For those not knowing what irradiated food is; one form of irradiation means subjecting foods we consume to gamma rays which are photons or bundles of energy; waves of electromagnetic radiation traveling the speed of light (286,000 miles/second) through space with no mass in a sine wave. When a gamma ray penetrates matter ionization of some of the cells of the material it passes through occurs, it breaks DNA molecules, changes molecular structure, and kills things that are alive in its path including bacteria.

This energy is not dissimilar to light from a light bulb, radio waves from a TV tower or cellphone tower, or the microwaves from your microwave oven that cook food. The energy used in food irradiation differs only in wave length, frequency, and thus energy level and also importantly; source. Gamma rays are emitted from the nucleus of an atom undergoing radioactive decay. Particle accelerators are another source of this high energy to subject food to which will kill the bacteria present.

The concept of destroying bacteria to preserve the food is good; the problem is what other molecular changes in the food were also a byproduct of destroying the bacteria. That is what is at issue; and it looks like the changes are significant enough to cause sufficient side effects for us to stop and take another look at whether or not the benefits outweigh the risks. Please consider the following two studies.

Ber Wenonah Hauter Director, Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, Public Citizen

For starters, numerous public opinion polls confirm that most Australians don't want to eat food that has been exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation. In a 1997 CBS News poll, 77 percent of people surveyed said they would not eat irradiated food including 91 percent of women. And, from 1998 to 2000, the percentage of shoppers who told the Food Marketing Institute that they would buy irradiated food dropped from 60 percent to 38 percent.

Understandably so, consumers have a visceral reaction against eating food that has been "treated" with a linear accelerator originally designed for the "Star Wars" program, or (perhaps one day) with radioactive waste left over from the production of nuclear weapons.

From a scientific perspective, the jury is still out on whether irradiated food is safe to eat. Early research, most of which was conducted or funded by the U.S. government, revealed a wide range of health problems in animals that ate irradiated food: premature death, fatal internal bleeding, a rare form of cancer, stillbirths and other reproductive problems, genetic damage, organ malfunctions and nutritional deficiencies, to name a few.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) admits that no toxicology research has been conducted in the past 20 years. Consequently, scientists have little or no idea whether irradiated food is safe for human consumption.

Moreover, the FDA failed to follow its own safety rules when the agency legalized the irradiation of beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fruit, vegetables, eggs, juice and sprouting seeds. Consumer organizations are actively challenging some of these questionable decisions.

From a nutritional perspective, exposing food to the equivalent of up to 1 billion chest x-rays depletes vitamins, often significantly. Especially vulnerable are A, the B-complex, C, E, and beta-carotene.

For instance, irradiation destroys up to 80 percent of the vitamin A in eggs, and about half of the thiamin in wheat flour. Essential fatty acids can be damaged, as can amino acids. And, beneficial microorganisms are killed along with the harmful ones.

Making matters worse still, because irradiation can significantly extend shelf life, food can be stored for days or weeks on trucks, ships and trains until it reaches the market. The food arrives even further depleted of vitamins, and tasting and smelling nothing like the way an apple, a tomato or a pork chop should taste and smell.

From a chemical perspective, irradiation blows apart the bonds that hold food molecules together, resulting in the formation of hundreds of new compounds.

Some of these compounds are known or suspected to cause cancer or birth defects, such as:

benzene,

ethanol,

hexane,

methyl ethyl ketone,

and toluene.

From an aesthetic perspective, irradiation can ruin the flavor, odor and texture of food. Beef can smell like a wet dog, pork can turn red, produce can become mushy, and eggs can become runny and difficult to cook.

Recently, a food irradiator in Florida was sued by a seafood company for allegedly over-irradiating thousands of boxes of gourmet salmon products, rendering them inedible.

From an economic perspective, irradiated meat can cost up to 75 cents per pound more than regular meat, and irradiated produce can double in price.

Finally, irradiation is not a panacea to killing food-borne pathogens. It cannot kill the prion that causes mad-cow disease. It cannot kill viruses, such as hepatitis and Norwalk virus. And, while irradiation does kill certain harmful microorganisms, it does nothing to remove the feces, urine and pus that often sullies meat in the slaughterhouse.

Consumers do not want to eat filth, whether it's been irradiated or not. Americans demand and deserve fresh, wholesome, safe food that has been grown and processed in clean environments.

The bottom line is that irradiation will not make food cleaner. It merely masks unhygienic slaughtering and processing practices, while corrupting nutritional integrity.

On behalf of our 150,000 members and American consumers at large, Public Citizen is running a national (and a growing international) campaign to inform people about the hazards associated with irradiated food. More than 200 organizations representing more than 1 million Americans have joined our

effort.

I knew food irradiation was not good and have warned about it over three years ago all the way back to issue #25.

It turns out that Belgium - based Ion Beam Applications (IBA) has received USDA approval to open the first gamma ray irradiation facility for beef and poultry in Schaumburg, IL, scheduled to open sometime in the spring of 2001. The facility will be operated by Sterigenics International, IBA's Chicago - based subsidiary.

Gamma ray irradiation uses a radioactive source, either cobalt 60 or cesium 137 isotopes, for the purpose of pasteurization. Studies on the effect irradiated food has on lab animals point to grave questions about its wholesomeness.

Aside from the numerous unique radiolytic products (URP's, chemicals not known to naturally occur in any food) it forms during treatment, lab animals were often shown to have massive increases in tumor rates, chromosomal damage, reproductive disorders, and immune system compromise when fed an irradiated diet.

Food for thought. 

Ten Top Reasons For Opposing Food Irradiation

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/factsheet10reasons.htm

April 15, 2001

industries.These trends have already forced multitudes of family farmers and ranchers out of business, reduced the diversity of products in the marketplace, disrupted local economies in developing nations, and put American farmers and ranchers at a great economic disadvantage.XXI

Please go to Dr. Mercola's website, www.mercola.com, and search "microwave"
for a great 16 page article on the testing done by a Swiss scientist on the
visible effects of eating microwaved foods on our blood health, especially
immune system function.  you can acturally see the white fighter cells change
within an hour after eating microwaved food using live blood analysis. And
the microwave industry offered this Dr. Hertel millions of dollars to keep
his findings to himself and not publish them.  I wonder why??  At one of my
medical seminars  several ago, Dr. Andreas Marx, a German M.D. practicing in
Denver area told us he has seen in his practice children who were given only
microwaved formula and baby food since birth, and developed "failure to
thrive" syndrome, I.E. stopped growing normally, and rheumatoid arthritis.  
In Europe, microwaves have been banned in several countries, and Dr. Marx
told us that the physicists in Germany know how destructive it is to the
nutrients in food, and how it created a static energy in the body that upsets
the electrical balance. After all, it is an intense form of energy, and
doesn't leave the food before we eat it. But here in America, for economic
reasons, the truth has been suppressed.  Thanks to Dr. Mercola, you can get
the real truth about micowaves, mercury in silver tooth fillings , mercury in
children's vaccines, and many more important health issues.  Here is a
dedicated and passionate doctor who has a mission to inform the public about
these issues, and now he knows about YL oils!!! We are so blessed to have
people like Gary Young, Dr. Mercola, and other health care professionals who
are dedicated to sharing this important information.  So learn and share with
others!!
Subscribe to his free weekly newsletter and become educated so you can take
charge of your health instead of being a victim of our ineffective medical
system.
As Dr. Marx told us, "Your microwave will be a wonderful storage cabinet for
your pots and pans", in his great German accent!!
   
   Valerie Holway
   Wellness Consultant, EDS practitioner
   Marquette, Michigan
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Significant German research on biological effects of microwaves was done at the Humbol-Universitat Zu Berlin in 1942-43.

Beginning in 1957 and continuing to the present, the Russians have done the most diligent research into the biological effects of microwave ovens. In 1976 they outlawed their use and issued an international warning about the biological and environmental damage that can result from the use of microwave ovens. (from "The Effects of MIcrowave Apparatus on Food & Humans" by William P. Kopp)

* MEATS: Heating prepared meats sufficiently to ensure sanitary ingestion creates d-nitrosodiethanolamine, a well-known cancer-causing agent.

* PROTEINS: Active-protein, biomolecular compounds are destabilized.

* INCREASE IN RADIOACTIVITY: A 'binding effect' between microwaved food & any atmospheric radio-activity is created, causing a marked increase in the amount of alpha & beta particle saturation in the food.

* MILK & CEREALS: Cancer-causing agents are created in die protein-hydrolysate compounds in milk and cereal grains.

* FROZEN FOODS: Microwaves used to thaw frozen foods alter the catabolism (breakdown) of the glucoside and galactoside elements.

* DIGESTIVE SYSTEM: The unstable breakdown of micro-waved food alters their elemental substances, causing disorders in the digestive system.

* LYMPHATIC SYSTEM: Due to chemical alterations within food substances, malfunctions occur in the lymph system, causing degeneration of the body's ability to protect itself against certain forms of neoplastics (cancerous growths).

* FREE RADICALS: Certain trace-mineral molecular formations in plant substances - in particular raw root vegetables - form cancer-causing free radicals.

* INCREASED INCIDENCE OF STOMACH & INTESTINAL CANCERS: A statistically higher percentage of cancerous growths result in these organs, plus a generalized breakdown of the peripheral cellular tissues and a gradual degeneration of digestive and excretory functions.

* SIGNIFICANT DECREASES IN NUTRITIVE VALUE OF all foods studied.

*

: in every food tested, the bioavailability of vital nutrients decreased: vitamin B complex, vitamins C and E, essential minerals & lipotropics.

* VITAL ENERGY FIELDS DEVASTATED: all tested foods dropped 60-90%.

* DIGESTIBILITY OF FRUITS & VEGETABLES REDUCED: microwaves lower the metabolic behavior and integration-process of alkaloids, glucosides, alactosides & nitrilosides.

* MEAT PROTEINS WORTHLESS: the nutritive value of nucleoproteins in meats is destroyed.

* ALL FOODS DAMAGED: microwaves greatly accelerates the structural disintegration of all foods tested. BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF MICROWAVES Merely entering the energy field of microwaved foods causes harmful side-effects. The Soviets outlawed microwaves in 1976!

* LIFE ENERGY FIELD BREAKDOWN: increases relative to length of exposure.

* Cellular energy decreases: The cellular-voltage parallels of individuals using the apparatus degenerate - especially in their blood and lymphatic serums.

* Destabilized metabolism: The external-energy activated potentials of food utilization are both destabilized and degenerated.

* Cell damage: Internal cellular-membrane potentials during catabolic processes into the blood serum from the digestive process degenerate and destabilize.

* Brain circuitry destruction: Electrical impulses in the cerebrum degenerate and break down.

* Nervous system: Nerve / electrical circuits degenerate and breakdown while energy-field symmetry is lost in the nerve centers in both the front and rear of the central and autonomic nervous systems.

* Loss of bioelectric strength: The bioelectric strengths within the system which controls the function of waking consciousness go out of balance and lose their proper circuiting.

* Loss of vital energies: Humans, animals and plants located within a 500-metre radius (1,500 ft) of a microwave in operation suffer a long-term, cumulative loss of vital energies. Nervous and lymphatic Systems damageD Long lasting residual magnetic "deposits" become located throughout the nervous system and lymphatic system.

* Hormone imbalances: The production of hormones and the maintenance of hormonal balance in both males and females becomes destabilized and interrupted.

* Brainwave disruptions: Levels of disturbance in alpha, delta and theta-wave signal patterns are markedly higher than normal.

* Psychological disorders: Because of the disarranged brain waves, negative psychological effects also result. These include loss of memory and ability to concentrate, suppressed emotional threshold, deceleration of intellective processes and interruptive sleep episodes in a statistically higher percentage of individuals subjected to continual range-emission field effects of microwave apparatus, from either cooking apparatus or transmission stations. POTENTIAL USE IN MIND CONTROL Random, residual magnetic deposits settle in the nervous and lymphatic systems, which can ultimately affect the brain and nerve centers and depolarize tissue & neuroelectronic circuits.

* Because these effects can cause irremissible damage to the nervous system, eating microwaved foods is clearly not advised.

* Soviet studies show residual magnetism affects receptor components in the brain, affecting behavior. Transmitting radio signals at controlled frequencies, caused subjects to comply involuntarily and subliminally -

to commands received through microwave transmissions - thus prompting their ban.

The Hidden Hazards of Microwave Cooking

Recent research shows that microwave oven-cooked food suffers severe molecular damage. When eaten, it causes abnormal changes in human blood and immune systems. Not surprisingly, the public has been denied details on these significant health dangers.

I have often been asked by my patients whether cooking with microwave ovens is healthy or not. I did not really have an objective, scientific answer to give, as I had not really researched the matter. Well, recentlyI decided to do some useful research into the question of microwave cooking. I had a hunch that it was NOT healthy, and this was confirmed by my research! I will share with you in summary some of the interesting facts that I dug up from my research. In 1991, word leaked out about a lawsuit in Oklahoma. A woman named Norma Levitt had hip surgery, only to be killed by a simple blood transfusion when a nurse "warmed the blood for the transfusion in a microwave oven"! (J. Nat. Sci, 1998; 1:2-7).

Logic suggests that if heating or cooking is all there is to it, then it doesn't matter what mode of heating technology one uses. However, it is quite apparent that there is 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 micro-waving altered the blood and it killed her. HANS HERTEL in the tiny town of Wattenwil, near Basel in Switzerland, there lives a scientist who is alarmed at the lack of purity and naturalness in the many pursuits of modern mankind. He worked as a food scientist for several years with one of the many major Swiss food companies that do business on a global scale.

A few years ago, he was fired from his job for questioning procedures in processing food because they denatured it. The point that he was desperately trying to make to the public is vital to consumer interests: Any food eaten that has been cooked or defrosted in a microwave oven can cause changes in the blood indicative of a developing pathological process that is also found in cancer. Nevertheless, for all this time, Hertel has been effectively gagged by the manufacturers of microwave ovens who have effectively used trade laws and the Swiss court to muzzle him - even to threaten him with personal ruin, an all too known tactic used by those threatened by natural medicine and the truth! Working with Bernard H. Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University Institute for Biochemistry, Hertel not only conceived of the study and carried it out, he was one of eight participants. "To control as many variables as possible, we selected eight individuals who were strict macrobiotic diet participants from the Macrobiotic Institute at Kientel, Switzerland," Hertel explained. "We were all housed in the same hotel environment for eight weeks.

There was no smoking, no alcohol and no sex." One can readily see that this protocol makes sense. After all, how could you tell about subtle changes in a human's blood from eating micro-waved food if smoking, booze, junk food, pollution, pesticides,hormones, antibiotics and everything else in the common environment were also present? "We had one American, one Canadian and six Europeans in the group. I was the oldest at 64 years, the others were in their 20s and 30s," Hertel added. Valentine published the results of this study in Search for Health inthe Spring of 1992. But the follow-up information is available only in a later edition, and also in Acres, USA. In intervals of two to five days, the volunteers in the study received one of the food variants on an empty stomach.

The food variants were: raw milk from a bio-farm (no. 1); the same milk conventionally cooked (no.2); pasteurized milk from Intermilk Berne (no. 3); the same raw milk cooked in a microwave oven (no. 4); raw vegetables from an organic farm(no. 5); the same vegetables cooked conventionally (no. 6); the samevegetables frozen and defrosted in the microwave oven (no. 7); and the same vegetables cooked in the microwave oven (no. 8). Once the volunteers were isolated at the resort hotel, the test began.

Blood samples were taken from every volunteer immediately before eating. Then blood samples were taken at defined intervals after eating from the above-numbered milk or vegetable preparations. Significant changes were discovered in the blood of the volunteers who consumed foods cooked in the microwave oven. These changes included a decrease in all hemoglobin values and cholesterol values, especially the HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) values and ratio. Lymphocytes (white blood cells) showed a more distinct short-term decrease following the intake of micro-waved food than after the intake of all the other variants.

Each of these indicators point in a direction away from robust health and toward degeneration. Additionally, there was a highly significant association between the amount of microwave energy in the test foods and the luminous power of luminescent bacteria exposed to serum from test persons who ate that food. This led Hertel to the conclusion that such technically derived energies may, indeed, be passed along to man inductively via consumption of micro-waved food. "Technically produced microwaves are based on the principle of alternating current. Atoms, molecules and cells hit by this hard electromagnetic radiation are forced to reverse polarity 1 to 100 billion times a second.

There are no atoms, molecules or cells of any organic system able to withstand such a violent, destructive power for any extended period of time, not even in the low energy range of milliwatts."

Of all the natural substances-which are polar-the oxygen of water molecules reacts most sensitively. This is how microwave-cooking heat is generated-friction from this violence in water molecules. Structures of molecules are torn apart, molecules are forcefully deformed (called structural isomerism) and thus become impaired in quality. HEATING FOOD "This is contrary to conventional heating of food, in which heat transfers convectionally from without to within. Cooking by microwaves begins within the cells and molecules where water is present and where the energy is transformed into frictional heat." "The first drawing of blood samples took place on an empty stomach at 7.45 each morning," Hertel explained. "The second drawing of blood took place 15 minutes after the food intake. The third drawing was two hours later." 

From each sample, 50 milliliters of blood was used for the chemistry and five millimeters for the hematology and the luminescence. The hematological examinations took place immediately after drawing the samples. Erythrocytes, hemoglobin, mean hemoglobin concentration, mean hemoglobin content, leukocytes and lymphocytes were measured. The chemical analysis consisted of iron, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. The results of erythrocyte, hemoglobin, haematocrit and leukocyte determinations were at the "lower limits of normal" in those tested following the eating of the micro-waved samples. "These results show anemic tendencies.

After the World War II, the Russians also experimented with microwave ovens. From 1957 up to recently, their research has been carried out mainly at the Institute of Radio Technology at Klinsk, Byelorussia. According to US researcher William Kopp, who gathered much of the results of Russian and German research - and was apparently prosecuted for doing so (J. Nat. Sci, 1998; 1:42-3) - the following effects were observed by Russian forensic teams: 

1. Heating prepared meats in a microwave sufficiently for human consumption created:

 * d-Nitrosodiethanolamine (a well-known cancer-causing agent)

 * Destabilization of active protein biomolecular compound

 * Creation of a binding effect to radioactivity in the atmosphere

 * Creation of cancer-causing agents within protein-hydrosylatecompounds in milk and cereal grains;

2. Microwave emissions also caused alteration in the catabolic (breakdown) behavior of glucoside - and galactoside - elements within frozen fruits when thawed in this way;

3. Microwaves altered catabolic behavior of plant-alkaloids when raw, cooked or frozen vegetables were exposed for even very short periods;

4. Cancer-causing free radicals were formed within certain trace-mineral molecular formations in plant substances, especially in raw root vegetables; 

5. Ingestion of micro-waved foods caused a higher percentage of cancerous cells in blood;

 6. Due to chemical alterations within food substances, malfunctions occurred in the lymphatic system, causing degeneration of the immune system's capacity to protect itself against cancerous growth; 

7. The unstable catabolism of micro-waved foods altered their elemental food substances, leading to disorders in the digestive system;

 8. Those ingesting micro-waved foods showed a statistically higher incidence of stomach and intestinal cancers, plus a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues with a gradual breakdown of digestive and excretory system function;

 9. Microwave exposure caused significant decreases in the nutritional value of all foods studied, particularly: * A decrease in the bioavailability of B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotrophics

* Destruction of the nutritional value of nucleoproteins in meats

* Lowering of the metabolic activity of alkaloids, glucosides,galactosides and nitrilosides (all basic plant substances in fruits and vegetables)

* Marked acceleration of structural disintegration in all foods. As a result microwave ovens were banned in Russia in 1976; the ban was lifted after Perestroika.

To get the full flavor of what may lie ahead for micro-waving, here is that summary article: "Women who work outside the home can express and store breast milk for feedings when they are away. But parents and caregivers should be careful how they warm this milk. A new study shows that micro-waving human milk-even at a low setting-can destroy some of its important disease-fighting capabilities. "Breast milk can be refrigerated safely for a few days or frozen for up to a month; however, studies have shown that heating the milk well above body temperature - 37 degree centigrade - can break down not only its antibodies to infectious agents, but also its lysozymes or bacteria-digesting enzymes. So, when pediatrician John A. Kerner, Jr, witnessed neonatal nurses routinely thawing or reheating breast milk with the microwave oven in their lounge, he became concerned. "In the April 1992 issue of Pediatrics (Part I), he and his Stanford University co-workers reported finding that unheated breast milk that was microwaved lost lysozyme activity, antibodies and fostered the growth of more potentially pathogenic bacteria.

Milk heated at a high setting (72 degrees Celsius to 98 degrees C) lost 96 per cent of its immunoglobulin-A antibodies, agents that fend off invading microbes. "What really surprised him, Kerner said, was finding some loss of anti-infective properties in the milk micro-waved at a low setting-and to a mean of just 33.5 degrees C. Adverse changes at such low temperatures suggest 'micro-waving itself may in fact cause some injury to the milk above and beyond the heating'. 

There are many more disadvantages in using microwave ovens - Listeria and other potentially fatal bacteria can survive in a microwave oven, toxic chemicals released by the packaging used for microwave use, and more. The message seems clear. Don't cook food in a microwave oven God bless!

Dr. George J Georgiou, Ph.D.

Naturopath - Clinical Nutritionist - Herbalist - Homeopath -Iridologist - VEGA Specialist - Clinical Psychologist - Clinical Sexologist

I would call everyone's attention to the following two paragraphs which appear in the middle of the article. "Technically produced microwaves are based on the principle of alternating current. Atoms, molecules and cells hit by this hard electromagnetic radiation are forced to reverse polarity 1 to 100 billion times per second. There are no atoms, molecules or cells of any organic system able to withstand such a violent, destructive power for any extended period of time, not even in the low energy range of milliwatts.""Of all the natural substances which are polar...the oxygen of water molecules reacts most sensitively.

This is how microwave cooking heat is generated...friction from this violence in the water molecules. Structures of molecules are torn apart...molecules are forcefully deformed...and in this way become impaired in quality."