Founded in 2003 by Mark Gungor, Laugh Your Way, America! is a
biblically based, Christian organization who believes that healthy
marriages and families are the foundation of a successful society. We
believe that laughter is one of the greatest avenues of reaching
people’s hearts and stimulating them to open up to fresh, new ideas. By
coupling humor with biblically based teaching and principles for
living, our organization is able to practically, positively, and
permanently transform the lives of those we reach through our ministry
efforts.
Meet Mark Gungor
When Mark Gungor conducted his first marriage seminar, he did so
for one reason—because somebody had to do it, and no one else was
reaching the couples in his area. The enthusiastic response he received
from his first audience was just the tip of the iceberg. Today, he is
one of the most sought-after speakers on marriage and family in the
country. Each year thousands of couples attend his Laugh Your Way to a
Better Marriage® seminars. Mark’s candid and comedic approach uses
unforgettable illustrations and the power of laughter to teach proven
principles that are guaranteed to strengthen any marriage.
“I love to inspire people’s lives with truth and humor. There are a
lot of performers that make people laugh, and there are a lot of
speakers who give solid principles for living. I want to do both,” Mark
says. His take on marriage issues is refreshingly free of both churchy
and psychological lingo. “Our secular culture over-romanticizes marriage
and our Christian culture over-spiritualizes it. The reality is that
relationships between men and women are very down to earth,” Mark
comments. “Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage® is about helping couples
get it right, get along, have fun, and achieve a successful marriage.”
In recent years, he has devoted much time and energy to bringing the
Laugh Your Way seminars and materials to the Latino population, a
gesture that has drawn overwhelmingly positive response.
Mark is Sr. Pastor of Celebration Church,
a multi-site church with five campuses across Wisconsin, and the CEO of
Laugh Your Way America. Mark balances his pastoral duties with a
rigorous travel schedule. He speaks for churches, civic events, and
business meetings and is a much requested speaker for the US Army.
Mark has also been featured on national broadcasts such as Focus on the Family, Life Today and ABC News. His Better Marriage Minute radio program is heard on 250 radio stations nationwide and his daily internet radio talk show, The Mark Gungor Radio Show, debuted in the fall of 2008. He is also the creator of the television series, Love, Marriage, and Stinking Thinking broadcast around the world on various networks including TBN.
Mark is the author of Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage®
(Simon & Schuster, 2008), the book based on his phenomenally
successful seminar and years of working with thousands of couples. He
is married to Debbie, his high school sweetheart and constant travel
companion. The Gungors have been married for over 36 years and have two
married children and four grandsons.
Tale of Two Brains
In this highly-entertaining video, marriage expert Mark Gungor explores
the differences between men and women or what he calls, "The Laws of
Relational Physics". Specifically, how men and women are wired
differently. They act differently, they communicate differently and most
importantly, they think differently. Mark shows couples that their
problems may result from how men and women THINK about life in a
different way. He explains that many of the struggles couples face in
marriage are the result of a HEAD problem, not a HEART problem.
Julian Assange speaks to the leader of
the Malaysian opposition - Anwar Ibrahim. As a rising internal rival to
the former Prime Minister Mahathir, Anwar was imprisoned for 5 years
after being smeared with sex allegations. As a result of a popular
campaign in 2004, his conviction was overturned and he was released from
prison. In 2008, he was again targeted for sex crimes allegations, he
won the case earlier this year. With Malaysian elections looming with
Anwar tipped to win, he has now been charged with unauthorized assembly.
If found convicted, he will be prevented from running. Assange talks
to him about how he has survived and what he sees as the future of Asia
and the West.
RT
(Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and
Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500
million YouTube views benchmark.
Robert F. Kennedy was shot down just after
midnight on June 5, 1968, minutes after proclaiming victory in
the California Democratic presidential primary. His assassination
had an enormous effect on the course of American politics. The
country lost a prominent critic of the Vietnam war and a committed
champion of civil rights: the Democratic party lost its strongest
presidential contender, enabling Republican candidate Richard
Nixon to win the November election. More than four-fifths of all
Americans are convinced that they haven't been told the truth
about President John Kennedy's assassination. Far fewer are aware
that the investigation into Robert Kennedy's death was just as
flawed and corrupt.
p5 Murder in Los Angeles
Bobby Kennedy (as he was almost always
called) hadn't planned to run for the democratic nomination in
1968. Many of his closest political advisors encouraged him to
wait until 1972, when he had a better chance of winning. In 1968,
Kennedy would be facing an incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson,
who was still popular in the polls-despite growing protest against
his escalation of the Vietnam War.
But then Eugene McCarthy, the other democratic
presidential contender, captured 42% of the vote in the March
12 New Hampshire primary. That meant Johnson was vulnerable-and
that Kennedy had a chance to win.
Kennedy's entry into the race on March
16 angered Johnson and McCarthy supporters alike. But Kennedy
was convinced that if Johnson won, there'd be "more war,
more troops [and] more killing"-and less money for the domestic
programs he'd so vigorously supported as Senator. McCarthy opposed
the war, but Kennedy wasn't convinced he could win the presidency,
even if he captured the nomination.
By the June 4 California primary, Johnson
had dropped out of the race and Hubert Humphrey, his vice-president,
had announced his own candidacy. Kennedy had won important victories
in the Indiana, District of Columbia and Nebraska primaries, but
the nomination was still far from secure. California would be
a key test-whoever captured that state's 174 convention delegates
would have the best chance of becoming the party's presidential
candidate.
Early California returns showed McCarthy
ahead. But then Kennedy pulled into the lead, and by late evening
it was clear he'd taken the state. To celebrate the victory and
to hear Kennedy speak, a beyond-capacity crowd of over 1800 supporters
began to gather at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The assassination
Tired but jubilant, Robert Kennedy stepped
to the podium in the hotel ballroom and stood looking out over
the sea of straw hats, balloons and smiling faces. He addressed
the crowd with the same message of hope that had characterized
his campaign. Lamenting the "division, the violence [and]
the disenchantment" within America, he expressed confidence
that "we can start to work together. We are a great country,
an unselfish country and a compassionate country. I intend to
make that my basis for running."
When the applause died down, Kennedy stepped
off the podium and started to move toward the crowd. But someone
in his party steered him in the opposite direction, toward the
backstage exit. Earlier that day, hotel personnel (at the request
of Kennedy's aides) had decided to take the Senator on a back
route through the hotel's pantry area, to keep him away from the
frenzied crowd.
Hotel maitre d' Karl Uecker led Kennedy
and more than a dozen members of his entourage into a cramped
corridor. Even there the crowd couldn't be completely avoided;
dozens of busboys, waiters and campaign workers waited, hoping
to get a close-up view. Kennedy smiled, nodded and stopped for
an occasional handshake as he moved down the corridor and into
the pantry.
It was about 12:15 am. Uecker was still
slightly ahead of the Senator and to his right. Uniformed security
guard Thane Cesar walked slightly behind, also on Kennedy's right.
(In 1968, presidential candidates weren't given secret service
protection, so the hotel had hired eight private security guards.
Kennedy had requested that the guards keep their distance, so
he wouldn't be surrounded by uniformed personnel.)
A young, dark-haired man began to approach
Kennedy from the front. He was smiling, and bystanders thought
he wanted to shake the Senator's hand. But the smile was betrayed
by his words:
"Kennedy, you son of a bitch!"
High school student Lisa Urso saw the
young man raise the gun and begin to shoot. "I saw the flash
[from the gun] and then I saw the Senator .... He went forward,
then moved backward...
p10
Someone called an ambulance and the Senator was taken to Good
Samaritan Hospital. There a team of six surgeons labored to remove
the bullet lodged in his brain. But his injuries were too severe.
At 1:44 pm the next day, Robert F. Kennedy was pronounced dead.
p11
An open-and-shut case
In 1968 it wasn't yet a federal crime
to shoot a presidential candidate, so the Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) took charge of the investigation into Kennedy's murder.
With the FBI's assistance, they spent the next fourteen months
investigating the murder.
From the beginning, the LAPD claimed the
assassination was an open-and-shut case. Numerous witnesses had
seen Sirhan Sirhan, the 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant who'd
been apprehended at the crime scene, fire at Kennedy. Sirhan himself
admitted he must have shot the Senator (since so many witnesses
had seen him), even though he couldn't remember anything about
the evening from the time he'd had a cup of coffee with an attractive
young woman until after he'd emptied his gun and lay pinned to
the pantry steam table.
Sirhan also seemed to have a clear motive.
When he was taken into custody, the police found in his pocket
a newspaper clipping criticizing RFK for opposing the Vietnam
War while favoring military aid to Israel. A background check
revealed that as a young child in Palestine, Sirhan had seen the
bloodied bodies of Arabs bombed by the Israelis, and his own brother
was killed by an enemy truck as it veered to avoid sniper fire.
Authorities reasoned that those early experiences had left Sirhan
embittered against American politicians, like RFK, who supported
Israel.
Even more incriminating was a notebook
found in Sirhan's bedroom at his mother's house, in the Los Angeles
suburb of Pasadena. It contained anti-American, procommunist sentiments,
and two pages of scrawled, repetitive references to killing RFK.
The most damning of these read, "May 18 9:45 AM-68 My determination
to eliminate RFK is becoming more the more [sic] of an unshakable
obsession ... RFK must die."
p16
The cover-up
From the beginning, a handful of journalists
and citizens remained skeptical about the LAPD's conclusions.
But when these critics tried to substantiate their suspicions
with data from police files, they met massive resistance. The
LAPD replied that the files were under lock-and-key, accessible
only to those law-enforcement officials with a "need to know."
The Los Angeles authorities even initiated legal proceedings against
some critics who questioned the official findings.
p16
... the LAPD continued to resist for three more years-until letter
campaigns and media coverage made it politically inexpedient to
keep the information secret any longer. On April 19, 1988, the
files were sent to the California State Archives in Sacramento,
where researchers could evaluate the evidence for themselves.
The files made it clear that the LAPD
had engaged in a massive cover-up, both during the original investigation
and in the intervening twenty years. They'd not only attempted
to misconstrue or overlook data that didn't support their lone-assassin
view, but they'd actively destroyed evidence that might suggest
a conspiracy... Now it learned that:
* The results of the 1968 test firing
of Sirhan's gun were missing.
* The test gun used for ballistics comparison
and identification was destroyed.
* Over 90% of the audiotaped witness testimony
was lost or destroyed. Of the 3470 interviews the LAPD conducted,
only 301 were preserved. Key testimony-like 29 witness accounts
that suggested conspiracy-was missing, while less important interviews-like
that of Sirhan's Bible teacher-remained.
* On August 21, 1968, less than two months
after the assassination, 2400 photographs from the original investigation
were burned, in the medical-waste incinerator at LA County General
Hospital. The LAPD claimed that the photos were duplicates, but
there weren't any known logs or inventories of photos that could
verify that.
Moreover, Scott Enyart, an amateur photographer
who'd been taking pictures the night of the assassination and
whose film had been confiscated by police, has never been given
back all his photos. His pictures, the only ones that might have
captured the actual shooting, weren't in the files.
But even with the limited data that remained,
there was still ample evidence to substantiate what critics had
been saying all along-that there was a conspiracy to kill RFK.
The evidence for such a conspiracy falls
into three key areas. First, it now appears clear that it was
impossible for Sirhan to have fired the bullets that killed Kennedy
- which means there must have been a second gunman. Second, an
abundance of testimony by eye-witnesses suggests that Sirhan had
at least two accomplices. Third, Sirhan's political motive-his
hatred of RFK for supporting Israel-seems to be either a fabrication
of the LAPD or a motive planted by conspirators to divert suspicion
1 from a more sinister plot.
p20
Evidence for a second gunman
... The autopsy revealed three gunshot
wounds in Robert Kennedy's body-one behind the right ear, a second
near the right armpit and a third 11/2 inches below the armpit
wound. A fourth bullet missed his body but pierced the right rear
shoulder of his suit coat. All bullets entered from the right
rear, at fairly steep upward angles and in a slightly right-to-left
direction.
p22
... although witnesses disagree on whether Sirhan shot at RFK
while the Senator was turned to his left shaking hands with busboy
Juan Romero or whether the handshake had finished and Kennedy
was walking forward, all agree that Sirhan approached Kennedy
from the front and that the Senator never turned his back to Sirhan.
This is totally inconsistent with the
autopsy evidence that the shots came from the rear.
p25
... it's never been shown that it was possible for Sirhan to have
fired the fatal shots at RFK. And if he didn't, there must have
been a second gunman.
p34
The LAPD's response to the question of extra bullets was to conduct
a systematic
cover-up... they destroyed the ceiling
tiles and doorframe wood in 1969, as well as records of tests
done on the door frames or ceiling tiles. Then, when photos of
this crucial area were released, they were identified only by
number but lacked captions or labeling. Since there's no corresponding
log to indicate what the numbers refer to, they aren't of much
use as evidence.
When the destruction of the evidence was
revealed in 1975, the LAPD claimed that they'd destroyed the tiles
and frame wood because they were "too large to fit into a
card file" (needless to say, so is a lot of evidence). Daryl
Gates, who at that point was assistant chief of police, claimed
that the destruction didn't matter because the tiles and frame
wood contained no bullets and therefore weren't evidence.
The DA's office attempted to dispel mounting
public suspicion by conducting what critics would dub "the
great pantry raid." Investigators descended upon the crime
scene to conduct a meticulous search for bullets and bullet holes.
Ignoring the fact that the most relevant holes (in the door jamb
and ceiling tiles) had been removed and destroyed seven years
earlier, they concluded that the one supposedly surviving hole
(which in 1968 had allegedly been labeled as a bullet hole) was
in fact a nail hole. The day after the raid, an official spokesman
dramatically announced that "no other bullets were found
last night."
p38
Don Schulman, a runner for KNXT-TV in Los Angeles, also reported
seeing a gun other than Sirhan's. He'd been standing behind Kennedy
as he walked through the pantry and had seen a security guard
fire three times. Immediately after the shooting, Schulman reported
his story on the radio and insisted that Kennedy was shot three
times. Even though the early media reports and crime--scene witnesses
generally asserted that the Senator was hit only twice, Schulman
stuck to his story. The autopsy proved him right.
(In later law-enforcement interviews,
when Schulman was under pressure to be "absolutely positive"
about what he saw, Schulman stated that he didn't see the guard
shoot Kennedy, as his first statement seemed to imply. He did
assert that he saw the guard fire three times and Kennedy hit
three times, but admitted he couldn't necessarily connect the
two events.)
p60
When the FBI followed up on Khaiber Khan's story (he was the Kennedy
volunteer who'd seen a blond woman at the Wilshire Boulevard headquarters
three times prior to the assassination), they found an interesting
discrepancy.
Two other workers at the headquarters,
Ellenor Severson and Larry Strick, had seen Sirhan there (without
a blond companion) at about 2:00 pin on June 2; they also asserted
that Khan was present at that time. Strick claimed he'd asked
Sirhan if he needed help, and Sirhan had replied, "I'm with
him," pointing to Khan. Severson corroborated Strick's story.
But Khan claimed that he wasn't at headquarters at that time,
that he couldn't remember any such incident and that he'd never
seen Sirhan before the assassination.
When the FBI and the LAPD began to pursue
this angle of the case, they found that Khan had an interesting
history. According to their files, he'd once been influential
in the Iranian government and had later fled to the US to escape
the Shah. Lately he'd been working at the local Kennedy headquarters,
recruiting young volunteers for the campaign.
While this information on Khan's background
was true, it was incomplete. In a 1965 article in The Nation,
Fred J. Cook revealed important facets of Khan's life that never
appeared in the official files. In 1944, at age 20, Khan joined
British intelligence and ran an Iranian spy ring. After World
War II, he served as a liaison between the occupying allied forces
in Iran and several Iranian tribes, and was awarded an aristocratic
title for his efforts.
Cook credited Khan with helping the CIA
overthrow Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. The coup
rid the US of the left-leaning premier who'd nationalized a British
oil company and put a puppet ruler, Shah Reza Pahiavi, in power.
According to Cook, Khan achieved great
power in Iran, until a falling out with the Shah sent him into
exile in London. From there he lived an opulent lifestyle, directing
his spies to gather damaging evidence about the Shah's finances.
In 1963, he entered the US; shortly afterwards, he was able to
document the Shah's theft of US foreign aid and bring this to
the attention of Congress and the Johnson administration.
Although his public discrediting of the
Shah infuriated certain elements of the US State Department (which
believed the Shah was an essential pillar of US interests in the
Persian Gull), it undoubtedly also had the blessing, if not the
backing, of some elements within government and intelligence circles.
There's certainly evidence that Khan was
doing something that the British and US governments perceived
as worthwhile. In London, two Scotland Yard detectives provided
security for him, and he drove a Rolls Royce with Washington DC
plates. Once in the US, the House of Representatives filed a bill
to grant him political and economic relief from the oppression
of the Iranian government.
Given Khan's background, political connections
and wealth, it's highly unusual that he would choose to serve
the Kennedy campaign as a local volunteer. The timing of his volunteer
work is also strange. Although he claimed to have "personally
spent considerable time" at Kennedy headquarters, in reality
he'd only worked there four days (June 1-4).
Of course, none of these oddities render
Khan guilty of anything. But the question remains why the investigating
agencies simply ignored Khan's background as a master of espionage...
was it because Khan might alert the LAPD to conspiratorial leads
that they were determined not to pursue?
p82
Who had a motive?
Who hated Bobby Kennedy enough to have
him murdered? RFK began to accrue enemies during his brother's
presidency (when he served as attorney general). Both Kennedys
angered some of the most powerful individuals or groups in America,
including:
* the Mafia, who'd been the victim of
the administration's unprecedented crackdown on organized crime
(RFK had actually deported New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello)
* FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who'd
been forced by the attorney general to go after the Mafia (Hoover
had denied for years that organized crime existed and preferred
to concentrate on eliminating "communists")
* elements of the CIA, who'd participated
in the 1961 attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs
(the Kennedy brothers who felt they'd been misled by the CIA about
the strength of Castro's forces refused to send air support when
the invaders met powerful resistance; afterwards, JFK fired CIA
director Allen Dulles, and Bobby Kennedy took on a role in CIA
policy that was anathema to some of the most swashbuckling CIA
veterans)
The old animosities only increased when
RFK announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. Both
his old enemies and several new ones had a lot to lose from an
RFK presidency. That list included:
* ex-Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, whom
RFK, as attorney general, had sent to prison for jury tampering
(if RFK became president, Hoffa would have had to serve his entire
thirteen year sentence, but President Nixon pardoned him)
* right-wing and racist groups, like the
Ku Klux Klan, who feared RFK's strong commitment to civil rights
* hard-line cold warriors in the military
and intelligence community-even the defense industry-who saw that
an RFK presidency would create a complete reversal of US policy
in Vietnam
With enemies like these, the pat explanation
that Sirhan Sirhan assassinated RFK for his support of Israel
seems far less persuasive-especially since RFK's Middle East stance
differed very little from the other candidates'. The individuals
or groups mentioned above had much more powerful reasons to keep
RFK from becoming president in 1968.
p84
Re-opening the case
The question is often asked: why bother
to re-investigate this case? It's been so long, why stir up painful
memories?
There are at least three arguments for
reinvestigation. First, and most obviously, if Sirhan didn't kill
RFK, his murderers should be brought to justice.
Second, we need to understand the root
causes of the violence that threatens our democratic system. It's
important to know whether Robert Kennedy was killed because of
a muddled young Palestinian with a political grudge, or because
powerful interests in America didn't want him to be president.
If the latter's the case, those powerful interests can strike
again, whenever they feel threatened.
Third, the LAPD's handling of the case
must be reviewed, because law enforcement agencies and officials
must be accountable to the public. The JFK and MLK assassinations
have both been reviewed by organizations beyond the local jurisdiction,
but the RFK assassination case has never been.
p85
Even if it's too late to bring RFK's murderers to justice, it
will strengthen American democracy to know the truth about. his
murder. That truth can help check the powerful interests who manipulate
the American political process to their own ends.
CIA Agents killed Robert Kennedy
When the patsy, Sirhan Sirhan, most likely under the influence of
scopolamine, opened fire on Robert Kennedy from the front, a CIA agent
fired the kill shot at close range into the back of Kennedy's head.
The
same agent who coordinated the operation and was at the scene, was
later brought out of retirement to "handle" the congressional
investigation into the assasination.
All 3 members of the assasination team are now dead, but many of those connected to them still hold high offices in government.
By now, you probably know that what you eat has a profound impact on your health. The mantra, "You are what you eat" is really true.
But you need to consider not only WHAT you buy, buthow you cook it.
Eating most of your food raw is ideal. But most of us are not going to be able to accomplish a completely raw diet, and we'll end up cooking some percentage of our food.
Smart food preparation starts with high quality foods and food preparation and that means saying sayonara to your microwave oven.Need to sterilize a dishcloth?Use your microwave. But zapping your casserole is a BAD idea if you are interested in preparing healthy food.
Why the no nukes policy?
When it comes to microwave ovens, the price for convenience is to compromise your health. In this article, I will review what we know about the effects microwaves on your food and on your body.
Sad State of Our Soils
Over the past century, the quality of fresh food has declined due to soil depletion, unsustainable farming practices, overproduction of crops, and the use of pesticides and herbicides. You can no longer assume you're getting all of the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and phytonutrients you need by eating a multitude of fresh produce—even if you're eating organically.
Not surprisingly, a calorie today will provide you less nutrition than a calorie from 100, or even 50 years ago.
Three recent studies of historical food composition have shown 5 to 40 percent declines in some of the minerals in fresh produce, and another study found a similar decline in our protein sources.[1]
So now, more than ever, you must be careful to maximize the "bang for your buck" when it comes to the foods you eat.
Research shows that your microwave oven will NOT help you in these efforts—and in fact will threaten your health by violently ripping the molecules in your food apart, rendering some nutrients inert, at best, and carcinogenic at its worst.
Convenience Comes at Significant Toxic Threat to You and Your Family
Microwaves heat food by causing water molecules in it to resonate at very high frequencies and eventually turn to steam which heats your food. While this can rapidly heat your food, what most people fail to realize is that it also causes a change in your food's chemical structure.
There are numerous issues that have emerged since microwave ovens were first introduced to consumers more than 40 years ago, besides depleting your food's nutritional value, which will be addressed a bit later.
The first thing you probably noticed when you began microwaving food was how uneven the heating is.
"Hot spots" in microwaved food can be hot enough to cause burns—or build up to a "steam explosion." This has resulted in admonitions to new mothers about NOT using the microwave to heat up baby bottles, since babies have been burned by super-heated formula that went undetected.
Another problem with microwave ovens is that carcinogenic toxins can leach out of your plastic and paper containers/covers, and into your food.
The January/February 1990 issue ofNutrition Action Newsletterreported the leakage of numerous toxic chemicals from the packaging of common microwavable foods, including pizzas, chips and popcorn. Chemicals included polyethylene terpthalate (PET), benzene, toluene, and xylene. Microwaving fatty foods in plastic containers leads to the release of dioxins (known carcinogens) and other toxins into your food.[8][2]
One of the worst contaminants is BPA, orbisphenol A,an estrogen-like compound used widely in plastic products. In fact, dishes made specifically for the microwave often contain BPA, but many other plastic products contain it as well.
Microwaving distorts and deforms the molecules of whatever food or other substance you subject to it. An example of this is blood products.
You may have heard that there is some danger of microwaves escaping from your microwave while it's operating. This was more of a risk with earlier models than with recent ones, which undergo more rigorous testing.
Theoretically, there are very small amounts of radiation leakage through the viewing glass, but the FDA reports these levels are "insignificant" and "well below the level known to harm people."
The FDA has been regulating microwave ovens since 1971 through its electronic product radiation control program, which is mandated by the Electronic Product Radiation Control provisions of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act[3].
The FDA limits the amount of microwaves that can leak from an oven throughout its lifetime to 5 milliwatts (mW) per square centimeter at approximately 2 inches from the oven surface. Because microwave energy decreases dramatically as you move away from the source of the radiation, a measurement made 20 inches from your oven would be approximately one-hundredth of the value measured at 2 inches.[2]
The federal standard also requires all ovens to have "two independent interlock systems that stop the production of microwaves the moment the latch is released or the door is opened."
And a monitoring system is also required, which stops the operation if one or both interlock systems fail.
You would think, with all these tests and regulations, that you'd be safe. However, according to Powerwatch, a non-profit independent organization with a central role in the microwave radiation debate:
"Even when the microwave oven is working correctly, the microwave levels within the kitchen are likely to be significantly higher than those from any nearby cellular phone base-stations. Remember also that microwaves will travel through walls if the microwave oven is against an inside wall."
Powerwatch also states that we don't really know if the current regulations about leakage are truly safe and recommends ovens be checked at least annually, since microwave emissions can change with normal use.
You might also consider purchasing a $20 testing device that allows you to check the radiation in your home.
Make sure that, if you are going to use your microwave for cleaning sponges or for any use at all, regularly examine the door and hinges to make sure they are sealing properly. If the door doesn't close correctly, or if it's warped, bent, or otherwise damaged, don't use it at all!
But even if there's nothing wrong with your microwave, keep in mind that standing a foot away from it while it's running can expose you to upwards of 400 milliGauss, and a mere 4 milliGauss has been firmly linked to leukemia. It would certainly be wise to avoid letting your children stand near the microwave when it's running, and avoid it yourself as much as possible—especially if you're pregnant. Also, since your eyes are known to be particularly susceptible to microwave radiation (high microwave exposures are known to cause cataracts), I recommend stepping away from your microwave while it's in use.
New Study Confirms Microwaves Affect Your Heart
A recent study examining the effects 2.4 GHz radiation (which is the frequency of radiation emitted by Wifi routers and microwave ovens) on the heart was just completed. The study found "unequivocal evidence" that microwave frequency radiation affects the heart at non-thermal levels that are well below federal safety guidelines, according to Dr. Magda Havas of Trent University[4].
Dr. Havas says:
"This is the first study that documents immediate and dramatic changes in both heart rate and heart rate variability caused by an approved device that generates microwaves at levels well below (0.3 percent) federal guidelines in both Canada and the United States."
No longer can skeptics claim that microwaves produce no immediate biological effects at ordinary household levels!
The study will be appearing in a peer-reviewed journal sometime during the summer of 2010. If you are experiencing rapid or irregular heartbeat, pain or pressure in your chest, you will want to visit your physician and sharethis videowith him or her (second video on this page).
There is also evidence that this same frequency of radiation causes blood sugar to spike in susceptible individuals and may actually be the cause of one type of diabetes. For details about this, watch thefirst videobelow.
Microwaving Also Zaps the Nutrients Right Out of Your Food
There has been surprisingly little research on how microwaves affect organic molecules, or how the human body responds to consuming microwaved food.
Wouldn't you expect that a product that sits in more than 90 percent of kitchens, as well as practically every break room in the country, would have been thoroughly investigated for safety?
The handful of studies that have been done generally agree, for the most part, that microwaving food damages its nutritional value. Your microwave turns your beautiful, organic veggies, for which you've paid such a premium in money or labor, into "dead" food that can cause disease!
Heating food, in and of itself, can result in some nutrient loss, but using microwaves to heat food introduces the additional problem of the "microwave effect," a phenomenon that will be discussed in detail later.
The majority of studies on microwaves and nutrition were conducted prior to 2000, I suspect because the focus of radiation research of late has shifted toward a more ominous threat:environmental radiation from electromagnetic devices, such ascell phonesand computers, which has mushroomed into a gigantic cloud ofelectrosmog worldwideover the past decade.
Nevertheless, some excellent scientific data has been gathered regarding the detrimental effects of microwaves on the nutrients in your food:
A study published in the November 2003 issue ofThe Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture[5]found that broccoli "zapped" in the microwave with a little water lost up to 97 percent of its beneficial antioxidants. By comparison, steamed broccoli lost 11 percent or fewer of its antioxidants. There were also reductions in phenolic compounds and glucosinolates, but mineral levels remained intact.
A 1999 Scandinavian study of the cooking of asparagus spears found that microwaving caused a reduction in vitamin C[6].
In a study of garlic, as little as 60 seconds of microwave heating was enough to inactivate its allinase, garlic's principle active ingredient against cancer[7].
A Japanese study by Watanabe showed that just 6 minutes of microwave heating turned 30-40 percent of the B12 in milk into an inert (dead) form[8]. This study has been cited by Dr. Andrew Weil as evidence supporting his concerns about the effects of microwaving. Dr. Weil wrote:
"There may be dangers associated with microwaving food... there is a question as to whether microwaving alters protein chemistry in ways that might be harmful."
A recent Australian study[9]showed that microwaves cause a higher degree of "protein unfolding" than conventional heating.
Microwaving can destroy the essential disease-fighting agents in breast milk that offer protection for your baby. In 1992, Quan found that microwaved breast milk lost lysozyme activity, antibodies, and fostered the growth of more potentially pathogenic bacteria[10].
Quan stated that more damage was done to the milk by microwaving than by other methods of heating, concluding: "Microwaving appears to be contraindicated at high-temperatures, and questions regarding its safety exist even at low temperatures."
Another study about breast milk/infant formula by Lee in 1989[11]found vitamin content becomes depleted by microwaving, and certain amino acids are converted into other substances that are biologically inactive. Some altered amino acids are poisons to the nervous system and kidneys. (Numerous authors mention this study, yet I was unable to find the original article/study, so I cannot personally validate.)
Although many of the above studies are not new, there is certainly ample evidence that microwaving is NOT good for your food.
How Your Microwave Actually Heats Your Food
Microwaves are a form of electromagnetic radiation—waves of electrical and magnetic energy moving together through space. EM radiation ranges from very high energy (gamma rays and x-rays) on one end of the spectrum to very low energy (radio waves) on the other end of the spectrum.
Microwaves are on the low energy end of the spectrum, second only to radio waves. They have a wavelength of about 4.8 inches—about the width of your head.
Microwaves are generated by something called a magnetron (a term derived from the words "magnet" and "electron"), which is also what enabled airborne radar use during WWII. Hence the early name for microwave ovens:radar ranges.
A magnetron is a tube in which electrons are subjected to both magnetic and electrical fields, producing an electromagnetic field with a microwave frequency of about 2,450 megaHertz (MHz), which is 2.4 gigaHertz (GHz).
Microwaves cause dielectric heating. They bounce around the inside of your oven and are absorbed by the food you put in it. Since water molecules are bipolar, having a positive end and negative end, they rotate rapidly in the alternating electric field. The water molecules in the food vibrate violently at extremely high frequencies—like millions of times per second—creating molecular friction, which heats up the food.
If the food or object place in the microwave had no water it would not be able to have this resonance heating type effect and would remain cool. Or, as investigative journalist William Thomas[12]calls it, "electrical whiplash."
Structures of the water molecules are torn apart and forcefully deformed. This is different than conventional heating of food, whereby heat is transferred convectionally from the outside, inward. Microwave cooking begins within the molecules where water is present.
Contrary to popular belief, microwaved foods don't cook "from the inside out." When thicker foods are cooked, microwaves heat the outer layers, and the inner layers are cooked mostly by the conduction of heat from the hot outer layers, inward.
Since not all areas contain the same amount of water, the heating is uneven.
Additionally, microwaving creates new compounds that are not found in humans or in nature, called radiolytic compounds. We don't yet know what these compounds are doing to your body.
In addition to the violent frictional heat effects, calledthermic effects, there are alsoathermic effects, which are poorly understood because they are not as easily measured. It is these athermic effects that are suspected to be responsible for much of the deformation and degradation of cells and molecules.[13]
As an example, microwaves are used in the field of gene altering technology to weaken cell membranes. Scientists use microwaves to actually break cells apart. Impaired cells then become easy prey for viruses, fungi and other microorganisms.8
Another word for these athermic effects is the "microwave effect," a subject of controversy that I'll get into a bit later.
Microwave Sickness
When your tissues are directly exposed to microwaves, the same violent deformations occur and can cause "microwave sickness."
People who have been exposed to high levels of microwave radiation experience a variety of symptoms, including:
Insomnia, night sweats, and various sleep disturbances
Headaches and dizziness
Swollen lymph nodes and a weakened immune system
Impaired cognition
Depression and irritability
Nausea and appetite loss
Vision and eye problems
Frequent urination and extreme thirst
There is a good amount of data emerging that people are suffering, to various degrees, these kinds of symptoms from living next to cell phone towers and other high-frequency radiation emitting antennas, which emit microwaves around the clock.
"There is real evidence that hyperfrequency electromagnetic fields can have geno-toxic effects. And this damaged DNA is always the cause of cancer.
We've found these damaging effects on the genes at levels well below the safety limits. That's why we think it's urgent to base our safety limits on the biological effects, not the thermic ones.
They should be based on biology, not on physics."
Twenty Years of Russian Research Supports Microwave Concerns
The Nazis are credited with inventing the first microwave-cooking device to provide mobile food support to their troops during their invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II[14]. These first microwave ovens were experimental. After the war, the US War Department was assigned the task of researching the safety of microwave ovens.
But it was the Russians who really took the bull by the horns.
After the war, the Russians had retrieved some of these microwave ovens and conducted thorough research on their biological effects. Alarmed by what they learned, the Russians banned microwave ovens in 1976, later lifting the ban during Perestroika.
Twenty years of Russian research (and German studies as far back as 1942 Berlin) make a strong argument against the safety of microwave cooking.
Their findings led the Russian government to issue an international warning about possible biological and environmental damage associated with the use of microwave ovens and other similar frequency electronic devices (e.g. mobile phones).
I was not able to personally evaluate any of these older bodies of research, since those documents are now difficult to track down, so I can't attest to their methodology or conclusions. All you can do is weigh their findings appropriately, as best you can.
The Powerwatch article cited above summarizes the Russian research quite well, which I will duplicate below.
Russian investigators found that carcinogens were formed from the microwaving of nearly all foods tested.
The microwaving of milk and grains converted some of the amino acids into carcinogenic substances.
Microwaving prepared meats caused the formation of the cancer-causing agents d-Nitrosodienthanolamines.
Thawing frozen fruits by microwave converted their glucoside and galactoside fractions into carcinogenic substances.
Extremely short exposure of raw, cooked or frozen vegetables converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.
Carcinogenic free radicals were formed in microwaved plants—especially root vegetables.
Structural degradation leading to decreased food value was found to be 60 to 90 percent overall for all foods tested, with significant decreases in bioavailability of B complex vitamins, vitamins C and E, essential minerals, and lipotropics (substances that prevent abnormal accumulation of fat).
I might add that this finding is supported by the 1998 Japanese study by Watanabe7 about vitamin B12 in milk, cited above.
The Swiss Clinical Study: Hans Hertel
Some fairly compelling evidence supporting the destructive effects of microwaves comes from a highly cited study by a Swiss food scientist named Hans Hertel. Dr. Hertel was the first scientist to study the effects of microwaved foods on the blood and physiology of human beings.
His small study, coauthored by Dr. Bernard Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University Institute for Biochemistry, revealed the degenerative forces produced by microwave ovens on the foods they cooked.
Dr. Hertel concluded that microwave cooking changed the nutrients in the food, and that changes took place in the blood that could cause negative health effects.
Hertel's conclusions were that microwaving food resulted in:
Increased cholesterol levels
Decreased numbers of leukocytes (white blood cells), which can suggest poisoning
Decreased numbers of red blood cells
Production of radiolytic compounds
Decreased hemoglobin levels, which could indicate anemia
Not surprisingly, Dr. Hertel's study was met with great resistance from those with much to lose.
A gag order against Dr. Hertel was issued by a Swiss trade organization in 1992, which was later removed in 1998. But an American journalist, Tom Valentine, published the results of Hertel's study inSearch for Healthin the spring of 1992[15].
The study was not without its shortcomings. It involved only eight participants, of which Hertel was one. As compelling as his findings were, his methodology did not stand up to the scientific rigors of the field.
In spite of Hertel's methodological shortcomings, his findings do raise concerns about what this form of radiation is doing to your food and should be taken as a launching point to larger, more robust studies in the future.
Hertel wrote:
"There are no atoms, molecules, or cells of any organic system able to withstand such a violent, destructive power for any period of time. This will happen even given the microwave oven's low power range of milliwatts."
And then there is the issue of biophotons.
Possible Microwave Effects on Your Biophotons
Biophotonicsis the study, research, and applications of photons in their interactions within and on biological systems. Much of the work in the area of biophotons was done in Germany.Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt discusses biophotonsin our 2008 interview.
Biophotons are the smallest physical units of light that are stored in and used by all biological organisms—including you. Vital sun energy finds its way into your cells via the food you eat, in the form of these biophotons.
Biophotons contain important bio-information and are very important to many vital processes in your body. They are partly responsible for your feeling of vitality and well-being. You gain biophotons by eating foods rich in them, such as naturally grown fresh vegetables and sun-ripened fruits, which are rich in light energy.
If the "microwave effect" exists (as you shall see, there is a huge amount of evidence that it does), then microwaves can potentially destroy biophotons in the same way that it alters other structures, rendering your food dead and lifeless.
It seems quite plausible that microwaves could disrupt or destroy biophotons, since they are capable of breaking apart DNA bonds!
As far as I can find, there haven't been any studies of the direct effects of microwave radiation on biophotons, but it seems like an important angle of investigation for the future.
Long-Term Effects of Exposure to Non-Ionizing Radiation
One of the basic controversies about the effects of microwaves centers on whether or not microwaves exert some sort of force beyond heat, commonly called "microwave effect" or "athermic effect."
It is first necessary that you understand the difference between ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation.
There are two basic forms of radiation: ionizing and non-ionizing[16]:
Ionizing Radiation: Creates charged ions by displacing electrons in atoms, even without heat. Examples are radiation emitted from radioactive substances in rocks and soil, cosmic rays of the sun, and radiation from man-made technology such as x-rays machines, power stations, and nuclear reactors.
Non-ionizing Radiation: Can change the position of atoms but not alter their structure, composition, and properties. Examples are visible light, ultraviolet and infrared waves, waves from radio or television, cellular phones,microwaves, and electric blankets.
Despite not being able to break atoms apart, non-ionizing radiation (such as microwaves) CAN cause physical alterations.
For example, sunlight can damage your skin and eyes. Overexposure to radiation can affect tissues by causing molecular damage, DNA mutations, and other changes that can lead to cancer.
The serious concern is, with all of this radiation surrounding us from cell and cordless phones, radio towers, satellites, broadcast antennas, military and aviation radar, home electronic devices, computers and Internet, we are all part of an involuntary mass epidemiological experiment, on a scale never before seen in the history of the human race.
And the truth is that we don't really KNOW what long term, low-level (but persistent) radiation does to us—even the non-ionizing type.
Effects at low levels can be more noticeable than at higher levels. There is something called a "window effect," meaning an effect occurring only at specific frequencies or power densities, but not occurring just above or below them. A number of studies demonstrate effects of microwave radiation on blood cells via this phenomenon.
For a complete discussion of this, you can readMicrowaving Our Planet, written by Arthur Firstenberg, president of the Cellular Phone Taskforce.
Cindy Sage of Sage Associates, an environmental consulting firm, has compiled a comprehensive list of studies[18]showing biological effects at radiofrequency exposure levels far below what would be explainable as "thermic effects" and well within the range you are commonly exposed to every day.
Resonance intensifies biological effect. Resonance occurs when a form of radiation has a similar frequency as a body part. For example, microwave frequencies are similar to the frequencies of your brain!
Studies are typically done for short exposure periods, at higher intensities.Scientists claim that duration of exposure is equally important to intensity of exposure, but is often NOT studied, and that long-term, low-level exposure can have effects equivalent to short-term, more intense exposure.
The effects of radiation are cumulative. Your body becomes more sensitive to it over time.
There are no longer any control groups, since human beings are all now exposed to such pervasive radiation.Lack of a control group makes it even more challenging to conduct meaningful studies.
The point is, standing in your kitchen while your microwave is zapping your dinner, night after night, will not make you glow in the dark.But over the months and years, what is the cumulative effect on your body and health?
Why expose yourself to these potential dangers when there are safer alternatives for cooking available?
Is Microwaving Food Any More Dangerous than Heating it with a Conventional Oven?
Some experts claim that the effects microwaves have on molecules can all be explained simply as the "thermic effect" of heating—in other words, microwave cooking is no more detrimental to food than conventional heating.
They argue that, since microwaves are non-ionizing radiation, then it's impossible for them to damage your blood cells, or eradicate the folic acid in your spinach.
Others have proposed there is some sort of "microwave effect" that causes changes in the molecules in a way that conventional heating does not. For many years, the party line was that"microwave effect" is a myth.
However, study after study has resulted in evidence to the contrary, showing effects that cannot be explained away as simple thermal effects.
In a letter entitled "DNA and the Microwave Effect"[19](sourced as Penn State University, 2001), the author reviews the history of the controversy surrounding the microwave effect and the research findings to date. He explains that, although fundamentals of thermodynamics and physics would tell you the microwave effect is impossible, studies keep turning up evidence of its existence.
Some of the main points made in the letter are the following:
Microwave heating and conventional heating may appear identical on a "macro" level, but the two appear very different on amolecular level.
Microwaves are effective for sterilization, which has been studied for several decades. There is controversy, however, is about whether it's the heat they generate or if it's something else altogether.
One scientist (Kakita 1995[20]) was successful in demonstrating that microwaves are capable ofextensively fragmenting and destroying viral DNA, something that cannot be accomplished by heating alone.
Multiple studies offer evidence that there aremultiple mechanisms for breaking apart DNA without ionizing radiation, but no theory currently exists to explain this phenomenon.
Some scientists are taking advantage of the microwave effect and using microwaves in the laboratory to greatly accelerate chemical reactions, sometimes by a factor of a thousand, resulting in the completion of reactions in minutes that formerly took days or months and a lot of toxic chemicals[21].
This newly found interest in "microwave chemistry" has spurred skeptic scientists into taking another look at what microwaves actually do and how they do it.
Sometimes common sense trumps empirical evidence.
The Penn State letter/article said it best:
"...It would seem there is reason to believe that the microwave effect does indeed exist, even if it cannot yet be adequately explained. What we know at present is somewhat limited, but there may be enough information already available to form a viable hypothesis.
The possibility that electromagnetic radiation in the non-ionizing frequency range can cause genetic damage may have profound implications on the current controversy involving EM antennae, power lines, and cell phones."
Breaking Free of Your Microwave: A Few Basic Tips
Am I asking you to toss your microwave oven into the nearest dumpster?
Not necessarily. It can be a useful tool for cleaning. But if real estate in your kitchen is at a premium, it should probably be the first thing to go.
You really CAN survive sans microwave—people are living quite happily without one, believe it or not. You just have to make a few small lifestyle adjustments, such as:
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 inor purchasedas a relatively inexpensive and quick safe way to heat foods
Prepare your meals in advance so that you always have a good meal available on those days when you're too busy or too tired to cook.
Try eating more organicraw foods. This is the best way to and improve your health over the long run
Microwave cooking is one of themost important causes of ill health. It is certainly one of the most ignored.
There was a lawsuit in 1991 in Oklahoma. A woman named Norma Levitt had hip surgery, but waskilled by a simple blood transfusionwhen a nurse "warmed the blood for the transfusion in a microwave oven!"
Logic suggests that if heating is all there is to microwave cooking, then it doesn't matter how something is heated. Blood for transfusions is routinely warmed, but not in microwave ovens. Does it not therefore follow that microwaving cooking does something quite different?
A little evidence of the harm caused by microwaving cooking was given by the University of Minnesota in a radio announcement:
"Microwaves ... are not recommended for heating a baby's bottle. The bottle may seem cool to the touch, but the liquid inside may become extremely hot and could burn the baby's mouth and throat... Heating the bottle in a microwave can cause slight changes in the milk. In infant formulas,there may be a loss of some vitamins. In expressed breast milk,some protective properties may be destroyed....Warming a bottle by holding it under tap water or by setting it in a bowl of warm water, then testing it on your wrist before feeding, may take a few minutes longer, but it is much safer".
There have been very few scientific studies done on the effect of eating food microwaved food. This is rather surprising when you think about the fact that microwaves have been with us for only a few decades - and that in that time the incidence of many diseases has continued to increase.
Two researchers, Blanc and Hertel, confirmed that microwave cookingsignificantlychanges food nutrients. Hertel previously worked as a food scientist for several years with one of the major Swiss food companies. He was fired from his job for questioning procedures in processing food because they denatured it. He got together with Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Biochemistry and the University Institute for Biochemistry.
They studied the effect that microwaved food had on eight individuals, by taking blood samples immediately after eating. They found thatafter eating microwaved food, haemoglobin levels decreased."These results show anaemic tendencies. The situation became even more pronounced during the second month of the study".
Who knows what results they would have found if they had studied people who ate microwaved food for a year or more?
The violent change that microwaving causes to the food molecules forms new life forms called radiolytic compounds. These are mutations that are unknown in the natural world. Ordinary cooking also causes the formation of some radiolytic compounds (which is no doubt one reason why it is better to eat plenty ofrawfood), but microwaving cooking causes a much greater number. This then causes deterioration in your blood and immune system.
Lymphocytes (white blood cells) also showed a more distinct short-term decrease following the intake of microwaved food than after the intake of all the other variants.
Another change was a decrease in theratioof HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) values.
Each of these indicators pointed to degeneration
The results were published in "Search for Health" in the Spring of 1992. How was this research greeted? A powerful trade organisation, the Swiss Association of Dealers for Electroapparatuses for Households and Industry somehow made the President of the Court of Seftigen issue a `gag order'. Hertel and Blanc were told that if they published their findings they would face hefty fines or up to one year in prison. In response to this, Blanc recanted his findings. Hertel, on the other hand, went on a lecture tour and demanded a jury trial.
FINALLY, in 1998 the Court `Gag Order' was removed. In a judgment delivered at Strasbourg on 25 August 1998 in the case of Hertel v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been a violation of Hertel's rights in the 1993 decision. The Court decided that the `gag order' prohibiting him form declaring that microwaved food is dangerous to health was contrary to the right to freedom of expression. In addition, Switzerland was sentenced to pay compensation of F40,000.
RUSSIANS BAN MICROWAVE OVENS
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 compounds * Creation of a binding effect to radioactivity in the atmosphere * Creation of cancer-causing agents within protein-hydrosylate compounds 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.
Standing in front of a microwave is also highly damaging to your health. Perhaps you have already felt this intuitively? We know that cells explode in the microwave - just fry an egg in your microwave. We are made up of trillions of cells. So work out how many are getting damaged if you stand in front of your microwave for 5-10 minutes.
In the past I had been told that it was important for people to stop eating microwaved food, but I did not pay too much attention to this because I had been microwave cooking for years. I never thought much about it but I suppose that I figured that if something was so bad for us, then there wouldn't be so many people using it. Little did I know.
When I began seeing clients for sessions ofkinesiologyin 1993 , I did not worry too much about telling them to give up eating microwaved food. However, I kept a record of all of the corrections that were needed for each client when they came in. Now, once a correction is made, it is to be hoped that the correction will stay in place for a long time to come, hopefully months if not years. People often ask me "How long will it last?" My answer to them is "That depends on your lifestyle".
Most of my clients came back to see me after about two weeks. In the early days I found that many who came back were not much better. I found that they were again `out of balance'. That is, their electrical circuits were not working correctly (which is common for many people). It was therefore not surprising that they were not much better, because the body does not begin to fully fix itself until the electrical circuits are in balance.
The question was, why did their electrical circuits go out of balance? The answer had to be something that washighlystressful, to effect the body in such a short space of time. Once that answer was remedied, the client would begin to get better. Using muscle testing, I went through the process of testing if the cause was electrical, chemical/nutritional, emotional or structural. Again and again the same answer would come up - electrical. When I then went through a range of possible electrical causes, the same answer again came up again and again - the person had eaten microwaved food! Incidentally, this answer never came up when a person had NOT eaten microwaved food.
I began to tell all of my clients on the first visit that under NO circumstances were they ever to do microwaved cooking again. That includes heating up food or even water in a microwave oven.(Microwaves work on the water in the food).I gave this a higher priority than any of things that are normally considered as health risks, such as cigarettes or alcohol. Immediately I began to get a marked improvement in the results I was getting. Long term problems such as headaches, back aches and emotional instability went away within a few weeks.
Other kinesiologists can confirm these results. David Bridgman, who has years of experience as a kinesiologist, said "Of all the people I test for allergies,99.9% so far show severe sensitivity to any microwaved food".
I experienced the effect of eating microwaved food for myself one time. I had been doing quite a lot of kinesiology and feeling on top of the world when for no apparent reason I began to feel rather `grey' and rather low. I realised that I needed a balance from a kinesiologist. Sure enough, I was out of balance. When the kinesiologist used muscle testing to see why my body had gone out of balance, the answer came up ... microwaved food! The trouble was, I couldn't remember eating any. Until I remembered a particular vegetarian restaurant I had been to. When I went back to the restaurant and asked them if they microwaved their food, they told me that they did.
So be warned! Many restaurants use microwaved cooking, even `health' restaurants. Ask if the "steamed vegetables" are in fact steamed - or are they microwaved? I have sent meals back when they have not been what they were described on the menu, much to the surprise of the restaurant owners.
The alternative to heating up or defrosting food is to place it in a saucepan with a little water and lid. Or use a convection oven.
MICROWAVED
PLASTIC WRAP HAS 10,000 TIMES FDA LIMITS OF CARCINOGENS!
Sent to me by a reader: Hello
Folks. Hopefully all of you are already well enough informed so as to avoid
the use of a microwave oven due to the many detrimental effects consuming
microwaved food has upon our health, but "just in case", here is
some interesting info sent to me by Ron Scanlon -- many thanks, Ron! Cheers,
Doug
University of California, Davis
Medical Center 2315 Stockton Boulevard, Sacramento, California 95817
As a seventh grade student, Claire
Nelson learned that di(ethylhexyl)adepate (DEHA), considered a carcinogen,
is found in plastic wrap. She also learned that the FDA had never studied
the effect of microwave cooking on plastic-wrapped food. Three years later,
with encouragement from her high school science teacher, Claire set out to
test what the FDA had not.
Although she had an idea for studying
the effect of microwave radiation on plastic wrapped food, she did not have
the equipment. Eventually, Dr. Jon Wilkes at the National Center for Toxicological
Research agreed to help her. The research center, which is affiliated with
the FDA, let her use its facilities to perform her experiments, which involved
microwaving plastic wrap in virgin olive oil.
Claire tested four different plastic
wraps and "found not just the carcinogens but also xenoestrogen was migrating
[into the oil]...." Xenoestrogens are linked to low sperm counts in men
and to breast cancer in women. Throughout her junior and senior years, Claire
made a couple of trips each week to the research center, which was 25 miles
from her home, to work on her experiment. An article in Options reported "her
analysis found that DEHA was migrating into the oil at between 200 parts and
500 parts per million. The FDA standard is 0.05 parts per billion."
Her summarized results have been
published in science journals. Claire Nelson received the American Chemical
Society's top science prize for students during her junior year and fourth
place at the International Science and Engineering Fair (Fort Worth,Texas)
as a senior. "Carcinogens --At 10,000 Times FDA Limits"
Options, May 2000. Published by People Against Cancer, 515-972-4444
So,
it's up to you. One point to bear in mind is that our society runs pretty
much on money. The multinational companies who make microwave ovens make a
lot from the sale of them. There is no money in telling people to stop microwave
cooking. There is, however, the satisfaction of knowing that you are
saving people's lives and future happiness by spreading the word to stop eating
microwaved food.
ALTERNATIVES
You
can heat food quickly in a convection oven. It's just an ordinary oven with a fan.
You can also easily and quickly heat up food, even frozen pasta,
by using a saucepan with a lid and a little water, to moisten it from the steam.
If someone is coming home late, and you want to give
them warm food when they arrive, put a saucepan lid over the food while it
is on a plate. Put the plate of food on a simmering saucepan of water. It
will stay warm without drying up.
If you want to cook food, do it the old
fashioned ways - it tastes much better that way!
Much
of the above information is from an article in the 1994 edition of Acres Magazine,
USA, by Tom Valentine.
