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My Dad Is Awesome (1)
Below is an e-mail exchange between my aunt and my dad. She likes to send people panicky stuff, although she's quite level-headed in other things. The email below is my dad's reply to her latest panic attack about microwaves being dangerous for people's health, which my dad disproved for her.
So, in order, is my dad totally sounding my aunt for being gullible, and after that is my aunt's forwarded email. Stuff in italics are my dad's opinion.
Dear See meng
Too bad for you. I’m alive and kicking after buying my microwave oven in 1991 and have been using it everyday. If you go by those photos, I would have been shriveled several kg below my current weight. Hence I don’t believe the photos till I have run the experiment independently with several witnesses. No camera tricks.
Like I said in an earlier email, explaining the science behind microwaves, energy comes in various forms.
Unfortunately, it appears that the explanations given then (and the time I spent on that email) has not reached certain brains cells. Perhaps I was not persuasive enough which was probably due to my lack or writing skills to convert the subject matter into simpler lay terms. Or perhaps, as Jaymee puts it “the poverty” of the so-called literate society allows us to be easily convinced by some clever writers – who misconstrues the wonders of scientific achievement, so that we do not trust the scientists, industrialists, educationists and progress in general. And that leads us to be generally dissatisfied with the world around us, which in turn then leads us to distrust life and feel miserable for the rest of our lives. And if they find that some people are not as miserable like them, a few of these distrustful ones, go and bomb crowded train stations or other crowded areas to kill and maim at random. Then they feel damn shiok.
I’m not saying that such emails will result in such dastardly happenings but such minds could be extreme manifestations of disturbed and dissatisfied minds which have been molded by years of being distrustful of all the happenings around the world.
BTW, you’ve been to my home on several occasions over the past many years and had food prepared both from conventional heating sources – gas cookers, electrical rice cookers, electrical grills, and not forgetting microwave oven. I don’t see that you shriveled in any measure, how come? And I’m sure to invite you again for my next family gathering. The next time you come I’ll specially use microwaves to cook most of the dishes, then we observe if any of us shrivel up over the next few days.
Come to think of it, I don’t have to repeat the experiment as demonstrated in the photos, since my method of cooking instant noodles is to heat up a bowl (around 350ml) of water (straight from the tap) for 2min on ‘high’ (this brings up the temp to almost boiling point (=100degC)), put in the noodle cake with the soup stock powder. Then reheat in the microwave on ’high’ for another 2min. which will result in the noodles being cooked for about 1min at boiling temp.
Since 1992, I have been cooking and eating instant noodles about once a week, if not more often. That makes 52 times a year.
In 14 years, that’ll add up to 728 times, several more times than the student watered her plants. Her plant seemed shriveled as shown in the photos, but did you see that I had shriveled over the years?
The attached photo was taken around early Mar this year in Gui Zhou, China, taken with traditional dancers from the Nan Hua village of ‘long horned Miao’ Chinese minority.
The major change in my weight in the past 14 years happened when I started training for Mt Kinabalu hike, from 78kg in Feb 2003 to 70kg in June the same year. This exercise regime was done together with a control in total food consumption, and then maintained between 71-73kg with regular 1h+ track in Bukit Gasing on Sat and Sun. All this time, I was still using my microwave oven to cook food daily, unabated.
Tell me if I’m not a living proof of what I’ve learnt from science and using the gadgets that scientist and technologist has developed.
Actually I’m quite tired of telling the same old story/stories, so if you don’t mind please do not forward me any further horror stories which either warns the readers not to use any modern gadget or inventions made in the last 30-50 years (microwave oven cooking was introduced in the early 50’s, I think which makes it about 50+ years old technology), or warns of impending illness or death arising from consumption of any processed food; UNLESS, you like me to comment or explain if the article was accurate or how true. It’ll save me some time read and compelled to reply (I know I’m a damn slow writer and these replies had taken me a long time.
From: Goh SM
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 1:38 PM
To: savithri padmanaban; Seng Aun; Colleen Soo; Pratheepa . Dhas
Subject: Fw: FW: Fwd: Microwaved Water - See What It Does
I never liked using the micro oven even from the very start,when it first came into existence.In fact,I dont use it,and,for that matter, dont evenquite know how to operate it.When friends came to my apartment and saw me without one, one of them wanted to buy me one as a housewarming gift.I said I did not want one at all,cos I just wont use it.Looks like I was right - tho I did not know why I was loathe to use it .
[My Aunt]
>Microwaved Water - See What It Does To Plants
>
>Below is a science fair project. In it she took filtered water and
>divided it into two parts. The first part she heated to boiling in a
>pan on the stove, and the second part she heated to boiling in a
>microwave. Then after cooling she used the water to water two
>identical plants to see if there would be any difference in the
>growth between the normal boiled water and the water boiled in a
>microwave. She was thinking that the structure or energy of the
>water may be compromised by microwave. As it turned out, even she
>was amazed at the difference.
>
>I have known for years that the problem with microwaved anything is
>not the radiation people used to worry about, It's how it corrupts
>the DNA in the food so the body can not recognize it. So the body
>wraps it in fat cells to protect itself from the dead food or it
>eliminates it fast. Think of all the Mothers heating up milk in
>these "Safe" appliances. What about the nurse in Canada that warmed
>up blood for a transfusion patient and accidentally killed them when
>the blood went in dead. But the makers say it's safe. Never mind
>then, keep using them. Ask your Doctor I am sure they will say it's
>safe too. Proof is in the pictures of living plants dying. Remember
>You are also Living. Take Care.
>
>FORENSIC RESEARCH DOCUMENT
>
>Prepared By: William P. Kopp
>A. R. E. C. Research Operations
>TO61-7R10/10-77F05
>RELEASE PRIORITY: CLASS I ROO1a
>Ten Reasons to Throw out your Microwave Oven
>From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific
>clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting
>in our kitchens. Based on this research, we will conclude this
>article with the following:
>
>1). Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes
>long term - permanent - brain damage by "shorting out" electrical
>impulses in the brain [de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain
>tissue].[Goh Seng Aun] Absolute bumkum, i.e. no truth. Statement made to scare you as a lay person.
>2). The human body cannot metabolize [break down] the unknown
>by-products created in microwaved food. [Goh Seng Aun] It’s ‘unknown’ to you because you did not study Organic Chemistry at uni level TOGETHER with numerous readings of peer authored scientific studies of reactions that happen during cooking by ‘conventional’ electrical and gas fired cookers/ovens. Your ignorance is not your fault. This area of chemical reactions is very specialized and limited to nutritionists, organic chemists (scientists), analytical chemists, and flavorists, which still number in 10,000’s, and to people like me who have the basic understanding and want to remain relevant in the food and flavor industry.
>3). Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered
>by continually eating microwaved foods. [Goh Seng Aun] Another absolute false statement and follows from answer to (2) above.
>4). The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual [long
>term, permanent] within the human body. [Goh Seng Aun] again my answer is in (2). After 50 years of continuous use by millions of homes around the world, hundreds of millions would have died if this were true. Then we don’t have to worry of population explosion.
>5). Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food is
>reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit,
>or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken
>down. [Goh Seng Aun] same here.
>6). The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free
>radicals when cooked in microwave ovens. [Goh Seng Aun] Now this part is Inorganic Chemistry. All minerals are elements or basic chemical components found on earth. They cannot be modified unless subjected to huge reactions like uranium breaking down into plutonium (releasing ‘nuclear’ energy) or hydrogen fusing together to form helium or water (and again releasing energy, as in the case of the energy from our sun). “Free radicals” is a term applied to breakdown compounds of unsaturated fatty acids found during cooking with oils from corn, soy bean, cottonseed, canola, peanut, olive at frying temperatures (>170degC). A much lesser amount of free radicals are formed when you use non-decolorised palm oil for frying because of the high amount of tocotrienols, natural antioxidants present in palm oil. Still, ‘free radicals’ has absolutely nothing to do with minerals. Such are half bucket of shit people trying to fool the no-shit-(=clean)-in-bucket people.
>7). Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths
>[tumors]. This may explain the rapidly increased rate of colon
>cancer in America. [Goh Seng Aun] Another dumb one. Has the author plotted the rise of microwave ovens in kitchens with the incidence of colon cancer? Has he/she studied similar decrease in consumption of fibre containing foods in the American diet?
>8). The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells
>to increase in human blood. [Goh Seng Aun] I think I’ve said enough.
>9). Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune system
>deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.
>10). Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory, concentration,
>emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.
>Have you tossed out your microwave oven yet?
>After you throw out your microwave you can use a toaster oven as a
>replacement. It works well for most and is nearly as quick.
>The use of artificial microwave transmissions for subliminal
>psychological control, a.k.a. "brainwashing", has also been proven.
>We're attempting to obtain copies of the 1970's Russian research
>documents and results written by Drs. Luria and Perov specifying
>their clinical experiments in this area.
>
So, in order, is my dad totally sounding my aunt for being gullible, and after that is my aunt's forwarded email. Stuff in italics are my dad's opinion.
Dear See meng
Too bad for you. I’m alive and kicking after buying my microwave oven in 1991 and have been using it everyday. If you go by those photos, I would have been shriveled several kg below my current weight. Hence I don’t believe the photos till I have run the experiment independently with several witnesses. No camera tricks.
Like I said in an earlier email, explaining the science behind microwaves, energy comes in various forms.
Unfortunately, it appears that the explanations given then (and the time I spent on that email) has not reached certain brains cells. Perhaps I was not persuasive enough which was probably due to my lack or writing skills to convert the subject matter into simpler lay terms. Or perhaps, as Jaymee puts it “the poverty” of the so-called literate society allows us to be easily convinced by some clever writers – who misconstrues the wonders of scientific achievement, so that we do not trust the scientists, industrialists, educationists and progress in general. And that leads us to be generally dissatisfied with the world around us, which in turn then leads us to distrust life and feel miserable for the rest of our lives. And if they find that some people are not as miserable like them, a few of these distrustful ones, go and bomb crowded train stations or other crowded areas to kill and maim at random. Then they feel damn shiok.
I’m not saying that such emails will result in such dastardly happenings but such minds could be extreme manifestations of disturbed and dissatisfied minds which have been molded by years of being distrustful of all the happenings around the world.
BTW, you’ve been to my home on several occasions over the past many years and had food prepared both from conventional heating sources – gas cookers, electrical rice cookers, electrical grills, and not forgetting microwave oven. I don’t see that you shriveled in any measure, how come? And I’m sure to invite you again for my next family gathering. The next time you come I’ll specially use microwaves to cook most of the dishes, then we observe if any of us shrivel up over the next few days.
Come to think of it, I don’t have to repeat the experiment as demonstrated in the photos, since my method of cooking instant noodles is to heat up a bowl (around 350ml) of water (straight from the tap) for 2min on ‘high’ (this brings up the temp to almost boiling point (=100degC)), put in the noodle cake with the soup stock powder. Then reheat in the microwave on ’high’ for another 2min. which will result in the noodles being cooked for about 1min at boiling temp.
Since 1992, I have been cooking and eating instant noodles about once a week, if not more often. That makes 52 times a year.
In 14 years, that’ll add up to 728 times, several more times than the student watered her plants. Her plant seemed shriveled as shown in the photos, but did you see that I had shriveled over the years?
The attached photo was taken around early Mar this year in Gui Zhou, China, taken with traditional dancers from the Nan Hua village of ‘long horned Miao’ Chinese minority.
The major change in my weight in the past 14 years happened when I started training for Mt Kinabalu hike, from 78kg in Feb 2003 to 70kg in June the same year. This exercise regime was done together with a control in total food consumption, and then maintained between 71-73kg with regular 1h+ track in Bukit Gasing on Sat and Sun. All this time, I was still using my microwave oven to cook food daily, unabated.
Tell me if I’m not a living proof of what I’ve learnt from science and using the gadgets that scientist and technologist has developed.
Actually I’m quite tired of telling the same old story/stories, so if you don’t mind please do not forward me any further horror stories which either warns the readers not to use any modern gadget or inventions made in the last 30-50 years (microwave oven cooking was introduced in the early 50’s, I think which makes it about 50+ years old technology), or warns of impending illness or death arising from consumption of any processed food; UNLESS, you like me to comment or explain if the article was accurate or how true. It’ll save me some time read and compelled to reply (I know I’m a damn slow writer and these replies had taken me a long time.
From: Goh SM
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 1:38 PM
To: savithri padmanaban; Seng Aun; Colleen Soo; Pratheepa . Dhas
Subject: Fw: FW: Fwd: Microwaved Water - See What It Does
I never liked using the micro oven even from the very start,when it first came into existence.In fact,I dont use it,and,for that matter, dont evenquite know how to operate it.When friends came to my apartment and saw me without one, one of them wanted to buy me one as a housewarming gift.I said I did not want one at all,cos I just wont use it.Looks like I was right - tho I did not know why I was loathe to use it .
[My Aunt]
>Microwaved Water - See What It Does To Plants
>
>Below is a science fair project. In it she took filtered water and
>divided it into two parts. The first part she heated to boiling in a
>pan on the stove, and the second part she heated to boiling in a
>microwave. Then after cooling she used the water to water two
>identical plants to see if there would be any difference in the
>growth between the normal boiled water and the water boiled in a
>microwave. She was thinking that the structure or energy of the
>water may be compromised by microwave. As it turned out, even she
>was amazed at the difference.
>
>I have known for years that the problem with microwaved anything is
>not the radiation people used to worry about, It's how it corrupts
>the DNA in the food so the body can not recognize it. So the body
>wraps it in fat cells to protect itself from the dead food or it
>eliminates it fast. Think of all the Mothers heating up milk in
>these "Safe" appliances. What about the nurse in Canada that warmed
>up blood for a transfusion patient and accidentally killed them when
>the blood went in dead. But the makers say it's safe. Never mind
>then, keep using them. Ask your Doctor I am sure they will say it's
>safe too. Proof is in the pictures of living plants dying. Remember
>You are also Living. Take Care.
>
>FORENSIC RESEARCH DOCUMENT
>
>Prepared By: William P. Kopp
>A. R. E. C. Research Operations
>TO61-7R10/10-77F05
>RELEASE PRIORITY: CLASS I ROO1a
>Ten Reasons to Throw out your Microwave Oven
>From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific
>clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting
>in our kitchens. Based on this research, we will conclude this
>article with the following:
>
>1). Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes
>long term - permanent - brain damage by "shorting out" electrical
>impulses in the brain [de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain
>tissue].[Goh Seng Aun] Absolute bumkum, i.e. no truth. Statement made to scare you as a lay person.
>2). The human body cannot metabolize [break down] the unknown
>by-products created in microwaved food. [Goh Seng Aun] It’s ‘unknown’ to you because you did not study Organic Chemistry at uni level TOGETHER with numerous readings of peer authored scientific studies of reactions that happen during cooking by ‘conventional’ electrical and gas fired cookers/ovens. Your ignorance is not your fault. This area of chemical reactions is very specialized and limited to nutritionists, organic chemists (scientists), analytical chemists, and flavorists, which still number in 10,000’s, and to people like me who have the basic understanding and want to remain relevant in the food and flavor industry.
>3). Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered
>by continually eating microwaved foods. [Goh Seng Aun] Another absolute false statement and follows from answer to (2) above.
>4). The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual [long
>term, permanent] within the human body. [Goh Seng Aun] again my answer is in (2). After 50 years of continuous use by millions of homes around the world, hundreds of millions would have died if this were true. Then we don’t have to worry of population explosion.
>5). Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food is
>reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit,
>or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken
>down. [Goh Seng Aun] same here.
>6). The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free
>radicals when cooked in microwave ovens. [Goh Seng Aun] Now this part is Inorganic Chemistry. All minerals are elements or basic chemical components found on earth. They cannot be modified unless subjected to huge reactions like uranium breaking down into plutonium (releasing ‘nuclear’ energy) or hydrogen fusing together to form helium or water (and again releasing energy, as in the case of the energy from our sun). “Free radicals” is a term applied to breakdown compounds of unsaturated fatty acids found during cooking with oils from corn, soy bean, cottonseed, canola, peanut, olive at frying temperatures (>170degC). A much lesser amount of free radicals are formed when you use non-decolorised palm oil for frying because of the high amount of tocotrienols, natural antioxidants present in palm oil. Still, ‘free radicals’ has absolutely nothing to do with minerals. Such are half bucket of shit people trying to fool the no-shit-(=clean)-in-bucket people.
>7). Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths
>[tumors]. This may explain the rapidly increased rate of colon
>cancer in America. [Goh Seng Aun] Another dumb one. Has the author plotted the rise of microwave ovens in kitchens with the incidence of colon cancer? Has he/she studied similar decrease in consumption of fibre containing foods in the American diet?
>8). The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells
>to increase in human blood. [Goh Seng Aun] I think I’ve said enough.
>9). Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune system
>deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.
>10). Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory, concentration,
>emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.
>Have you tossed out your microwave oven yet?
>After you throw out your microwave you can use a toaster oven as a
>replacement. It works well for most and is nearly as quick.
>The use of artificial microwave transmissions for subliminal
>psychological control, a.k.a. "brainwashing", has also been proven.
>We're attempting to obtain copies of the 1970's Russian research
>documents and results written by Drs. Luria and Perov specifying
>their clinical experiments in this area.
>
no subject