Dear Kurma,
Do you have a microwave? What do you think of them? Are microwave ovens safe? Love your website, by the way. When are you coming to Panama?

Joseph Raffo, Santa Fe de Bogota, Panama

Hello Joseph,
Thanks for your letter about microwaves.

Here's a bit of information:

In a paper titled "Hidden Hazards of Microwave Cooking", natural health physician Dr. Joseph Mercola recently stated:

"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 "

Apparently a Dr. Hans Ulrich Hertel, who is now retired, worked as a food scientist for many years with one of the major Swiss food companies that do business on a global scale. Some years ago, he was fired from his job for questioning certain processing procedures that denatured the food. In 1991, he and a Lausanne University professor published a research paper indicating that food cooked in microwave ovens could pose a greater risk to health than food cooked by conventional means.

An article also appeared in issue #19 of the Journal Franz Weber in which it was stated that the consumption of food cooked in microwave ovens had cancerous effects on the blood. The research paper itself followed the article. On the cover of the magazine there was a picture of the Grim Reaper holding a microwave oven in one of his hands.

Dr. Hertel was apparently the first scientist to conceive and carry out a quality clinical study on the effects microwaved nutrients have on the blood and physiology of the human body. His small but well controlled study showed the degenerative force produced in microwave ovens and the food processed in them.

The scientific conclusion showed that microwave cooking changed the nutrients in the food; and, changes took place in the participants' blood that could cause deterioration in the human system. Hertel's scientific study was done along with Dr. Bernard H. Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University Institute for Biochemistry.

The rest of the study is lengthy, but if you like I can email it to you.

Joseph, I do not have a microwave oven, and I will never ever cook in one. Thanks for your appreciation of my website. I hope to visit Panama in 2005.

Best wishes,

Kurma

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