Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our
Speaker 1: exploration of the invention of microwaves. Now, in the last episode,
Speaker 1: we got we got you through the nineteen seventies or so,
Speaker 1: when the microwave, of course, had actually been invented. It
Speaker 1: was invented by Percy Spencer working for Raytheon in the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, sort of invented by accident. He was working
Speaker 1: on some radar microwave methods, but in in fact he
Speaker 1: ended up accidentally creating the radar range which cooks food
Speaker 1: with microwave radiation exactly. Yeah, he basically was working on
Speaker 1: some radar equipment. It was like, oh, my candy bar
Speaker 1: has melted. It is something has cooked it in my pocket,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, some tinkering, uh and some experimentation
Speaker 1: led to the birth of the microwave oven. The technology.
Speaker 1: At first, you know, people were a little hesitant. It
Speaker 1: was expensive, it was bulky. There are some confusion over
Speaker 1: what this radiation, uh you know, aspect of it might
Speaker 1: consist of. But over time and especially through some of
Speaker 1: some relentless marketing. They were able to win people over,
Speaker 1: and and that's why today you will find a microwave
Speaker 1: oven just about everywhere in your home, in your gas station,
Speaker 1: in your dormitory, on ships, in cars. I believe you
Speaker 1: were just looking at some microwaves before we came in,
Speaker 1: and you saw a car model that you can plug
Speaker 1: into your cigarette lighter right, well for kicks, I was
Speaker 1: I was googling, uh, microwave cigarette lighter to see if
Speaker 1: to see if Percy Spencer had ever tried to create one,
Speaker 1: right that you can light a cigarette with microwaves. I
Speaker 1: didn't find that, but I did find a microwave for
Speaker 1: truckers that you plug into the the adapter in your truck. Uh. My,
Speaker 1: my sisters once went to Disney World on the on
Speaker 1: the cheap and brought a microwave oven with them so
Speaker 1: they could cook hot dogs and I think you know
Speaker 1: Kraft cheese uh, in their in their hotel room and
Speaker 1: presumably in their vehicle. Um. So yeah, it's like that
Speaker 1: kind of convenience of the microwave oven provides. But of
Speaker 1: course we know that throughout the years, a lot of
Speaker 1: microwave fears and microwave panic. Uh, it was there initially,
Speaker 1: and in some ways it did persist even though the
Speaker 1: microwave is an extremely popular appliance. Yeah. So well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking a lot in this episode about microwave
Speaker 1: safety and just about it, just just you know, eradicating uh,
Speaker 1: some of your perhaps still lingering fears or superstitions about
Speaker 1: the technology. But but but before this happens, I do
Speaker 1: want to touch on some of the misuses of microwaves
Speaker 1: and TV and film that perhaps on some level contribute
Speaker 1: to these ideas of the dangerous microwave. I think for
Speaker 1: some reason, pop culture is obsessed with perversions of the
Speaker 1: microwave oven. Yeah, in ways that don't always apply to
Speaker 1: other household gadgets. Um. For instance, Uh, the big one,
Speaker 1: of course is the movie Grimlins. Granted, we get to
Speaker 1: see a gremlin destroyed in a blender as well, and
Speaker 1: the blender is perhaps an invention where we look at
Speaker 1: it and we know that there's a certain bit of
Speaker 1: danger to it because it has rotating blades at the bottom,
Speaker 1: but also a gremlin is thrown into the microwave and
Speaker 1: destroyed in there. It explodes just like it's a pad
Speaker 1: of butter that we've put in too long. I think
Speaker 1: maybe this obsession comes from the fact that the microwave
Speaker 1: energy is invisible and you can't see a fire or
Speaker 1: a heating element or anything like that. It's just coming
Speaker 1: out of this whirring object. Yeah, it's this magic box.
Speaker 1: And I mean, if you don't understand the science involved.
Speaker 1: The science, by the way, is explained in the previous
Speaker 1: episode if you need to go back and refresh. But
Speaker 1: other other places that I've enjoyed seeing the microwave used
Speaker 1: um on Futurama, there's a scene where Leila breaks the
Speaker 1: front of a microwave and then aims it at the
Speaker 1: at Bender, the robot Bender biding Red Rodriguez, and just
Speaker 1: completely destroys them with the the the raw cooking power
Speaker 1: of the microwave. And then, of course you will find
Speaker 1: any number of generally like less than top shelf horror
Speaker 1: movies or sometimes like outright sleazy horror movies that will
Speaker 1: utilize a microwave oven in a death. Okay, so, like,
Speaker 1: was there ever a slasher movie or the slasher character
Speaker 1: just used a microwave? Well, there is a nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine film titled Microwave massacre, but it contains zero microwave murders,
Speaker 1: just to prepare everybody. And it's um, it's it's quite
Speaker 1: a stinker. Um. But you know, there are other films
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mention some some other films you probably do
Speaker 1: not want to see, um, such as the horror movie
Speaker 1: Ghost in the Shell, no relation to the legendary anime franchise. Uh.
Speaker 1: That one, I think involves a microwave being tampered with
Speaker 1: by a like an ai ghost, you know, uh, some
Speaker 1: sort of spirit in the you know, electrical equipment, and
Speaker 1: it makes an entire room microwaved. Cool. Yeah, there's the
Speaker 1: there's a two thousand seven horror movie title drive Through,
Speaker 1: which is apparently about a killer clown and uh. And
Speaker 1: then there are there are a couple of Oh wait,
Speaker 1: I saw that one. He did. I could have didn't
Speaker 1: remember it first, but yeah, I've seen it. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, but I saw some stills and it looked
Speaker 1: it looked terrible. Um, not worth your time. There's the
Speaker 1: unnecessary two thousand and nine remake of the already unnecessary
Speaker 1: nine two film The Last House on the Left. And
Speaker 1: then there's there's also the Lucio Fulcy film Touch of Death,
Speaker 1: which features a microwave death, which which I watched just
Speaker 1: yesterday while researching this, And I think this one is
Speaker 1: certainly on my lucio Fulcy skip list. As much as
Speaker 1: I love many, love many of his films, um, and
Speaker 1: there are many of them, he's often known for gory
Speaker 1: ways of exploring violations of the human body and the microwave.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it had to show up at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you when you direct that many films, the microwave
Speaker 1: is going to be used, especially when you're so upset
Speaker 1: with melting people. Uh, there's a number of you may
Speaker 1: be thinking of this. There's a microwave death scene in
Speaker 1: the two thousand ten movie kick Ass, which is also
Speaker 1: grizzly and unnecessary. Uh. It's a standard underling murdered by
Speaker 1: a mobster scene. Uh, and I think it was probably
Speaker 1: inspired by the grizzly death of Anthony zerbas character character's
Speaker 1: death in the James Bond film License License to Kill
Speaker 1: From I don't remember Anthony zerbe Got was in that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he played an underling who's killed by the the the
Speaker 1: evil drug boss um in that film. He's he's putting
Speaker 1: like a pressurized change. Yes I remember. Now in kick Ass,
Speaker 1: the underling is put into a walk in microwave and
Speaker 1: the same thing happens. Um. Yeah, it's described as yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's described as being like an industrial
Speaker 1: microwave oven. And yeah, these do not exist as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell. If you if you know of
Speaker 1: a mic walk in microwave oven, uh, please right in
Speaker 1: and set the record straight. But I believe this is
Speaker 1: a complete fictional creation. But it's not just like horror movies,
Speaker 1: melt movies and the like where you see this obsession
Speaker 1: with perversions of the microwave oven to to damage and
Speaker 1: hurt people. Uh Like. There are lots of urban legends
Speaker 1: about it too. Write the things about people putting hamsters
Speaker 1: and microwaves and stuff. Yeah, hamsters, microwaves, dogs and microwaves,
Speaker 1: and of course the big one, the baby in the microwave.
Speaker 1: Ye by grotesque urban legend, uh generally revolving around uh
Speaker 1: you know, a deranged hippie babysitter who's whacked out on trucks.
Speaker 1: So you've got you got the double here. You have
Speaker 1: the microwave panic, and you have uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: panic about say l S d or you know, hippie
Speaker 1: counter culture. The idea is that the parents leave, they
Speaker 1: come back, they find the babysitter, again whacked out on drugs,
Speaker 1: has changed a TV Dinners diaper and has has cooked
Speaker 1: the baby in a microwave. Now, according to the Straight
Speaker 1: Dope and an extensive of uh and and actually quite
Speaker 1: disturbing City Lab article, Uh, there there certainly are unfortunate
Speaker 1: tales of child abuse and or death via microwave. Uh
Speaker 1: and they but they all seem to involve mental illness
Speaker 1: rather than drugs. Still, the urban legend itself lives on.
Speaker 1: You see it referenced even in things like the season
Speaker 1: one of True Detective mentioned but not depicted in that show,
Speaker 1: Folks were getting an urgent update from our producer Seth,
Speaker 1: who tells us that, in fact, there is such a
Speaker 1: thing as a walk in microwave. He looked it up,
Speaker 1: he found out. He says that you can have a
Speaker 1: walk in microwave to treat lumber. Okay, well, I I
Speaker 1: stand corrected. Then, um, kick ass is redeemed. But still
Speaker 1: the scene itself is unnecessary and grotesque. Well, I'd say,
Speaker 1: don't put anything alive in the microwave, even if it's
Speaker 1: a walk in microwave, right, right? What about what about
Speaker 1: the lobster though, that we discussed in the episode, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess I don't have an opinion on that.
Speaker 1: Darcy Spencer himself, the inventor of the microwave oven, gives
Speaker 1: you a method of cooking the lobster in the microwave,
Speaker 1: and you do not trust his his instincts here, his
Speaker 1: culinary instincts. Where did the marshmallow in the microwave thing
Speaker 1: come from? Oh? Yeah, that is a That is another favorite,
Speaker 1: the exploding of the torture of say a microwave. We're
Speaker 1: especially a peep um peep marshmallow around Easter time. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they do they like swell up real big or something.
Speaker 1: Uh they yeah, they do strange things like that. Yeah, alright, Well,
Speaker 1: one thing I think we should separate is the idea
Speaker 1: of using a microwave in a way that it is
Speaker 1: not intended to be used, and that that being you know,
Speaker 1: whether in fiction or in real life. You know, sad
Speaker 1: awful stories from real life that having bad consequences versus
Speaker 1: microwaves representing a danger win in normal use. Yes, So
Speaker 1: let's get into discussion of microwave safety. As we already mentioned,
Speaker 1: the microwave was born into a world somewhat suspicious of
Speaker 1: the word radiation. This was, after all, the during the
Speaker 1: aftermath of the Second World War. Throughout its existence, though,
Speaker 1: the microwave oven has continually been subjected to a fair
Speaker 1: amount of urban legend and misinformation, based generally on an
Speaker 1: incomplete understanding of how a microwave works and what indeed
Speaker 1: microwave radiation actually is. So I want to turn to
Speaker 1: a paper by a John M. O. Sup Chuck called
Speaker 1: a History of Microwave Heating Applications that I found from
Speaker 1: I Triple A Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Uh, And the author here, Chuck, talks
Speaker 1: about how there were actually a number of high profile
Speaker 1: attacks on microwave radiation and the safety of microwave ovens,
Speaker 1: especially in their early consumer years. So I guess this
Speaker 1: would be in the late nineteen sixties. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess they've been around to some degree for a couple
Speaker 1: of decades at this point, but this is going to
Speaker 1: be when they're first becoming really like affordable and widespread, right,
Speaker 1: So in nineteen sixty eight, the US Congress passed the
Speaker 1: Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act, and osip Check
Speaker 1: argues that this law was enacted mainly in reaction to
Speaker 1: fears that color televisions were emitting harmful X rays, but
Speaker 1: the language in the bill was made much broader and
Speaker 1: ended up raising safety implications for all kinds of radiation
Speaker 1: from electronics, including microwaves, radio waves, and acoustic vibrations, and
Speaker 1: osup Chuck writes that this was quote presumably as a
Speaker 1: prudent step and not because of any practical health or
Speaker 1: safety problem involving microwave or radio frequency energy. But during
Speaker 1: this period, government bureaus and consumer safety organizations coordinated in
Speaker 1: in the following years to test and establish safety standards
Speaker 1: for microwaves, such as the maximum power density of leakage
Speaker 1: from microwave ovens that would be allowed and considered safe. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, it's not practical to make a microwave that
Speaker 1: releases no microwave, that leaks no microwaves into the surrounding area.
Speaker 1: But question is like at what distance is it enough
Speaker 1: microwave energy to really heat you up and burn you
Speaker 1: um And in most cases like modern microwaves are going
Speaker 1: to be very safe in in these regards um but
Speaker 1: due to the fact that some older microwave ovens exceeded
Speaker 1: these established leakage limits, and also due to some popular
Speaker 1: articles raising concerns about the potential dangers of microwaves. Osip
Speaker 1: Chuck writes that the public's perception of risk from microwave
Speaker 1: ovens actually grew somewhat in the early nineteen seventies. And
Speaker 1: I want to do I want to be fair that well.
Speaker 1: I do think microwave ovens are generally extremely safe today.
Speaker 1: If you were living in the early seventies and you
Speaker 1: didn't trust that electronics manufacturers of the time we're being
Speaker 1: completely forthright with you about the safety of their products,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't blame you, right. So, one example of
Speaker 1: a microwave fear episode that took place in public, as
Speaker 1: documented BIOSI Chuck, was that in seventy re there were
Speaker 1: allegations by Consumers Union I think this was the magazine
Speaker 1: that later became Consumer Reports, and the allegations were that
Speaker 1: microwave ovens might be a serious radiation hazard. In the
Speaker 1: same year, there were hearings before Congress in which a
Speaker 1: figure named Dr Milton M. Zerret testified that quote there
Speaker 1: is a clear, present and ever increasing danger to the
Speaker 1: entire population of our country from exposure to the entire
Speaker 1: non ionizing portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. And apparently among
Speaker 1: the dangers discussed were things like development of cataracts and
Speaker 1: temporary male sterility due to microwave exposure. And this actually,
Speaker 1: when I was reading about it, this knock something loose
Speaker 1: in my head because I remember now when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, some adult I don't remember, who might have
Speaker 1: been a friend's parent or something, warned me not to
Speaker 1: stare through the window into the microwave because I would
Speaker 1: get cataracts. And I remember thinking this for a long time,
Speaker 1: like I'd stay away from the microwave while it was
Speaker 1: cooking because I didn't want to get cataracts. U. I
Speaker 1: remember being told not to stare through the front of
Speaker 1: a microwave. I don't remember if cataracts were invoked or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I decided to look this up. Is there any
Speaker 1: risk of getting cataracts from a microwave? I would say
Speaker 1: The answer is technically yes, but effectively no. Uh. The
Speaker 1: risk of cataracts from microwave exposure is actually, I think
Speaker 1: best best understood simply as damage to the eyes from heat.
Speaker 1: The lens of the eye is especially sensitive to heat
Speaker 1: because there is little mechanism for it to dissipate heat.
Speaker 1: It can't carry the heat absorbed away through blood flow
Speaker 1: or something. Right now, what are cataracts? Cataracts form when
Speaker 1: the lens of the eye is injured or deteriorates naturally
Speaker 1: with age, causing a breakdown of proteins that leads to
Speaker 1: clouding in this lens, the layer of the eye that
Speaker 1: should ideally be crystal clear because it's supposed to work
Speaker 1: like a lens, and that clouding, of course makes it
Speaker 1: hard to see. Uh So, one cause of the clouding
Speaker 1: and the lens is repeated exposure to intense heat, and
Speaker 1: this is sometimes known as glassblowers cataracts. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've heard of this, Robert, but yeah, this is
Speaker 1: something I read about before. But it's not just glassblowers.
Speaker 1: It can happen to metal workers, any workers who chronically
Speaker 1: expose their eyes to powerful sources of infrared heat near
Speaker 1: the face, and this heat exposure can damage the lens
Speaker 1: and the iris over time, of course, leading to clouding
Speaker 1: of the lens and which is cataracts. So a modern
Speaker 1: properly functioning microwave oven with standard safety features used in
Speaker 1: a normal way should not leak enough microwave radiation to
Speaker 1: cause this kind of heat damage to the eyes. I
Speaker 1: suppose there could possibly be a risk from say like
Speaker 1: a bootleg microwave you made yourself, or like an old damaged,
Speaker 1: malfunctioning microwave model. I was trying to figure out, how
Speaker 1: would you know if a microwave oven is damaged in
Speaker 1: a way that could possibly cause a risk of microwaves
Speaker 1: coming out and you know, burning your eyes or something.
Speaker 1: The main problem I think you would look for would
Speaker 1: be something in the door, if like the door the
Speaker 1: hinges the seal are warped or damaged, or if it's
Speaker 1: somehow able to operate with the door open. Again, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to do this. Their safety features that
Speaker 1: should prevent any of this from happening. But if somehow
Speaker 1: it operates with damage to the door, not ceiling, or
Speaker 1: being open, you probably want to get rid of it
Speaker 1: and get a new microwave. And I guess that brings
Speaker 1: us back to also the fears about male sterility. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it turns out I think these fears follow a
Speaker 1: similar pattern. Actually, it's again a concern about heating. Right.
Speaker 1: We discussed on stuff to blow your mind, concerns about
Speaker 1: male fertility being related to say, heating of of the testicles, right,
Speaker 1: like immersing yourself in a hot tub, that sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so osup. Chuck writes that scientists engaged in direct
Speaker 1: research at the time about the bio effects of radiation
Speaker 1: fought back against Eric's testimony. In nineteen seventy three, he
Speaker 1: quotes one pair of scientists named Bud Appleton and Tom
Speaker 1: Eli who pointed out that quote jockey shorts promoted in
Speaker 1: the Consumer Union, that magazine that was critical of microwaves
Speaker 1: quote posed a far greater hazard to temporary sterility of
Speaker 1: males than microwave leak is, which I think is a
Speaker 1: decent point of comparison, assuming they're correct. I think they
Speaker 1: probably are there that there's going to be more potentially
Speaker 1: threatening heating of of of the testicles through underwear design
Speaker 1: than there's going to be from microwaves escaping from a
Speaker 1: microwave oven. Uh. And also a scientist named Im Brady
Speaker 1: wrote about quote the humorous contrast between the warning signs
Speaker 1: proposed by the Consumer Union as necessary near microwave ovens
Speaker 1: and the absence of such signs when primitive man first
Speaker 1: learned to utilize the heat of fire. But I mean again,
Speaker 1: it's emphasizing that the main thing that you should actually
Speaker 1: be concerned about when you if you're seriously concerned about microwaves,
Speaker 1: is heat. That they have the ability to heat water,
Speaker 1: and that can damage you. You can get burned by
Speaker 1: the heat from a microwave, but the situations where that's
Speaker 1: going to happen are usually going to be like you
Speaker 1: heating up food in a dangerous way and then taking
Speaker 1: it out and burning yourself with it, right, like heating
Speaker 1: up a cup of noodles or something in the microwaven,
Speaker 1: removing it and and that that's where the dangers. And
Speaker 1: yet the movie is called microwave Massacre, not cup of
Speaker 1: noodles massacre, right, it's not or or Another example I've
Speaker 1: seen is like the stairway in your house is far
Speaker 1: more dangerous statistically than the microwave oven, like seedingly, you know,
Speaker 1: just when you look at the numbers, And yet the
Speaker 1: stairway massacre is as far as I know, not a thing. Right.
Speaker 1: And of course, on top of this, again modern microwave
Speaker 1: ovens that are made by reputable companies, the kind you
Speaker 1: could buy at a store. They're generally not going to
Speaker 1: be leaking many microwaves anyway. They've got safety features, they
Speaker 1: contain the radiation, and they're not supposed to work with
Speaker 1: the door open anything like that, So generally they are safe.
Speaker 1: All right, on that note, we're gonna take a break,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're going to continue to
Speaker 1: discuss microwave safety. Alright, we're back. So some of the other, um,
Speaker 1: you know, potential threats of microwaves that are sometimes brought
Speaker 1: up in you know, urban legends and you know, misinformation
Speaker 1: and whispers online. That's the thing is, like some of
Speaker 1: these are still continue to make their way around via
Speaker 1: social media. Uh. We already mentioned not looking through the
Speaker 1: screen at cooking food, but also the idea that microwaves
Speaker 1: will destroy nutrients in your food when you nuke it,
Speaker 1: that microwaves will radiate your house, that will alter your DNA,
Speaker 1: and that they will ultimately give you cancer. And if
Speaker 1: you want to get into the sort of conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: part of the internet, you can find articles alleging this today. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of great sources though that point us
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction towards truth. For instance, electrical engineer,
Speaker 1: neuroscientists and Chief Scientists of Australia Alan Finkel wrote a
Speaker 1: great article on this for Cosmos magazine back in and
Speaker 1: he stressed that, you know, again, one of the big
Speaker 1: things to keep in mind is that X rays are
Speaker 1: not microwaves. Microwaves are not X rays. Now. Certainly, as
Speaker 1: we've discussed on the show before when we did an
Speaker 1: episode on the X ray, X rays can be quite
Speaker 1: deadly if misused. Of course, you don't want to be
Speaker 1: exposed to any more X rays than you absolutely have
Speaker 1: to write. And the early history of X ray research
Speaker 1: is riddled with cases of radiation injury and death due
Speaker 1: to close proximity and just uh, you know, the individuals
Speaker 1: involved often being just unaware of what the true risks were.
Speaker 1: But Finkel's you know, stresses that there's a key difference here. Quote.
Speaker 1: X rays oscillate more than a billion times faster than microwaves,
Speaker 1: and their wavelengths are more than a billion times shorter.
Speaker 1: At these extremely short wavelengths, X rays act like tiny bullets,
Speaker 1: and if they hit the DNA inside the nucleus of
Speaker 1: a cell, they can do permanent harm. Microwave radiation is
Speaker 1: at a much lower frequency and the wavelength is about
Speaker 1: the length of a toothbrush, millions of times bigger than
Speaker 1: the cell nucleus. These big radio waves pass around our
Speaker 1: tiny DNA molecules without them noticing each other. So he's
Speaker 1: saying that outside, uh the oven with the door closed,
Speaker 1: nothing is going to get to you, and even if
Speaker 1: it did, it would heat you, it would not irradiate you.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Finkelle continues quote by analogy, if you were
Speaker 1: in a rowboat far from land, X rays would be
Speaker 1: like powerful waves that could potentially capsize your boat, while
Speaker 1: microwaves would be like the rising and falling of the tide,
Speaker 1: of which you would be blissfully unaware. And he points
Speaker 1: out that we have more than twenty five thousand research
Speaker 1: articles that have been published over the past thirty years
Speaker 1: on electromagnetic radiation at the frequency of microwave ovens, and
Speaker 1: they conclude that there is no evidence to confirm any
Speaker 1: adverse health consequences from exposure to a microwave oven. Again,
Speaker 1: normal exposure to a microwave oven, if you climb inside it,
Speaker 1: all bets are off and in terms of just the
Speaker 1: effects on the food itself. Microwaves have no non thermal
Speaker 1: effects on food. So again, the microwave oven certainly has
Speaker 1: a thermal effect on your food, and anything that heating
Speaker 1: food can do to food, it can do. But anything
Speaker 1: outside of that, uh is is probably gonna be the
Speaker 1: domain of of misinformation and urban legend. Yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to understand the fear of lingering radiation effects on food
Speaker 1: that That's another thing you'll see is that there's a
Speaker 1: belief that the microwave makes food radioactive, like that if
Speaker 1: you take the food out of the microwave, the food
Speaker 1: will somehow retain some kind of radiation property, even though
Speaker 1: it's non ionizing radiation to begin with. But like even
Speaker 1: if it were ionizing radiation, that it makes the food radioactive.
Speaker 1: I think this just comes from the idea dea of
Speaker 1: radioactive contamination, where like after a nuclear meltdown, you know,
Speaker 1: thing they're like radioactive particles that can get into the
Speaker 1: environment and contaminate things you don't want to ingest them.
Speaker 1: So that's one possibility I think. I guess it's also
Speaker 1: possible that like UH, an object bombarded with ionizing radiation
Speaker 1: or like with neutron radiation or something can itself become radioactive.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that nothing like that happens with food inside
Speaker 1: a microwave. To come back to another thing, you mentioned
Speaker 1: the idea that you know, so you said it has
Speaker 1: no non thermal effects on food. Nothing we can really
Speaker 1: measure other than heating it up. Uh, there is a
Speaker 1: thing I've seen alleged again, Um that microwaving food rob's
Speaker 1: food of its nutritional value, right, that it makes food
Speaker 1: unhealthy or robs it of its nutrients. Does anything like
Speaker 1: that happen? I would say again, the answer to this
Speaker 1: question is kind of like you could say, technically yes,
Speaker 1: but effectively this is not shol or unique to a microwave.
Speaker 1: So the question does the microwave make the food dangerous
Speaker 1: or unhealthy? For another good succinct explainer, This one was
Speaker 1: from Scientific American from nine. According to Honorada Prakash, Assistant
Speaker 1: Professor of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at
Speaker 1: Chapman University, there is no evidence at all that microwave
Speaker 1: food is unhealthy or detrimental to humans. But what about
Speaker 1: making it? What about being you know, just non nutritious
Speaker 1: or nutrients destroyed by the microwave. The true part is
Speaker 1: that heating generally does have effects on the nutritional contents
Speaker 1: of food, and to some degree, the method in which
Speaker 1: you heat food can also have some effects. But the
Speaker 1: fact that heating can destroy some nutrients and food is
Speaker 1: equally true of food heated up by all other means,
Speaker 1: including the stovetop in the oven and whatever. Vitamin C,
Speaker 1: for example, can break down in the presence of high heat.
Speaker 1: There is some evidence also that foods cooked in liquids,
Speaker 1: such as boiling in water or frying in oil, can
Speaker 1: sometimes lose a greater percent of some nutrients to the
Speaker 1: fluid than if they're cooked to the same temperature via
Speaker 1: some other method like steaming. Uh and I think the
Speaker 1: idea here is that some nutrients can be leached out
Speaker 1: into the liquid that the food is floating in if
Speaker 1: you boil it. But the other side of this is
Speaker 1: that in some cases microwaves actually preserve more nutrients than
Speaker 1: other cooking methods because microwaving generally takes less time than
Speaker 1: than usual then you would use than you would use
Speaker 1: an oven or a stove top four to heat something
Speaker 1: to the same temperature, and these nutrients can break down
Speaker 1: as a function of time spent exposed to heat, so
Speaker 1: it varies case to case and nutrient by nutrient, but
Speaker 1: generally no food cooked in the microwave does not generally
Speaker 1: retain any less nutritional value than food cooked in a
Speaker 1: pot on the stove or by other methods, and in
Speaker 1: some cases it actually probably retains more nutrients. All Right,
Speaker 1: On that note, we're gonna take one more break, but
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. All right, we're back, all right.
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about microwave safety and microwave fears
Speaker 1: and uh, and this persistent fear throughout the years that
Speaker 1: somehow using a microwave oven could make food radioactive, which
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that it does, and it doesn't really
Speaker 1: make any sense that it could. On the point about
Speaker 1: exposing food to ionizing radiation or making food radioactive, again,
Speaker 1: microwaves are non ionizing radiation. Their effects are thermal. But
Speaker 1: beyond that, I thought it would just be worth pointing
Speaker 1: out for context that food manufacturers actually do sometimes intentionally
Speaker 1: exposed food to real ionizing radiations such as X rays
Speaker 1: or gamma rays. Uh. They will literally bombard food we
Speaker 1: eat with X rays on purpose, and we eat it anyway.
Speaker 1: So why would we do that well. There was actually
Speaker 1: a really good article about this on the Salt by
Speaker 1: Nancy shoot From I was reading. It quoted a number
Speaker 1: of industry and radiation and health safety experts, and so
Speaker 1: there are a couple of reasons that you might bombard
Speaker 1: food with ionizing radiation like X rays. One is a
Speaker 1: quality control process which is screening industrially produced food packages
Speaker 1: for metal contaminants. So in some cases X rays in
Speaker 1: the food industry are literally four imaging purposes, just like
Speaker 1: medical X rays to see inside. So imagine a metal
Speaker 1: screw somehow falls into a pecan pie. That could be
Speaker 1: really bad, right, somebody could break a tooth on that.
Speaker 1: So some food products are X ray screened to make
Speaker 1: sure things like that don't get through to the customer.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think it was just reading about there
Speaker 1: was a big chicken recall I think, yes, involving a
Speaker 1: certain fast food restaurant. Oh yeah, with with fear. I
Speaker 1: don't know if anything was actually discovered, but I think
Speaker 1: there were fears that there could be like hard metal
Speaker 1: contamination of the chicken. So that's not good. Sometimes food
Speaker 1: is X ray screened, uh, and the amount of radiation
Speaker 1: the food is exposed to during this process is minuscule,
Speaker 1: we should say, even though it is X rays. The
Speaker 1: bombardment required to get the images is very short and weak.
Speaker 1: It's equivalent, according to one researcher they quoted in the article,
Speaker 1: to the amount of ionizing radiation a pie would receive
Speaker 1: from the atmosphere just by sitting out in the air
Speaker 1: for two and a half hours. So that's not too bad.
Speaker 1: Of course, the greater risk is that a hobo will
Speaker 1: steal the pie. Yeah, the bugs bunny will take it. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: who takes pies? Is it Yogi Bear? If there's a
Speaker 1: cartooned character who takes pies off window sills, Seth chimes
Speaker 1: in with with Yogi sometimes takes pies, but is more
Speaker 1: picnic basket focus. Well, perhaps there's some cartoon hobo that
Speaker 1: we're just kind of half remembering. You know. Another version
Speaker 1: of food exposure to ionizing radiation happens in order to
Speaker 1: sterilize food products. This would be to kill any insects, germs,
Speaker 1: or other parasites that might be living in or on
Speaker 1: the food. So this is literally this is a heavy
Speaker 1: bombardment of ionizing radiation in order to kill things on purpose. Uh, Now,
Speaker 1: normally you could accomplish the same thing with heat, such
Speaker 1: as in canning, but not all food products are good
Speaker 1: candidates for that kind of ceiling and heating process. This
Speaker 1: the products that this happens with the most by far,
Speaker 1: apparently are spices, because often spices are left out in
Speaker 1: the open too dry while they're being prepared for market
Speaker 1: or your TB packaged and shipped, so anything can get
Speaker 1: in them basically, and so they can get irradiated on
Speaker 1: their way to you know, out of the factory or whatever.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. But even when exposed to deadly ionizing
Speaker 1: radiation like X rays, you wouldn't want these rays projected
Speaker 1: on you. The food itself still does not become radioactive
Speaker 1: through this process. This reminds me of some of the
Speaker 1: proposals for sending humans on prolonged space flights to say Mars,
Speaker 1: and how we could use the water and food for
Speaker 1: the crew as a means of shielding the crew itself.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, surrounding them with all this uh this like
Speaker 1: biomaterial and water. Yeah, so like cosmic rays coming in
Speaker 1: from from the universe and from the Sun. I don't
Speaker 1: remember which is the main concern there. Well, anyway, you'd
Speaker 1: have radiation from space hitting the spacecraft. Instead of penetrating
Speaker 1: the brains of the the crew, it would be mostly
Speaker 1: hitting atoms within the food and the water out there,
Speaker 1: and that you could still eat this stuff and drink
Speaker 1: this water and you'd be okay. Again, if you're actually
Speaker 1: concerned with radioactive contamination of food, I think primarily the
Speaker 1: kinds of things you you should worry about would be
Speaker 1: exposured radioactive particles, like tiny particles that are themselves highly
Speaker 1: radioactive that could possibly get into food or other substances
Speaker 1: in the event of something like a nuclear meltdown. But
Speaker 1: again that's going to come from a nuclear meltdown like
Speaker 1: it's Chernobyl style event, as opposed to your worries about
Speaker 1: a microwave oven in your house. Right, bombarding cinnamon, even
Speaker 1: with X rays, does not put radioactive caesium particles into
Speaker 1: the cinnamon UH, and lots of major food safety organizations,
Speaker 1: including the w h O and the American FDA and
Speaker 1: all that have investigated this and ruled it safe, and
Speaker 1: this has been for decades now. So like even the
Speaker 1: irradiation of food with real ionizing radiation, the actual deadly
Speaker 1: kind UH does not seem to make the food unsafe
Speaker 1: to eat. Now, I want to briefly touch on just
Speaker 1: some other avenues of microwave research that I think are
Speaker 1: rather fascinating and it helps us to realize that the
Speaker 1: microwave technology is not just about cooking our food. For instance, UM,
Speaker 1: there's wireless power transmission UM, specifically microwave power transmission or
Speaker 1: MPT UH. This entails using microwave emitter to send energy
Speaker 1: through the air to a receiver. One avenue here is
Speaker 1: to use it to power and aircraft UH. MPT was
Speaker 1: first used to power a miniature helicopter in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four for ten hours. Uh M I T grad and
Speaker 1: raytheon electrical engineer William C. Brown as the principal individual here,
Speaker 1: and he continued to work on MPT throughout his the
Speaker 1: rest of his career, resulting in a number of experiments
Speaker 1: that demonstrated the potential. For instance, in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: he beamed thirty kilowatts of power at eighty four percent
Speaker 1: efficiency for one mile or one point six kilometers. Uh.
Speaker 1: NASA has also explored the potential use of MPT UH
Speaker 1: it's a sort of power beaming system for space. UH
Speaker 1: and and some see it as a means of transmitting
Speaker 1: power harvested by orbital solar arrays back down to Earth.
Speaker 1: Was there a power plant of this kind in SimCity
Speaker 1: two thousand where a misdirected beam caused one of the disasters?
Speaker 1: And said, mode, Um, I don't I never played that game,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I seem to recall that. So
Speaker 1: you've got like a beam receiver. Uh and uh, my
Speaker 1: memory is if it gets misdirected and sets your city
Speaker 1: on fire. Sorry not to be alarm us. Well we're not.
Speaker 1: We're not quite there yet. So that's that's a future concern.
Speaker 1: Another avenue of microwave uses potentially communication. Uh. Now, this
Speaker 1: is a topic we we did an entire episode of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind on back in the day. Well,
Speaker 1: so you're talking about in addition to just the normal
Speaker 1: telecommunications that uses wireless frequency and all the time. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that. But then the spicier selection here that we
Speaker 1: did an episode on is the microwave auditory effect. We
Speaker 1: did an episode titled V two K the microwave Auditory Effect,
Speaker 1: And basically the idea here's that microwaves can actually induce
Speaker 1: sounds in the human brain. Um and uh, and it
Speaker 1: can essentially be used to create something that is described
Speaker 1: as a whisper uh by target the human brain. Now,
Speaker 1: I think part of what we talked about though, also
Speaker 1: is that that true fact about the the perception of
Speaker 1: sounds induced by targeted microwaves at a at a human head,
Speaker 1: unfortunately has been taken by a lot of people as
Speaker 1: evidence that say, the government is actually putting voices in
Speaker 1: their head, in which case I think generally what these
Speaker 1: people are dealing with is some some form of auditory hallucination. Right.
Speaker 1: But then there, yeah, they're explaining it away by being
Speaker 1: part of some sort of conspiracy and uh uh and
Speaker 1: end up going down that rabbit hole. Um. However, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there is the potential to use microwave technology
Speaker 1: as a weapon. Uh. Not by just breaking the front
Speaker 1: of a microwave oven open and pulling at a robot.
Speaker 1: But you know, as we discussed in that episode, various
Speaker 1: experiments concerning microwave based weapons uh targeting the brain have
Speaker 1: been have been carried out not merely to induce sounds,
Speaker 1: but to damage the brain of the target, perhaps via
Speaker 1: the microwave pulse. Uh. Some commentators even argued that the
Speaker 1: mysterious attacks on the U. S. Embassies in Cuba and
Speaker 1: China might have been induced by such technology, though this
Speaker 1: does not seem to be the current scientific consensus, with
Speaker 1: experts favoring sonic or even chemical sources. Yeah, I've forgotten
Speaker 1: about those mysterious cases for a while. If yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to get deep in that someday. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that can make for a really good episode of stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. Yeah, So I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: to come back again to sort of military um potential
Speaker 1: uses of microwave technology, because where the radar range, that's
Speaker 1: where it began. But then suddenly this one particular investigated
Speaker 1: as one particular engineer noticed that his candy bar had
Speaker 1: melted in his pocket, and he decided to investigate further.
Speaker 1: And now that technology is in you know, pretty much
Speaker 1: every household in the United States. It has become just
Speaker 1: a ubiquitous piece of household and kitchen technology. It's the
Speaker 1: friend of the dorm room gourmand. Yes, it has many
Speaker 1: many A bag of popcorn has been has been cooked
Speaker 1: in one many a hot pocket and leave. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: little sort of foil like a sleeve that you know,
Speaker 1: adds the crisp so in my own house, like so
Speaker 1: much Trader Joe's Indian food has been heated up at lunchtime.
Speaker 1: I've got a specific request for you listeners out there
Speaker 1: right in and let us know what is the worst
Speaker 1: microwave food product you've ever come across? The worst or yeah,
Speaker 1: I would love to hear there's some good ones out there?
Speaker 1: Um or also just how how? What are some ingenious
Speaker 1: ways that you use the microwave? And if you have
Speaker 1: ever actually carried out one of these large scale um
Speaker 1: gourmet from scratch style nineties seventies microwave recipes, I would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you, especially if you have cooked
Speaker 1: a Thanksgiving turkey in a microwave all the way, no
Speaker 1: other ovens involved. I have to hear that story, and
Speaker 1: I have to know what there is alted product was like?
Speaker 1: Or lobster? Have you cooked a live lobster in your microwave?
Speaker 1: Don't do it just because you heard about it in
Speaker 1: this episode, but if you have done it before, I
Speaker 1: would like to hear from you. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Invention, you
Speaker 1: can find us invention pot dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find a show. Wherever you get your podcasts and wherever
Speaker 1: that is, make sure you have subscribed and make sure
Speaker 1: you leave a nice comment in some stars. That really
Speaker 1: helps the show out huge thanks as always to our
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us dance or any of our
Speaker 1: queries from today, or to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at invention pod dot com.
Speaker 1: Invention is production of I Heart Radio for more podcasts
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