0:03

Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart

0:05

Radio. Hey,

0:09

welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and

0:11

I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our

0:14

exploration of the invention of microwaves.

0:16

Now, in the last episode, we got we

0:19

got you through the nineteen seventies or so, when

0:21

the microwave, of course, had actually been invented.

0:23

It was invented by Percy Spencer

0:26

working for Raytheon in the nineteen forties,

0:28

sort of invented by accident. He was working

0:30

on some radar microwave

0:32

methods, but in in fact he ended

0:34

up accidentally creating the radar range

0:36

which cooks food with microwave radiation

0:39

exactly. Yeah, he basically was working on some radar

0:41

equipment. It was like, oh, my candy bar has melted.

0:43

It is something has cooked it in my pocket, and

0:46

uh, you know, some tinkering, uh

0:49

and some experimentation led

0:51

to the birth of the microwave oven. The

0:53

technology. At first, you know, people were a little

0:55

hesitant. It was expensive, it was bulky. There

0:58

are some confusion over what this radiation,

1:01

uh you know, aspect of it might consist of. But

1:04

over time and especially through some of

1:06

some relentless marketing. They

1:09

were able to win people over, and

1:11

and that's why today you will find a microwave

1:14

oven just about everywhere in

1:16

your home, in your gas station, in your

1:18

dormitory, on ships,

1:21

in cars. I believe you were just

1:23

looking at some microwaves before

1:25

we came in, and you saw a car model that

1:27

you can plug into your cigarette lighter right, well

1:29

for kicks, I was I was googling, uh,

1:32

microwave cigarette lighter to see if to

1:34

see if Percy Spencer had ever tried to create

1:36

one, right that you can light a cigarette with microwaves.

1:38

I didn't find that, but I did find a microwave

1:41

for truckers that you plug into the the

1:43

adapter in your truck. Uh.

1:46

My, my sisters once went

1:48

to Disney World

1:50

on the on the cheap and brought a microwave

1:53

oven with them so they could cook hot

1:55

dogs and I think you know Kraft

1:57

cheese uh, in

2:00

their in their hotel room and presumably

2:02

in their vehicle. Um. So yeah,

2:04

it's like that kind of convenience of the microwave oven

2:06

provides. But of course

2:09

we know that throughout the years, a

2:11

lot of microwave fears and microwave

2:13

panic. Uh, it was

2:16

there initially, and in some ways it did persist

2:18

even though the microwave is an extremely popular

2:20

appliance. Yeah. So well, we're gonna

2:22

be talking a lot in this episode about

2:25

microwave safety and just about it, just

2:27

just you know, eradicating uh,

2:29

some of your perhaps still lingering

2:32

fears or superstitions about the technology.

2:35

But but but before this happens, I do want to touch on

2:38

some of the misuses of microwaves

2:41

and TV and film that perhaps on some

2:43

level contribute to these ideas

2:45

of the dangerous microwave. I think for some reason,

2:48

pop culture is obsessed with perversions

2:51

of the microwave oven. Yeah, in ways

2:53

that don't always apply to other household

2:56

gadgets. Um. For

2:58

instance, Uh, the big one, of

3:00

course is the movie Grimlins. Granted,

3:04

we get to see a gremlin destroyed in a

3:06

blender as well, and the blender

3:08

is perhaps an invention where we

3:10

look at it and we know that there's a certain bit of

3:12

danger to it because it has rotating blades at the bottom,

3:15

but also a gremlin is thrown into the microwave

3:18

and destroyed in there. It explodes just like

3:20

it's a pad of butter that we've put in too long.

3:23

I think maybe this obsession comes from

3:25

the fact that the microwave energy is invisible

3:28

and you can't see a fire or a heating element

3:30

or anything like that. It's just coming

3:32

out of this whirring object. Yeah,

3:35

it's this magic box. And I mean, if

3:37

you don't understand the science involved.

3:39

The science, by the way, is explained in the previous

3:42

episode if you need to go back and refresh.

3:44

But other other places that I've enjoyed

3:46

seeing the microwave used um on

3:49

Futurama, there's a scene where Leila

3:52

breaks the front of a microwave and then aims

3:54

it at the at Bender, the robot

3:56

Bender biding Red Rodriguez, and just completely

3:59

destroys them with the the the raw

4:01

cooking power of the microwave. And

4:04

then, of course you will find any number

4:06

of generally like less than

4:08

top shelf horror movies or sometimes

4:11

like outright sleazy horror movies that

4:13

will utilize a microwave

4:15

oven in a death. Okay, so,

4:17

like, was there ever a slasher movie or

4:19

the slasher character just used a microwave?

4:22

Well, there is a nineteen seventy nine film

4:24

titled Microwave massacre, but it

4:27

contains zero microwave murders,

4:30

just to prepare everybody. And it's um, it's

4:32

it's quite a stinker. Um.

4:34

But you know, there are other films I'm gonna

4:37

mention some some other films you probably

4:39

do not want to see, um,

4:41

such as the horror movie

4:43

Ghost in the Shell, no relation to the

4:45

legendary anime franchise. Uh.

4:48

That one, I think involves a microwave being

4:50

tampered with by a like an ai

4:52

ghost, you know, uh, some

4:54

sort of spirit in the you know, electrical

4:56

equipment, and it makes an entire room microwaved.

5:00

Cool. Yeah, there's the

5:03

there's a two thousand seven horror movie title

5:05

drive Through, which is apparently about a killer clown

5:07

and uh. And then there are there are a couple

5:09

of Oh wait, I saw that one. He did.

5:11

I could have didn't remember it first, but yeah, I've seen

5:14

it. I haven't seen it, but I saw some

5:16

stills and it looked it looked terrible. Um,

5:18

not worth your time. There's the unnecessary

5:21

two thousand and nine remake of the already

5:23

unnecessary nine two film The

5:25

Last House on the Left. And then

5:27

there's there's also the Lucio

5:29

Fulcy film Touch of Death, which

5:32

features a microwave death, which which

5:34

I watched just yesterday while researching

5:36

this, And I think this one

5:38

is certainly on my lucio Fulcy skip

5:41

list. As much as I love many, love

5:43

many of his films, um,

5:45

and there are many of them, he's often known

5:47

for gory ways of exploring

5:49

violations of the human body and the microwave.

5:52

I'm sure it had to show up at some point. Yeah, when you

5:54

when you direct that many films, the microwave

5:57

is going to be used, especially when you're

5:59

so upset with melting people. Uh,

6:03

there's a number of you may be thinking of

6:05

this. There's a microwave death scene in the two

6:07

thousand ten movie kick Ass,

6:10

which is also grizzly and unnecessary.

6:12

Uh. It's a standard underling

6:14

murdered by a mobster scene. Uh,

6:17

and I think it was probably inspired by

6:19

the grizzly death of Anthony zerbas character

6:22

character's death in the James Bond film License

6:24

License to Kill From I don't

6:26

remember Anthony zerbe Got was in that. Yeah.

6:29

Yeah, he played an underling who's killed by the

6:31

the the evil drug boss um

6:33

in that film. He's he's putting like a pressurized

6:37

change. Yes

6:39

I remember. Now in kick Ass, the

6:42

underling is put into a walk in

6:44

microwave and the same

6:46

thing happens. Um. Yeah, it's

6:48

described as yeah, yeah,

6:50

that's the thing. It's described as being

6:52

like an industrial microwave oven.

6:55

And yeah, these do not exist

6:57

as far as I can tell. If you if you know of

6:59

a mic walk in microwave oven, uh,

7:02

please right in and set the record straight.

7:04

But I believe this is a complete fictional

7:06

creation. But it's not just like horror

7:08

movies, melt movies and the like where

7:10

you see this obsession with perversions

7:13

of the microwave oven to to damage

7:15

and hurt people. Uh Like. There

7:17

are lots of urban legends about it

7:19

too. Write the things about people putting hamsters

7:21

and microwaves and stuff. Yeah, hamsters,

7:23

microwaves, dogs and microwaves, and of course the

7:25

big one, the baby in the microwave. Ye

7:28

by grotesque urban legend, uh generally

7:30

revolving around uh you

7:32

know, a deranged hippie babysitter

7:34

who's whacked out on trucks. So you've got you got

7:36

the double here. You have the microwave panic, and

7:39

you have uh, you know, a panic

7:41

about say l S d or you

7:43

know, hippie counter culture. The idea

7:45

is that the parents leave, they come back,

7:47

they find the babysitter, again

7:50

whacked out on drugs, has changed

7:52

a TV Dinners diaper and has

7:55

has cooked the baby in a microwave. Now,

7:57

according to the Straight Dope and

7:59

an extensive of uh and and actually quite

8:01

disturbing City Lab article,

8:04

Uh, there there certainly are unfortunate

8:07

tales of child abuse and or death via

8:09

microwave. Uh and they but they all

8:11

seem to involve mental illness rather

8:13

than drugs. Still, the urban

8:15

legend itself lives on. You see it referenced

8:18

even in things like the season one of True

8:20

Detective mentioned but not depicted

8:22

in that show, Folks were getting an urgent

8:24

update from our producer Seth, who

8:27

tells us that, in fact, there is such a thing

8:29

as a walk in microwave. He

8:31

looked it up, he found out. He says that you

8:33

can have a walk in microwave to treat

8:35

lumber. Okay, well, I

8:38

I stand corrected. Then, um,

8:40

kick ass is redeemed. But still the scene

8:42

itself is unnecessary and grotesque. Well, I'd say,

8:44

don't put anything alive in the microwave,

8:47

even if it's a walk in microwave, right,

8:49

right? What about what about the lobster though, that we

8:51

discussed in the episode, Well, I

8:53

guess, I guess I don't have an opinion on that. Darcy

8:56

Spencer himself, the inventor of the microwave

8:58

oven, gives you a method of cooking

9:00

the lobster in the microwave, and you do not trust

9:03

his his instincts here, his culinary instincts.

9:05

Where did the marshmallow in the

9:08

microwave thing come from? Oh?

9:10

Yeah, that is a That is another favorite, the exploding

9:12

of the torture

9:15

of say a microwave. We're especially a peep um

9:18

peep marshmallow around Easter time. Oh

9:20

yeah, they do they like swell up real big or

9:22

something. Uh they yeah, they do

9:24

strange things like that. Yeah, alright, Well,

9:26

one thing I think we should separate is the idea

9:29

of using a

9:31

microwave in a way that it is not intended

9:33

to be used, and that that

9:36

being you know, whether in fiction or

9:38

in real life. You know, sad awful stories

9:40

from real life that having bad consequences

9:42

versus microwaves representing

9:45

a danger win in normal

9:47

use. Yes, So

9:49

let's get into discussion of microwave

9:52

safety. As we already mentioned, the microwave

9:54

was born into a world somewhat suspicious

9:57

of the word radiation. This was, after

9:59

all, the during the aftermath of

10:01

the Second World War. Throughout

10:03

its existence, though, the microwave oven has

10:06

continually been subjected to a

10:08

fair amount of urban legend and misinformation,

10:10

based generally on an incomplete

10:12

understanding of how a microwave works and

10:14

what indeed microwave radiation actually

10:17

is. So I want to turn to a paper

10:19

by a John M. O. Sup Chuck

10:22

called a History of Microwave Heating Applications

10:25

that I found from I Triple A Transactions

10:27

on Microwave Theory and Techniques from

10:29

nineteen eighty four. Uh, And

10:31

the author here, Chuck, talks about

10:34

how there were actually a number of high

10:36

profile attacks on microwave

10:38

radiation and the safety of microwave ovens,

10:41

especially in their early consumer years.

10:43

So I guess this would be in the late nineteen

10:45

sixties. I mean, I guess they've

10:47

been around to some degree for a

10:49

couple of decades at this point, but this is going

10:51

to be when they're first becoming

10:54

really like affordable and widespread, right,

10:57

So in nineteen sixty eight, the US

10:59

Congress passed the Radiation Control

11:01

for Health and Safety Act, and osip Check

11:04

argues that this law was enacted mainly

11:06

in reaction to fears that color televisions

11:09

were emitting harmful X rays, but

11:11

the language in the bill was made much

11:13

broader and ended up raising safety implications

11:16

for all kinds of radiation from electronics,

11:19

including microwaves, radio waves,

11:21

and acoustic vibrations, and

11:23

osup Chuck writes that this was quote presumably

11:26

as a prudent step and not because of any

11:28

practical health or safety problem

11:30

involving microwave or radio frequency

11:32

energy. But during this period, government

11:35

bureaus and consumer safety organizations

11:37

coordinated in in the

11:40

following years to test and establish safety

11:42

standards for microwaves, such as the maximum

11:45

power density of leakage from microwave

11:48

ovens that would be allowed and considered

11:50

safe. Now, of course, it's not practical

11:52

to make a microwave that releases

11:54

no microwave, that leaks no microwaves

11:58

into the surrounding area. But question

12:00

is like at what distance is

12:02

it enough microwave energy to really

12:05

heat you up and burn you um

12:07

And in most cases like modern microwaves

12:10

are going to be very safe in in these regards

12:12

um but due to the

12:14

fact that some older microwave

12:16

ovens exceeded these established

12:19

leakage limits, and also due to some

12:21

popular articles raising concerns

12:23

about the potential dangers of microwaves.

12:26

Osip Chuck writes that the public's perception

12:29

of risk from microwave ovens actually

12:31

grew somewhat in the early nineteen seventies.

12:34

And I want to do I want to be fair

12:36

that well. I do think microwave ovens

12:38

are generally extremely safe today. If

12:40

you were living in the early seventies and

12:43

you didn't trust that electronics manufacturers

12:45

of the time we're being completely forthright

12:47

with you about the safety of their products, I probably

12:50

wouldn't blame you, right. So, one

12:52

example of a microwave fear

12:54

episode that took place in public, as

12:56

documented BIOSI Chuck, was that in

12:59

seventy re there were allegations

13:02

by Consumers Union I think this was

13:04

the magazine that later became Consumer Reports,

13:07

and the allegations were that microwave ovens

13:09

might be a serious radiation hazard. In

13:11

the same year, there were hearings before

13:13

Congress in which a figure named

13:16

Dr Milton M. Zerret testified

13:19

that quote there is a clear, present

13:21

and ever increasing danger to the entire

13:23

population of our country from exposure

13:26

to the entire non ionizing portion

13:28

of the electromagnetic spectrum.

13:30

And apparently among the dangers discussed

13:33

were things like development of cataracts

13:35

and temporary male sterility

13:38

due to microwave exposure. And

13:40

this actually, when I was reading about it, this knock

13:42

something loose in my head because I

13:45

remember now when I was a kid, some

13:47

adult I don't remember, who might have been a friend's

13:50

parent or something, warned

13:52

me not to stare through the window

13:54

into the microwave because I

13:56

would get cataracts. And I remember

13:58

thinking this for a long time, like I'd stay away

14:00

from the microwave while it was cooking because

14:02

I didn't want to get cataracts. U. I

14:05

remember being told not to stare through the

14:07

front of a microwave. I don't remember if

14:09

cataracts were invoked or not. Yeah, So

14:11

I decided to look this up. Is there any risk

14:14

of getting cataracts from a microwave?

14:16

I would say The answer is technically

14:19

yes, but effectively no. Uh.

14:21

The risk of cataracts from microwave exposure

14:24

is actually, I think best best understood

14:26

simply as damage to the eyes

14:28

from heat. The lens of the eye

14:30

is especially sensitive to heat

14:33

because there is little mechanism for

14:35

it to dissipate heat. It can't carry

14:37

the heat absorbed away through blood

14:39

flow or something. Right now, what are

14:41

cataracts? Cataracts form when the

14:44

lens of the eye is injured

14:46

or deteriorates naturally with age,

14:49

causing a breakdown of proteins

14:51

that leads to clouding in this lens,

14:53

the layer of the eye that should ideally be crystal

14:56

clear because it's supposed to work like a lens, and

14:58

that clouding, of course makes it hard to see.

15:01

Uh So, one cause of the clouding and the lens

15:03

is repeated exposure to intense

15:06

heat, and this is sometimes known as glassblowers

15:08

cataracts. I don't know if you've heard

15:10

of this, Robert, but yeah, this is something

15:13

I read about before. But it's not just glassblowers.

15:15

It can happen to metal workers,

15:17

any workers who chronically expose

15:20

their eyes to powerful sources of

15:22

infrared heat near the face, and

15:24

this heat exposure can damage the

15:26

lens and the iris over time, of course,

15:28

leading to clouding of the lens and which

15:31

is cataracts. So a modern properly

15:34

functioning microwave oven with standard

15:36

safety features used in a normal

15:38

way should not leak enough microwave

15:41

radiation to cause this kind of heat damage

15:43

to the eyes. I suppose there could

15:46

possibly be a risk from say like

15:48

a bootleg microwave you made

15:50

yourself, or like an old

15:52

damaged, malfunctioning microwave

15:54

model. I was trying to figure out, how

15:57

would you know if a microwave oven is damaged

16:00

in a way that could possibly cause a risk

16:02

of microwaves coming out and you know,

16:04

burning your eyes or something. The

16:06

main problem I think you would look for would

16:08

be something in the door, if like the door

16:11

the hinges the seal are warped

16:13

or damaged, or if

16:15

it's somehow able to operate with the

16:17

door open. Again, it shouldn't be

16:19

able to do this. Their safety features that should

16:21

prevent any of this from happening. But if

16:24

somehow it operates with damage to the

16:26

door, not ceiling, or being open, you probably

16:28

want to get rid of it and get a new microwave. And

16:31

I guess that brings us back to also the

16:33

fears about male sterility. Uh,

16:35

And it turns out I think these fears follow a

16:37

similar pattern. Actually, it's

16:39

again a concern about heating. Right. We

16:42

discussed on stuff to blow your mind, concerns

16:44

about male fertility being related

16:46

to say, heating of of the testicles,

16:49

right, like immersing yourself in a hot

16:51

tub, that sort of thing. Yeah, and so osup.

16:53

Chuck writes that scientists engaged

16:55

in direct research at the time about

16:57

the bio effects of radiation fought

17:00

back against Eric's testimony. In nineteen

17:02

seventy three, he quotes one pair of scientists

17:04

named Bud Appleton and Tom Eli

17:07

who pointed out that quote jockey shorts

17:09

promoted in the Consumer Union, that magazine

17:12

that was critical of microwaves quote

17:14

posed a far greater hazard to temporary

17:16

sterility of males than microwave leak

17:18

is, which I think is a decent point

17:21

of comparison, assuming they're correct. I think they

17:23

probably are there that there's going to be more potentially

17:25

threatening heating of of of

17:27

the testicles through underwear design

17:30

than there's going to be from microwaves

17:32

escaping from a microwave oven. Uh.

17:34

And also a scientist

17:36

named Im Brady wrote about quote the

17:39

humorous contrast between the warning signs

17:41

proposed by the Consumer Union as

17:43

necessary near microwave ovens and the

17:45

absence of such signs when primitive man

17:48

first learned to utilize the heat of fire.

17:50

But I mean again, it's emphasizing that the main

17:52

thing that you should actually be concerned

17:54

about when you if you're seriously concerned

17:56

about microwaves, is heat. That they have

17:59

the ability to heat water, and

18:01

that can damage you. You can get burned

18:03

by the heat from a microwave, but the situations

18:07

where that's going to happen are usually going to be like you

18:09

heating up food in a dangerous way

18:11

and then taking it out and burning yourself with it,

18:13

right, like heating up a cup of noodles or something in the

18:15

microwaven, removing it and and that

18:18

that's where the dangers. And yet the movie

18:20

is called microwave Massacre, not

18:22

cup of noodles massacre, right,

18:25

it's not or or Another example I've seen is like

18:27

the stairway in your house is far more

18:29

dangerous statistically than the microwave

18:31

oven, like seedingly, you know, just when

18:34

you look at the numbers, And yet the stairway

18:36

massacre is as far as I know, not

18:39

a thing. Right. And of course, on top

18:41

of this, again modern microwave

18:43

ovens that are made by reputable companies,

18:45

the kind you could buy at a store. They're generally

18:47

not going to be leaking many microwaves

18:50

anyway. They've got safety features, they contain

18:52

the radiation, and they're not supposed

18:54

to work with the door open anything like that,

18:56

So generally they are safe. All

18:58

right, on that note, we're gonna take a break, and when we come back,

19:01

we're going to continue to discuss microwave

19:04

safety. Alright,

19:10

we're back. So some of the other, um,

19:13

you know, potential threats of microwaves that

19:15

are sometimes brought up in you know,

19:17

urban legends and you know, misinformation

19:19

and whispers online. That's

19:22

the thing is, like some of these are still continue to

19:25

make their way around via

19:27

social media. Uh. We

19:30

already mentioned not looking through the screen at cooking

19:32

food, but also the idea that microwaves

19:34

will destroy nutrients in your food when you nuke

19:36

it, that microwaves will

19:39

radiate your house, that will alter your DNA,

19:41

and that they will ultimately give you cancer. And

19:43

if you want to get into the sort of

19:45

conspiracy theory part of the internet, you

19:47

can find articles alleging this today.

19:51

Uh, there are plenty of great sources

19:53

though that point us in the opposite direction

19:55

towards truth. For instance,

19:58

electrical engineer, neuroscientists and Chief

20:00

Scientists of Australia Alan

20:02

Finkel wrote a great article on

20:04

this for Cosmos magazine back in and

20:07

he stressed that, you know, again, one of the

20:09

big things to keep in mind is that

20:12

X rays are not microwaves. Microwaves

20:15

are not X rays. Now. Certainly, as we've

20:17

discussed on the show before when we did

20:19

an episode on the X ray, X

20:21

rays can be quite deadly if misused.

20:24

Of course, you don't want to be exposed to any more

20:26

X rays than you absolutely have to write.

20:28

And the early history of X ray research is riddled

20:31

with cases of radiation injury and

20:33

death due to close proximity

20:35

and just uh, you know, the individuals

20:38

involved often being just unaware of what the

20:40

true risks were. But Finkel's

20:42

you know, stresses that there's a key difference

20:44

here. Quote. X rays oscillate

20:47

more than a billion times faster than

20:49

microwaves, and their wavelengths are more than

20:51

a billion times shorter. At

20:53

these extremely short wavelengths, X rays

20:55

act like tiny bullets, and if

20:57

they hit the DNA inside the nucleus of

20:59

a cell, they can do permanent harm.

21:02

Microwave radiation is at a much

21:04

lower frequency and the wavelength is about

21:06

the length of a toothbrush, millions of

21:08

times bigger than the cell nucleus.

21:11

These big radio waves pass around our

21:13

tiny DNA molecules without

21:15

them noticing each other. So he's saying

21:17

that outside, uh the oven with the

21:19

door closed, nothing is going to get

21:21

to you, and even if it did, it would

21:23

heat you, it would not irradiate you. Uh

21:26

So, Finkelle continues quote

21:28

by analogy, if you were in a

21:30

rowboat far from land, X

21:33

rays would be like powerful waves

21:35

that could potentially capsize your

21:37

boat, while microwaves would be

21:39

like the rising and falling of the tide,

21:41

of which you would be blissfully unaware.

21:45

And he points out that we have more than twenty

21:47

five thousand research articles

21:49

that have been published over the past thirty years

21:52

on electromagnetic radiation at the

21:54

frequency of microwave ovens, and they

21:56

conclude that there is no evidence to

21:58

confirm any adverse health consequences

22:01

from exposure to a microwave

22:03

oven. Again, normal exposure to a

22:05

microwave oven, if you climb inside it, all

22:07

bets are off and in terms of just the

22:10

effects on the food itself. Microwaves

22:12

have no non thermal effects

22:14

on food. So again, the microwave oven

22:16

certainly has a thermal effect on your food, and

22:19

anything that heating food can do to

22:21

food, it can do. But

22:25

anything outside of that, uh is

22:27

is probably gonna be the domain

22:30

of of misinformation and

22:32

urban legend. Yeah, I'm trying to understand

22:34

the fear of lingering radiation

22:36

effects on food that That's another thing you'll see

22:38

is that there's a belief that the microwave

22:41

makes food radioactive, like

22:43

that if you take the food out of the microwave,

22:45

the food will somehow retain

22:48

some kind of radiation property, even

22:50

though it's non ionizing radiation to begin

22:52

with. But like even if it were ionizing

22:55

radiation, that it makes the food radioactive. I

22:57

think this just comes from the

22:59

idea dea of radioactive contamination,

23:02

where like after a nuclear meltdown, you

23:04

know, thing they're like radioactive

23:07

particles that can get into the environment

23:09

and contaminate things you don't want to ingest

23:11

them. So that's one possibility I

23:13

think. I guess it's also possible that like UH,

23:16

an object bombarded with ionizing

23:19

radiation or like with neutron radiation or

23:21

something can itself become radioactive.

23:23

But yeah, that nothing like that

23:25

happens with food inside a microwave. To

23:27

come back to another thing, you mentioned the idea

23:29

that you know, so you said it has

23:32

no non thermal effects on food. Nothing

23:34

we can really measure other than heating it up. Uh,

23:37

there is a thing I've seen alleged again, Um

23:40

that microwaving food

23:43

rob's food of its nutritional value,

23:45

right, that it makes food unhealthy

23:48

or robs it of its nutrients. Does

23:50

anything like that happen? I would

23:52

say again, the answer to this question is kind

23:55

of like you could say, technically

23:57

yes, but effectively this

23:59

is not shol or unique to a microwave.

24:02

So the question does the

24:04

microwave make the food dangerous or unhealthy?

24:07

For another good succinct explainer, This

24:09

one was from Scientific American from nine. According

24:12

to Honorada Prakash,

24:15

Assistant Professor of the Department of Food Science

24:17

and Nutrition at Chapman University,

24:19

there is no evidence at all that microwave

24:21

food is unhealthy or detrimental to humans.

24:24

But what about making it? What about being

24:27

you know, just non nutritious or nutrients

24:29

destroyed by the microwave. The

24:32

true part is that heating generally

24:34

does have effects on the nutritional

24:37

contents of food, and to some

24:39

degree, the method in which you heat

24:41

food can also have some effects.

24:44

But the fact that heating can

24:46

destroy some nutrients and food is

24:49

equally true of food heated up by

24:51

all other means, including the stovetop

24:53

in the oven and whatever. Vitamin C,

24:55

for example, can break down in the presence

24:57

of high heat. There is some evidence

25:00

also that foods cooked

25:02

in liquids, such as boiling in water

25:05

or frying in oil, can sometimes

25:07

lose a greater percent of some nutrients

25:10

to the fluid than if they're cooked

25:12

to the same temperature via some other

25:14

method like steaming. Uh

25:16

and I think the idea here is that some nutrients

25:19

can be leached out into the liquid that the

25:21

food is floating in if you boil it. But

25:23

the other side of this is that in some cases microwaves

25:25

actually preserve more nutrients

25:28

than other cooking methods because

25:30

microwaving generally takes less

25:32

time than than usual then

25:35

you would use than you would use an oven

25:37

or a stove top four to heat something to the

25:39

same temperature, and these nutrients can

25:41

break down as a function of time spent exposed

25:43

to heat, so it varies case to case

25:46

and nutrient by nutrient, but generally no

25:48

food cooked in the microwave does not generally

25:50

retain any less nutritional

25:53

value than food cooked in a pot on the stove

25:55

or by other methods, and in some cases

25:57

it actually probably retains more nutrients.

26:00

All Right, On that note, we're gonna take one more break, but

26:02

we'll be right back. All

26:08

right, we're back, all right. So we've been talking

26:10

about microwave safety and microwave

26:12

fears and uh, and this persistent

26:15

fear throughout the years that somehow using

26:17

a microwave oven could make food radioactive,

26:20

which there's no evidence that it does, and

26:22

it doesn't really make any sense that it could. On

26:24

the point about exposing food

26:26

to ionizing radiation or making food

26:29

radioactive, again, microwaves

26:31

are non ionizing radiation. Their

26:33

effects are thermal. But beyond

26:35

that, I thought it would just be worth pointing

26:38

out for context that food manufacturers

26:40

actually do sometimes intentionally

26:43

exposed food to real ionizing

26:45

radiations such as X rays or gamma

26:48

rays. Uh. They will literally bombard

26:50

food we eat with X rays on purpose,

26:53

and we eat it anyway. So

26:55

why would we do that well. There was actually

26:57

a really good article about this on the Salt by

26:59

Nancy shoot From I

27:01

was reading. It quoted a number of industry

27:04

and radiation and health safety experts,

27:06

and so there are a couple of reasons that you might bombard

27:09

food with ionizing radiation like

27:12

X rays. One is a quality

27:14

control process which is screening

27:16

industrially produced food packages

27:19

for metal contaminants.

27:21

So in some cases X rays in the food

27:23

industry are literally four imaging

27:25

purposes, just like medical X rays to

27:27

see inside. So imagine

27:30

a metal screw somehow

27:32

falls into a pecan pie. That

27:34

could be really bad, right, somebody could

27:36

break a tooth on that. So some food

27:38

products are X ray screened to

27:41

make sure things like that don't get through

27:43

to the customer. In fact, I think it was

27:45

just reading about there was a

27:47

big chicken recall I think, yes, involving

27:50

a certain fast food restaurant. Oh yeah,

27:52

with with fear. I don't know if anything

27:54

was actually discovered, but I think there were fears that there

27:56

could be like hard metal contamination

27:59

of the chicken. So that's not good.

28:01

Sometimes food is X ray screened, uh,

28:03

and the amount of radiation the food

28:05

is exposed to during this process

28:08

is minuscule, we should say, even though it is

28:10

X rays. The bombardment required to

28:12

get the images is very short and weak.

28:14

It's equivalent, according to

28:16

one researcher they quoted in the article, to

28:19

the amount of ionizing radiation a

28:21

pie would receive from the atmosphere

28:23

just by sitting out in the air for two and a

28:26

half hours. So that's not too bad.

28:28

Of course, the greater risk is that a hobo will steal

28:30

the pie. Yeah,

28:34

the bugs bunny will take it. Wait,

28:36

no, who takes pies? Is it Yogi

28:38

Bear? If there's a cartooned

28:41

character who takes pies off window sills,

28:44

Seth chimes in with with Yogi sometimes

28:46

takes pies, but is more picnic basket

28:48

focus. Well, perhaps there's some cartoon

28:51

hobo that we're just kind of half remembering. You

28:53

know. Another version

28:55

of food exposure to ionizing radiation

28:57

happens in order to sterilize food

29:00

products. This would be to kill any

29:02

insects, germs, or other parasites

29:04

that might be living in or on the food.

29:06

So this is literally this is a heavy bombardment

29:09

of ionizing radiation in order to kill

29:11

things on purpose. Uh, Now, normally

29:14

you could accomplish the same thing with heat, such

29:17

as in canning, but not all food

29:19

products are good candidates for that kind

29:21

of ceiling and heating process. This

29:24

the products that this happens with the most

29:26

by far, apparently are spices,

29:28

because often spices are left

29:30

out in the open too dry

29:33

while they're being prepared for market or your

29:35

TB packaged and shipped, so

29:37

anything can get in them basically, and so

29:40

they can get irradiated on their way

29:42

to you know, out of the factory or whatever.

29:45

That makes sense. But even when

29:47

exposed to deadly ionizing radiation

29:49

like X rays, you wouldn't want these rays projected

29:52

on you. The food itself still

29:54

does not become radioactive

29:57

through this process. This reminds

29:59

me of some of the proposals

30:01

for sending humans

30:04

on prolonged space flights to

30:07

say Mars, and

30:09

how we could use the water and

30:11

food for the crew as

30:14

a means of shielding the crew itself.

30:17

Oh yeah, surrounding them with

30:19

all this uh this like biomaterial

30:21

and water. Yeah, so like cosmic

30:23

rays coming in from from the universe

30:26

and from the Sun. I don't remember which is the

30:28

main concern there. Well, anyway, you'd have radiation

30:30

from space hitting the spacecraft.

30:32

Instead of penetrating the brains

30:35

of the the crew, it would

30:37

be mostly hitting atoms

30:39

within the food and the water out there, and

30:42

that you could still eat this stuff and drink

30:44

this water and you'd be okay. Again, if

30:46

you're actually concerned with radioactive

30:48

contamination of food, I think primarily

30:50

the kinds of things you you should worry about

30:52

would be exposured radioactive particles,

30:55

like tiny particles that are themselves highly

30:57

radioactive that could possibly

30:59

get into food or other substances in the event

31:01

of something like a nuclear meltdown. But again

31:04

that's going to come from a nuclear meltdown

31:07

like it's Chernobyl style event,

31:09

as opposed to your worries

31:11

about a microwave oven in your house. Right,

31:14

bombarding cinnamon, even with X rays,

31:16

does not put radioactive caesium particles

31:18

into the cinnamon UH,

31:20

and lots of major food safety organizations,

31:23

including the w h O and the American FDA

31:25

and all that have investigated this and

31:27

ruled it safe, and this has been for decades

31:29

now. So like even the irradiation of food

31:32

with real ionizing radiation, the actual

31:34

deadly kind UH does not seem

31:37

to make the food unsafe to eat. Now,

31:39

I want to briefly touch on just some other avenues

31:41

of microwave research that I think

31:43

are rather fascinating and it helps

31:45

us to realize that the microwave technology

31:48

is not just about cooking our food. For

31:50

instance, UM, there's wireless power

31:52

transmission UM, specifically

31:55

microwave power transmission or MPT

31:58

UH. This entails using microwave

32:01

emitter to send energy through the air

32:03

to a receiver. One

32:05

avenue here is to use it to power and aircraft

32:08

UH. MPT was first used to power a miniature

32:10

helicopter in nineteen sixty four

32:13

for ten hours. Uh M

32:15

I T grad and raytheon electrical

32:17

engineer William C. Brown as the principal

32:19

individual here, and he continued to

32:21

work on MPT throughout his the

32:23

rest of his career, resulting in a number

32:25

of experiments that demonstrated the potential.

32:28

For instance, in the nineteen seventies, he

32:30

beamed thirty kilowatts of power at

32:32

eighty four percent efficiency for one mile

32:35

or one point six kilometers. Uh. NASA

32:37

has also explored the potential use

32:40

of MPT UH it's a sort of

32:42

power beaming system for space.

32:44

UH and and some see it as a means of

32:46

transmitting power harvested by orbital

32:49

solar arrays back down to Earth.

32:51

Was there a power plant of

32:54

this kind in SimCity two thousand

32:56

where a misdirected beam caused one

32:58

of the disasters? And said, mode, Um,

33:01

I don't I never played that game, so I don't know.

33:03

I seem to recall that. So you've got like a beam receiver.

33:06

Uh and uh, my memory

33:09

is if it gets misdirected and sets

33:11

your city on fire. Sorry not

33:13

to be alarm us. Well we're not. We're

33:15

not quite there yet. So that's that's a future

33:17

concern. Another avenue of microwave

33:19

uses potentially communication. Uh.

33:22

Now, this is a topic we we did an

33:24

entire episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind on back

33:26

in the day. Well, so you're talking about in addition

33:29

to just the normal telecommunications

33:31

that uses wireless frequency and all

33:33

the time. Oh, yeah, there's that. But then the spicier

33:36

selection here that we did an episode

33:38

on is the microwave auditory

33:41

effect. We did an episode titled

33:43

V two K the microwave Auditory Effect,

33:46

And basically the idea here's that microwaves

33:48

can actually induce sounds in the human

33:51

brain. Um and

33:53

uh, and it can essentially be used

33:55

to create something that is described as a whisper

33:58

uh by target the human brain.

34:01

Now, I think part of what we talked about though, also

34:03

is that that true fact about the

34:06

the perception of sounds induced

34:08

by targeted microwaves at a at a human

34:10

head, unfortunately has been taken

34:12

by a lot of people as evidence that say,

34:14

the government is actually putting voices

34:16

in their head, in which case I think generally

34:19

what these people are dealing with is some some form

34:21

of auditory hallucination. Right.

34:24

But then there, yeah, they're explaining it away by being part

34:26

of some sort of conspiracy and uh

34:28

uh and end up going down that rabbit

34:30

hole. Um. However, um,

34:33

you know, there is the potential to

34:35

use microwave technology as a

34:37

weapon. Uh. Not by just breaking

34:39

the front of a microwave oven open and

34:41

pulling at a robot. But you know, as we discussed

34:44

in that episode, various

34:46

experiments concerning microwave based

34:48

weapons uh targeting the brain

34:50

have been have been carried

34:52

out not merely to induce sounds, but to damage

34:55

the brain of the target, perhaps via

34:57

the microwave pulse. Uh. Some

35:00

commentators even argued that the mysterious

35:02

attacks on the U. S. Embassies in Cuba

35:04

and China might have been induced by

35:06

such technology, though this does

35:08

not seem to be the current scientific

35:10

consensus, with experts favoring sonic

35:13

or even chemical sources. Yeah,

35:15

I've forgotten about those mysterious cases

35:17

for a while. If yeah, I want to get deep in

35:19

that someday. Yeah, I think that can make for a really

35:22

good episode of stuff to blow your mind. Yeah, So

35:24

I think it's interesting to come back again to sort

35:26

of military um potential

35:29

uses of microwave technology,

35:31

because where the radar range, that's where it

35:33

began. But then suddenly this

35:36

one particular investigated as one particular

35:39

engineer noticed that his

35:41

candy bar had melted in his pocket, and

35:44

he decided to investigate further. And

35:46

now that technology is in you know, pretty

35:48

much every household in the United States.

35:50

It has become just a ubiquitous

35:53

piece of household and kitchen

35:55

technology. It's the friend of the dorm room

35:57

gourmand. Yes,

36:00

it has many many

36:03

A bag of popcorn has been has been cooked

36:05

in one many a hot pocket and leave.

36:08

Yeah, the little sort of foil

36:10

like a sleeve that you

36:12

know, adds the crisp so in my

36:14

own house, like so much Trader

36:17

Joe's Indian food has been heated

36:19

up at lunchtime. I've got a specific

36:21

request for you listeners out there right

36:23

in and let us know what is the worst

36:26

microwave food product you've ever

36:28

come across? The worst or yeah,

36:31

I would love to hear there's some good ones out

36:33

there? Um or

36:36

also just how how? What are some ingenious

36:38

ways that you use the microwave? And if you have ever

36:41

actually carried out one of these large

36:43

scale um gourmet from

36:45

scratch style nineties seventies

36:47

microwave recipes, I would

36:49

love to hear from you, especially if you have cooked

36:51

a Thanksgiving turkey in a microwave

36:54

all the way, no other ovens involved.

36:57

I have to hear that story, and I have to know what

36:59

there is alted product was like? Or lobster?

37:02

Have you cooked a live lobster in your

37:04

microwave? Don't do it just because you

37:06

heard about it in this episode, but if you have done it

37:08

before, I would like to hear

37:10

from you. In the meantime, if you want to check out

37:13

other episodes of Invention, you can find us

37:15

invention pot dot com. You can also find a show.

37:17

Wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that is,

37:19

make sure you have subscribed and make sure you leave

37:21

a nice comment in some stars. That really helps

37:24

the show out huge thanks as always

37:26

to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas

37:28

Johnson. If you'd like to get in touch with us dance

37:31

or any of our queries from today, or to suggest

37:33

a topic for the future, you can email us at

37:35

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37:37

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