Refurbishing kitchen - induction hob concerns

Jan,

I am not in a position to prove one or the other. I believe neither are you or anyone here on this forum. I am not interested in having an argument one way or the other, not interested in proving my point or disproving yours. What you put forward covers some elements of the total picture, it's not conclusive by any means. I have simply posted information that I found interesting. It is one of the few studies that has actually looked at physiological changes within the body after consuming microwaved food. And it doesn't read well at all. There is more information on the subject on the Internet for anyone who is interested. At the end of the day we all have to make up our own minds. And to a degree let our own intuition guide our decisions. I have decided long ago that I do not want to eat microwaved food, nor do I want to eat food that has been prepared on an induction hob. But hey, it's a free world and everyone is free to eat what they want.

ATB

tp

Mike, that goes without saying, but yes, I should have been more precise in my wording. 

On your other point, what you call scaremongering I would simply call common sense or being cautious. But yes there are those who will always say, nah, don't worry it's all good, no problem at all. Maybe you are one of those people. The problem is neither you nor they have the knowledge of whether it actually poses a problem or not. So rather than coming out with absolute statements like "It's just scaremongering..." maybe you'd be better advised to simply say that it isn't a problem for you, which is fine.

Errr... have you even read my post and understood what's written in there?

What Jan has put forward are three articles loosely related to microwave ovens, none of them look at what happens when you ingest microwaved food. The study by Dr. Hans U. Hertel and Prof. Dr. Bernhard H. Blanc did.

Apples and Oranges!

I'm with TP on this one.

When an alternative negative view is put forward, its often described as "scaremongering" and rather kills the debate. I think in this instance one can only step cautiously and make a personal choice. 

Its the same with GM crops, climate change, etc, etc, the long term science is on going and people need to position themselves philosophically in the debate. The term 'scaremongering' is too tabloid and comes across as condescending.

Microwaving food is not conducive to my cooking and eating habits (it does not cook food well, IMO) and the science debate is still ongoing as far as I am concerned and like TP, microwave cookers have no place in my home.

Jason.

I disagree - I called it scaremongering deliberately & do not intend to change that.

There is no proof of any detrimental effects, its been researched far far more than any other form of cooking heat (exception microwave) & I have yet to see any proof of any detrimental effects on humans related to the cooking process or magnetic effects.

I do agree people with cardiac pacemakers do need to use them with caution,  but even so this risk is somewhat dependant on a number of items that include pacemaker design or a defect. 

To my knowledge no studies have been carried out that have looked at the effects induction food has on the human body when ingested. It hasn't been shown to be safe nor has it been demonstrated that it is not safe. 

You say "it has been researched far more than any other form of cooking heat". Can you please guide me to these findings as per my first sentence?

With regards to microwaved food an its effect on the human body when ingested, I am only aware of one study and that is the one carried out by Dr. Hans U. Hertel and Prof. Dr. Bernhard H. Blanc. 

Part of the issue with matters such as this is how the terms 'safe' and 'unsafe' are employed. These are not necessarily absolute terms but rather are often used to describe a degree of safety or otherwise. Meaning that something described as being safe may still involve a degree of risk, albeit small and perhaps one that is not easily quantifiable perhaps due to a lack of data.

As an example. Many older garages have asbestos roofs. These are considered safe, although asbestos is certainly a potentially very harmful material. Clearly in reality there is a risk, but it is minimal provided that the material is left alone. It is safe, but not risk-free. I would suggest that a similar argument applies to the processes of microwave and induction cooking and the safety of the food so prepared. To avoid it due to health concerns is not I think a course of action entirely devoid of sound reasoning.

The Swami

Very true. I shouldn't have used the term safe in the first place. What I meant to say is harmful. But even here there is room for definition and interpretation. In any case, the real problem lies in accumulative effects, i.e. long term usage & ingestion of such prepared foods. Hence, it will be very difficult to convince the doubters. As I said above, at the end of the day everyone has to make his / her own decisions.

tp

Close but not quite. Risk is the probability of the undesired outcome occuring. If the asbestos is left undisturbed and you breathe no fibres into your lungs, the risk to health is zero, i.e., risk-free.

Risk is the correct term to describe the degree of safety.

Jan

Loosely related? Er, no. All three were specifically related to microwave cooking; 

the last one looked at the chemical composition of food after very intense microwaving, for the express purpose of verifying the basis for the study you cite (which I stlll haven't found). What better way to check for food toxicity than immediately after microwaving and before breakdown by the digestive system?... unless you are proposing some other (yet unknown) mechanism whereby microwaved food is transformed once ingested.

There is no such thing as "induction food". As Mike has correctly pointed out, induction merely heats the metal pan. The correct term would be heated food, I think.

Jan, quit the analism, English is not my first language. We all know what we are talking about, it's the bigger picture I am getting at... 

Bloody hell...

Whatever. Analysing the food is of lesser relevance, what's important is how the body responds to the ingested food. The study I referred to did exactly that and the results are not pretty. 

I am out! 

Seriously? There are more important things to worry about than this.

Sure, the food you eat is of no importance, you are right, that's why half the American public is fat as pigs and we all know that obesity is of course the next best thing to physical exercise. And of course diseases of the digestive tract, including cancer, have nothing to do with what you eat and how you eat it. And of course all this has no impact on people's life expectancy. Jesus, I thought you Canadians were a bit smarter. The level of intelligence on this forum is scary.

Out!

No, the reason why people are fat is that they are either uneducated, which is not an excuse, and hence eat bad food, or they just don't give a damn and eat bad food and mostly because they are plain lazy and don't exercise. Often times it's a combination of the above.

Simples.

There are some unfortunate people who are fat due to a certain medical disposition, I accept that, and that is very unfortunate indeed. But even those people, I am sure, would benefit from a healthy diet and regular exercise.

And btw. when I walk through cities here in Germany I see too many obese people as well, including 5 year olds, and the reason for that is that their bloody parents don't give a toss and feed them a shite diet. If you have children be responsible!!

But in this day and age people think they can eat everything, no matter how bad, without there being any consequences and not having to give anything. That includes a beautiful body, eat shite all day, don't worry, the next plastic surgeon is just a phone call away. Liposuction why not? Today's society is so degenerated it's mind numbing.

Rant over! 

Yeah, but what does that have to do with the safety of induction hobs?

Nor has eating apples.