Siobhan, You seem to be picking at the strangest parts of the responses. I, for one, don't care what the Russians are doing, since scientists in the US have far more freedom and independence. My father is a physicist and has never once had the government knock on his door telling him he can't research something. Both my sister and her husband are chemistry professors and have never had the government knock on their door and tell them they can't research something. There was also the point that Russians *are* using microwaves. As for fat content in microwaved meat, that was a strange thing to pick out of the whole article. We all know that's the popular train of thought these days. But to get very nit-picky, the author was actually correct, according to what I've read from Ray and Loren Cordain. Unless you are eating naturally fed free-range meats, you should not be ingesting excess amounts of the fats on domestic animals. I use my microwave to reheat meats but not cook them, since I like my meat browned. Not that this makes any difference one way or another to the debate. :) Denise