Microwave Zap Nutrients, Risk Health or Make Perfect Ghee

September 18, 2008 by Evelyn Vincent

 A study published in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found that broccoli "zapped" in a microwave with a little water lost up to 97% of its beneficial antioxidant power. By comparison, steamed broccoli lost 11% of fewer of its antioxidants.

Microwaved Breast Milk could be giving your baby ill-health

An article in the 1992 Pediatrics Journal reported how researchers at Stanford University discovered significant changes in microwaved breast milk. The changes in the breast milk included the destruction of 98% of its immunoglobulin-A antibodies and 96% of its liposome activity. (which inhibits bacterial infections). Further, other research warned that using a microwave to heat baby formula could potentially turn it into a more toxic solution.

The results were so stunning and controversial in a microwave study conducted in 1992 by Swiss food scientist Dr. Hans Hertel, that the Swiss Association of Dealers for Electro-Apparatuses for Household and Industry, put a gag order on the study, which took 6 years to finally remove. Dr. Hertel's conclusions were clear and alarming: microwave cooking significantly altered the food's nutrients enough that changes occurred in the participants blood - changes that suggested deterioration.

Participant blood changes from eating microwave cooked food included:

• Increased cholesterol levels

• More leukocytes, or white blood cells, which can suggest poisoning

• Decreased numbers of red blood cells

• Production of radiolytic compounds  (compounds unknown in nature)

• Decreased hemoglobin levels, which could indicate anemic tendencies

When microwaves first came out I thought they 'might' be interesting, then as I learned a little more about them my little warning flags shot up. It's bad enough that we manufacture all sorts of foods (well, they aren't really foods according to nature and our bodies ability to digest and process them), but now we've created a machine that is as equally unnatural to heat our food!? 

I did try cooking some veggies in a microwave back then, I felt that it didn't cook the veggies properly, they came out so hot that they couldn't be eaten (much hotter than if they had just come off the stove), and within seconds my veggies were hardly even warm... puzzling. How is it that my food could be hotter than any hot food I've had before and within seconds hardly warm??? Something is not right with this method of cooking, it was too weird for me - like Frankin-Food. I've never used a microwave since. Oh wait, that's not true...

My recipe for making perfect Clarified Butter, Ghee, using an 'above' the range microwave...

Take the desired amount of butter you wish to clarify and put it in a bowl. Turn on the light, you know - the light that shines down on your range-top, yup that's the one - turn it on. Open the microwave door and put your dish of butter in the microwave and shut the door.

Here's the secret... DO NOT turn the microwave on!!

Go do some chores, answer some emails, take the dog for a long walk, whatever. In about 30 to 60 minutes you will have perfect clarified butter, Ghee. 

I've found that the heat from the light bulb radiates into the microwave box and produces just the right amount of heat to make perfect Ghee. Save your health and Bon Appetite!