Microwave oven, a good cooking equipment or a dangerous radiation emitting machine

People know how to use microwave for cooking for a long time. Nowadays, microwave oven is a very common cooking equipment which can be found in almost every Thai kitchen. Microwave oven can provide us undeniable convenience but there’s an urban legend that “Staring at a microwave oven while it’s operating can cause cellular damage, skin burn, blind and mutation!”. But is there any truth to this myth?

Microwave oven cooks food by using electromagnetic waves that are similar to radiowave and infrared that called “Microwave” (haha) as its name. The common microwave oven emits 2.45 GHz electromagnetic waves. The waves can vibrate molecules which are electrically asymmetrical. Vibrated molecules (usually water) will receive kinetic energy from waves and transfer it to thermal energy. Thermal energy causes heating which can be used for cooking.

 Let us go back to the myth that I’ve mentioned before. Although a microwave can make our daily routine so much easier, it is actually very hazardous. Microwave, in the same amount that we use to cook, can also heat water in our cell and cause cell death. Our skin will be burnt from that. Moreover, the microwave heating denatures proteins in the lens of our eyes with cause cataracts… like every sources of heating can do. Yes, every source such as fire, light bulb or normal oven. If the source generates enough temperature, it can harm us. Normally, the radiation from a usual microwave won’t be dangerous for us because of an electromagnetic shielding part of the oven which simply called “a microwave door”. If the microwave oven is complete and close, it will be safe for us. 5 milliwatt per square centimeter at approximately 5 cm from the surface of the oven is the amount of standard microwave radiation while the amount of usual sunlight is 12 milliwatt per square centimeter. That means the sunlight is even more dangerous for us.

And how about the mutation that can occur from microwave? I have to say that this myth is definitely untrue. There are some types of radiation can cause a genetic mutation. These types are called ionizing radiation. This type has range of frequency between 100 billion billion to infinity Hertz which is very high. While the frequency of usual microwave oven radiation is 2.45 billion Hertz, it is a non-ionizing radiation which can do nothing to genetic material.

Definitely, microwave oven is a good cooking equipment if we use it appropiately. We should check the door every time you use it if it is broken or damaged; to make sure that there would be no leakage of radiation.