of sugars salts and fats, that is just as unhealthy as when doing it at home but the proccessing itself is mechanical and thermal energy and that is universal.

as for a microwave, it is non ionizing radiation which means that any dammage will be thermal dammage, in the case of a bag of blood intended for tranfusion the sometimes extreme temperature differences would certainly destroy the living cells in the blood making it direclty harmfull to the patient, it isnt rocket science.

the microwaves themselves are not dangerous unless the shielding is damaged, you can experience field millions of times stronger without incidence, as done by hundreds of entertainers when they get struck by tesla coils, it can even protect from ligthening and that is billions of times more powerfull than anything you would find in a microwave.


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pawelk1986
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15 Nov 2012, 10:27 am

1000Knives wrote:
I'm gonna argue that they're not very safe. Used sparingly, they're OK I guess, but it's definitely not something you wanna use everyday. With your mother, you're Polish, the Soviets actually banned microwave ovens over safety concerns until the 70s or later I believe. So she might have her ideas from that.

It's hard to prove causation/correlation as far as the food heated with them, as food nowadays is just worse and everyone eats processed food, so whether or not it's because of microwave ovens, who knows. I think in Poland this whole thing is less of an issue, as it seems like in Poland people actually eat real food they cook themselves rather than getting all their food from cans, boxes, and frozen like in America (which is why America is so fat and unhealthy, btw.)

Anyway, as far as dangers go, the most documented case was where blood in the hospital for a transfusion was heated with a microwave. It killed the patient, due to being altered by the microwave. There's studies done, but the problem with studies is you can kinda make them say whatever you want, but that case there happened.

The electromagnetic fields is probably somewhat of an issue. It depends on the quality of the microwave, when it was manufactured, etc. My friend had a microwave from the 90s or 80s that would disrupt his wifi signal whenever it was on. It'd probably be quite dependent upon what brand you buy, how old it is, etc.

If you do get a microwave, I'd say just not use it too often. They're good to have around for occasional use, but I pretty much never use the microwave ever anymore. Food to me always tastes worse in the microwave. I use the microwave to heat up single cups of hot water for tea or instant coffee, and that's about it.

If you spend a little time on Google, you'll see the arguments for and against microwaves. Decide for yourself. I personally don't like them, though.




Thank you, my mom in general is very pro-eco :)

Dislike anything that has any relation to radiation, has always been very critical of nuclear energy, under communism there were plans to build a nuclear power plant in Poland, of course, Soviet design :D , but after the Chernobyl disaster, people began to protest and the government abandoned the project, actually this was the first major protest, not associated with "Solidarity"and democratic opposition. It seems that my mother blamed the disaster at Chernobyl, for my Asperger's syndrome and allergy :D I was born in April 1986.

Now the government plans to build a nuclear power plant to solve the problem of expensive electricity and pollution that affect Poland, my mom is not delighted by government idea :-)



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15 Nov 2012, 11:34 am

Microwave technology is used all the time with WiFi and Cell Phones. It is a lower frequency of light than infrared. The lowest frequency of electromagnetic radiation that can actually cause cancer is ultraviolet. Microwaves in everyday life are perfectly safe. If it weren't for the metal walls of the microwave oven, you wouldn't even be able to heat up your food properly.

Quote:
Dislike anything that has any relation to radiation...


Radiation is the emission of energy as flying subatomic particles.
This includes all forms of light, by the way.



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15 Nov 2012, 1:46 pm

It's hard to say... anyone saying they're not safe gets squelched so fast it'll make your head spin. I imagine there's something to that...

Info on long-term exposure to EMF is only just trickling out now, with corporate powers holding the info back to protect their investments. I'll bet 25 years from now, we'll be lamenting the over-use of many of our products today that were harmful all along.



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15 Nov 2012, 2:54 pm

BlueMax wrote:
It's hard to say... anyone saying they're not safe gets squelched so fast it'll make your head spin. I imagine there's something to that...

Info on long-term exposure to EMF is only just trickling out now, with corporate powers holding the info back to protect their investments. I'll bet 25 years from now, we'll be lamenting the over-use of many of our products today that were harmful all along.


yet we can live in an atmosphere where there are charged particles with far greater energies and incidence than those used in our man made technology,

cosmic rays are known to be damaging, we are also known to easily heal that dammage under certain thresholds, a microwave doesnt even register on that energy scale.

the earth itself has a hugely powerfull magnetic field, especially in earthquake areas sometimes powerfull enough to create aurora like phenomena.

there are plenty of things to mention, solar storms, the polar caps, igneous ores and the list goes on.

so why then would a species that evolved to deal with all of these kinds of radiation and energy be harmed by something that is utterly miniscule in comparison??

there are of course things like radars at ultra high energies that do cause cancer but when we can prove that so easily why does the evidence for all the others remain so elusive,
especially since anyone with access to the technology itself could do the research with a relatively low investment.


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15 Nov 2012, 3:04 pm

^^^ Rather than microwaves, I was thinking of EMF - electromagnetic frequencies. Fluorescent lights, wireless signals that surrounds us and penetrates us... affecting all living things. (Bonus points if you get the reference.) ;)

Seriously though - there are some studies showing that sort of thing affects our electric brains some with long-term exposure...

As far as microwaves go? The Faraday cage controls the environment very well - but does it do more to your food than merely excite the water within it? Does it alter your food ever-so-slightly that over time may adversely affect your body?

Possibly, but probably at a rate much slower than Aspartame will hurt you.



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15 Nov 2012, 3:34 pm

BlueMax wrote:
It's hard to say... anyone saying they're not safe gets squelched so fast it'll make your head spin. I imagine there's something to that...

Info on long-term exposure to EMF is only just trickling out now, with corporate powers holding the info back to protect their investments. I'll bet 25 years from now, we'll be lamenting the over-use of many of our products today that were harmful all along.


Hardly new--the book Zapping of America came out in 1977--35 years ago. It was so long ago that a lot of Aspies don't remember the media hype when it came out.

Sure, the Russians had really stringent exposure standards--but what were they really doing when they let their people have much greater exposures?

The most plausible explanation for bombarding the US Embassy with microwaves was to utilize microwave reflectors embedded into the embassy walls. Voices would vibrate the reflectors and modulate the microwave return signal--which was easily demodulated against a sample of the transmit signal--you now have a very effective listening device!



Last edited by BTDT on 15 Nov 2012, 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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15 Nov 2012, 3:35 pm

BlueMax wrote:
^^^ Rather than microwaves, I was thinking of EMF - electromagnetic frequencies. Fluorescent lights, wireless signals that surrounds us and penetrates us... affecting all living things...

Microwaves ARE electromagnetic "frequencies" -- more accurately called "Electromagnetic Radiation" or "EMR". Specifically, microwave ovens operate at about 2,450,000,000 cycles per second (2.45 GHz)

Electric light fixtures operate at 60 cycles per second (60 Hz) in the U.S., and 50 cycles per second (50 Hz) in England.

Somewhere in between are AM Radio (540 to 1610 kHz), FM radio (88 to 108 MHz), television signals (54 to 88 MHz, 174 to 216 MHz, and 470 to 806 MHz), and the much-maligned Citizens Band (26.960 to 27.410 MHz).

Electromagnetic waves are not particles -- at least, their duality with particles does not seem to become significant until the frequency approaches that of visible light (400 x 10^12 to 800 x 10^12 cycles per second).

All of these waves, from the lowest-frequency radio waves to the highest-frequency gamma rays, are fundamentally the same, and they are all called electromagnetic radiation. They all travel through a vacuum at the speed of light. Another property of an electromagnetic wave is its wavelength. The wavelength is inversely proportional to the frequency, so an electromagnetic wave with a higher frequency has a shorter wavelength, and vice-versa.

Didn't any of you take science classes?

One more thing; microwave ovens are as dangerous as genetically-modified foods. In fact, both modified and unmodified foods are equally affected by microwaves -- their chemical compositions and molecular bonds are broken and re-formed during the cooking process. So why are their no ballot propositions to limit the sale and use of microwave ovens?


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Last edited by Fnord on 15 Nov 2012, 3:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

BlueMax
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15 Nov 2012, 3:37 pm

Boy you just love taking digs at me...



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15 Nov 2012, 5:21 pm

A microwave is perfectly safe to use unless it was improperly built or modified to be dangerous.


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15 Nov 2012, 9:11 pm

Fnord wrote:

One more thing; microwave ovens are as dangerous as genetically-modified foods. In fact, both modified and unmodified foods are equally affected by microwaves -- their chemical compositions and molecular bonds are broken and re-formed during the cooking process. So why are their no ballot propositions to limit the sale and use of microwave ovens?


so depending on food everything from no harm to increased toxicity compared to a non modified food.

breaking and reforming chemical bonds is cooking, everything from the maillard reaction to making cheese.


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