Reason #48 why I love the Food Network

[laediebug]

Last night, on Food Detectives, I learned what not to put in a microwave.

• Grapes
• Eggs
• Liquids in a completely smooth container
• Carrots
• Bars of soap

Comments

[silentperiod]

*searches for soap to microwave*

[fatcook]

Who'd want hot grapes?
Knew about eggs from Home-EC (about a century ago).
Not really. It's the pure liquid that super-heats. Anything with impurities (Phoenix tap water) boils because the impurities heat faster than the water.*
How long did they cook the carrots? I've never had that happen.
Soap, soooo rules in the micro!

*Mythbusters Season One

[laediebug]

Knowing now that I can't nuke grapes makes me want to try warm grapes.

So do the impurities provide a nucleation point for the bubbles to form? From what I understand, it's not the heat, it's that the liquid needs a places for bubbles to form so the steam can escape. That's why it explodes--whatever is added (coffee, chocolate mix, etc.) provides nucleation points and all the steam bubbles at once.

lon_sama has done it where she's tried to boil tap water in the microwave and it never nucleated. We didn't then add something to make it explode, though. We knew better than that. :)

I don't know about the carrots. They put them in whole and unpeeled, it looked like. They blamed it on the metals, but you can totally put metal in the microwave, just not certain shapes. I wish Alton Brown were a producer. The science and explanations would have been less vague.

[bobosan]

is it bad that i want to put all those things in the microwave now?