Can microwaved food affect your performance?

Building a strong, muscular, fat-free & efficient body is not just about pushing weights in the gym or doing some cardio. What you put into your body is 90% of what you "feel" and "look" like and more importantly, how long you live.

In this article on LAMUSCLE.COM, you will read about how microwaving food can affect your progress in the gym & beyond.

Consider this:

"In 1973 two American scientists, P. Czerski and W.M. Leach proved that microwaves cause cancer in animals. The American National Council for Radiation Protection (NCRP) in the U.S announced at the end of the 1980s that children of mothers exposed to using microwave ovens were found to have an increased rate of malformations."

The above is only one fact about microwaves and their effects.

In the U.S over 90% of homes have microwave ovens for meal preparation. Many users frequently use their microwave ovens for heating water, tea, coffee, even mother's milk! But are microwaves safe? Do they give you the same effects as ordinary ovens? After all, they are both heating food up for you to eat, right?

Let's consider one of the more famous cases of microwaves used for heating things up. In 1991 in Oklahoma a woman named Norma Levitt had hip surgery and she died. Nothing unusual in that, right? Surgeries can go wrong. What is interesting about this case is that she did not die from her surgery, but actually died from a simple blood transfusion when a nurse heated the blood to be used in the transfusion in a microwave oven! That blood killed the patient in less than 1.5 hours.

The phenomenon of frictional heat caused by microwaves was discovered accidentally in 1946 during an experiment with a magnetic field tube. One of the researchers, Percy Spencer, noticed that a piece of chocolate he had been carrying in his jacket pocket had melted; he had not been aware of any heat. The discovery triggered off the development of kitchen appliances in the U.S utilizing this heating effect. Around 1952 a microwave oven, was first placed on the U.S market under license to the Raytheon Company.

Nowadays Microwaves are used to detect speeding cars (speed detectors), to detect flying aircraft (radars), and to send telephone and television communications over long distances (satellite transmissions).

Just in case there is any confusion over microwaves from the sun and microwave ovens, microwaves from the sun are based on principles of pulsed direct current (DC) that don't create frictional heat. Microwave ovens on the other hand use alternating current (AC) creating frictional heat.

Since the development of radar, man's ability to generate and harness microwaves has resulted in such a proliferation of devices using microwaves that today virtually everyone on earth is affected by them to some degree. Some environmentalists rightly call this "electronic smog" and it is pretty much everywhere.

In the microwave oven an electronic tube, the so-called Magnetron, generates an alternating power field. The molecules within the food, especially the polar water molecules, but also amino acids, lipids and proteins, are forced to align themselves with the rapidly changing alternating electrical field. They oscillate around their axis in response to reversal of the electric field that occurs up to 5 billion times per second. This oscillation creates considerable intermolecular friction that results in the generation of heat. Thus, the food is heated from the inside outwards leaving the dishes and the oven itself cold; they are not directly heated by microwaves. This is contrary to conventional heating of food, in which heat transfers from the outer to the inner.

Structures of molecules are torn apart, molecules are forcefully deformed (called structural isomerism) and thus become impaired in quality.

The foods exposed to microwave radiation are dramatically altered. Cells, molecules and atoms of the foods are forced to reverse polarity between thirty and one hundred billion times per second.

In nature, nothing heats in this way. There is no atom, molecule or cell in any organic system able to withstand such a violent, destructive power for any extended period of time.

This amount of radiation results in the destruction and deformation of molecules of food and results in the formation of new compounds. These are referred to as Radiolytic components that were unknown in nature prior to the creation of the microwave oven.

The effect of the microwave radiation is transferred from the food to the body. Natural repair mechanisms are suppressed and the cells subjected to microwave radiation switch from aerobic (with oxygen) to anaerobic (without oxygen). Following the consumption of microwave foods, eurythrocytes, macrophages and leudocytes drop on the average to 80 percent of their normal value. Hemoglobin and hemocryt levels are also altered.

In terms of protein and amino acids, it has been shown that the amino acid Proline, becomes Hydroxyl-proline when exposed to microwave radiation. That makes it a strong human carcinogen. Proline's d-isomer, is known to be neurotoxic (poisonous to the nervous system) and nephrotoxic (poisonous to the kidneys). Fats also oxydize and water becomes radical as a result of microwaving.

Perhaps the most famous researchers in this field, Dr. Blaunt and Dr. Hertel, food scientists, researchers from Germany and Switzerland, released a study called the "Hans Hertel Swiss Study." They took blood samples from a group of people before and after eating microwaved food. The white blood cell levels dropped significantly; they are crucial for your immune system. The hemoglobin value in the blood cells decreased, altering the fats and altering cholesterol levels.

Dr. Hertel found pathogenic effects on living systems, namely poisoning of tissue and cell damage. Cholesterol levels increased, which showed that there are altered fats. Hemoglobin increased, showing cell membrane injury.

To take an extreme example, the weakening of cell membranes by microwaves is used in the field of gene altering technology. Because of the force involved, the cells are actually broken, thereby neutralizing the electrical potentials, the very life of the cells, between the outer and inner side of the cell membranes. And to think we do this daily to our food & body. Impaired cells become easy prey for viruses, fungi and other microorganisms. The natural repair mechanisms are suppressed and cells are forced to adapt to a state of energy emergency i.e. they switch from aerobic to anaerobic respiration.

The effects of microwaving on food values are also well documented. Russian researchers have reported a marked increase of structural degradation leading to a decreased food value of 60 to 90% in all foods tested. Among the changes observed were: Deceased bio-availability of vitamin B complex, vitamin C, vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotropics factors in all food tested and the degradation of nucleo-proteins in meats.

If you train your muscles, you need high quality proteins to "repair" and "rebuild" them. Microwaving foods can degrade the very protein that you are trying to use to repair your muscles. It is like putting used, degenerated oil in your car when servicing it!

As you know, building a better body, lowering fat levels and increasing performance are closely related to your body's hormonal systems. Your body needs to be functioning at100% for you to perform at your best. Keeping your hormonal system in check is crucial.

Unfortunately one of the things that microwaving foods does is it causes a destabilization and interruption in the production of hormones and maintenance of hormonal balance in both males and females. This is counterproductive in the short term and especially in the long term for your performance goals.

The Russians did research on thousands of workers who had been exposed to microwaves during the development of radar in the 1950's. Their research showed health problems so serious that they set strict limits of 10 microwatts exposure for workers and one microwatt for civilians.

The early signs of microwave poisoning are low blood pressure and a slow pulse. The later and most common manifestations are chronic excitation of the sympathetic nervous system (stress syndrome) and high blood pressure. This phase also often includes headache, dizziness, eye pain, sleeplessness, irritability, anxiety, stomach pain, nervous tension, inability to concentrate, hair loss, plus an increased incidence of appendicitis, cataracts, reproductive problems and cancer.

The chronic symptoms are eventually succeeded by crisis of adrenal exhaustion and ischemic heart disease (the blockage of coronary arteries and heart attacks). Continually eating food processed in a microwave oven may cause long term brain damage by interfering with electrical impulses in the brain (i.e. de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue).

Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food are reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit; even worse the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down. The minerals in vegetables are thought to alter into cancerous free radicals when cooked in microwave ovens.

We live in a fast moving society where quicker is better and we have less and less time to do things and more and more stress. The keyword here is "balance". If you think microwaving food is convenient and releases you from the "stress" of cooking food, then the choice is yours. On the other hand, if you are trying to get the best possible body and perform at your best, then microwaving food does not seem logical. Our foods today have precious little nutrients in them as it is.

If you are a heavy microwave user, try going without your microwave for a few weeks and see if you notice any difference in the way you feel and perform. Just because everybody else uses microwaves does not mean that they are safe. Use your own head. If it doesn't makes sense to you, then act accordingly.