Has microwave ovens been banned in Japan? Is microwave cooking bad2 for your health

Live healthy and long
Rizal Philippines

July 25, 2019

                                                         False, a spam.  repeated at FB 10,000x

I have recently received a messenger note from a former High School chum, a doctor of optometry saying that microwave ovens are now banned in Japan, and  that microwave oven factories in Japan are facing closure..   And that microwave cooking is dangerous to our health

These claims have been debunked.  

1. No microwave ovens have not been banned in Japan. The rumor was based on study allegedly made in Hiroshima and circulated as rumor in Russia

Is it true that Japanese govt is banning use of Microwave ovens?
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o. It is not true. (FACT CHECK: Did the Japanese Government Ban Microwave Ovens?) This rumor seems to have originated in Russia, citing a nonexistent study from a university in Hiroshima regarding the dangrs of exposure to radiation from microwave ranges.

2.  From Quora - is microwave cooking dangerous to your health?  Microwave ovens, emitting waves at 2.2 Ghz merely causes water molecules in the food to vibrate and heat up. It does not alter the water molecule nor molecules of the food

HARMFUL EFFECTS :
We have a love-hate relationship with our microwave ovens. About 90 percent of us own one; they’re ubiquitous in restaurants, coffeeshops, airports, even corner convenience stores. But we’re also nervous about those little black (silver, red, grey….) boxes that haunt our kitchen countertops.

Stories detailing the dangers of microwaved food permeate the internet. Yet it takes only a quick skim and a smattering of scientific literacy to see that most of the claims made in those stories are based on poor science, rumors, fear mongering, and conspiracy theory. Some of my personal favorite myths:

Microwaved food, when consumed continuously over a long period, “shorts out” electrical impulses in the brain, depolarizing or de-magnetizing brain tissue.

Reality check: Search after search of PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and CINAHL turned up no research supporting this claim.

Microwaving food changes its chemical composition in some mysterious, unknown way, destroying the “vital energy” and nutrients in food.

Reality check: As far as changing the chemical composition of food… um, what happens to it when you bake, broil, sauté, or otherwise apply heat to it? And microwaving food generally preserves more nutrients, mostly because cooking time is shorter and the food can be cooked in less water.

Microwaving water cause changes in its “structure or energy.”  This one started out as one of those widely-circulated emails that described somebody’s granddaughter’s science fair experiment. One plant was watered with water that had been boiled on a stovetop, the other with water that had been boiled in the microwave.  The accompanying photos supposedly show the gradual demise of the plant watered with the microwaved water.

Reality check: As an experiment, the two-plant scenario wouldn’t pass muster for an elementary school science fair project. Barbara Mikkelson over at Rumor has itoffers an explanation of the scientific method – for those of you who slept through junior high science class – and debunks this myth solidly. She also ended up with several very healthy-looking plants.

Microwaving food or water causes the formation of "radiolytic compounds" — new chemicals created by the tearing apart of molecules. Depending on the version of the microwave myth, these chemicals are said to be cancerous, radioactive, unnatural, or otherwise dangerous.

Reality check: Microwaves do not have enough energy to “tear apart” molecules. Microwaves are simply electromagnetic waves – they have nothing to do with radioactivity.

Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered by continually eating microwaved foods.

Reality check: A search of PubMed, Cochrane, and CINAHL turned up no results in peer-reviewed journals.

If any of these (or several other equally off-the-wall stories) were true, it would be a miracle that anyone is alive, thinking, and reproducing. Consider that microwave ovens have been used for more than 50 years – in our homes, restaurants, laboratories, and more.

No valid, peer-reviewed research has ever documented that microwaving food or water causes any of these ill effects.