MetaChat - Two posts in a row for me!

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10 December 2006

Two posts in a row for me! I was just heating some oatmeal and I accidentally put the wrong bowl in the microwave, the big metal bowl in which I had refrigerated all the oatmeal, not the smaller ceramic bowl I'd filled to eat. I nuked it for half a minute. No sparks! Did I do something terribly wrong? Is the oatmeal in the metal bowl still edible? Sorry, I'm doing some late-night proofing and feedback and I'm getting a bit loopy.

post by: shane at: 02:48 | 11 comments

It will make you pee blue tomorrow, but it's otherwise perfectly harmless.

Unless it were a lead bowl. Eating from lead bowls in not a good idea.

posted by Five Fresh Fish 10 December | 02:54

Yeah, so far as I can recall, the danger from microwaving metal is destruction of the microwave (that was a wicked cool episode of Mythbusters).

But please don't come and haunt me if the oatmeal kills you.

posted by fenriq 10 December | 03:24

You'll be fine. The only issue with metal is because the radiation used to heat the food can't penetrate metal; instead it reflects off it and could possibly hit the thing that creates it and cause some nasty damage. Have a look at this.

posted by TheDonF 10 December | 03:24

Your oatmeal is fine. Heating metal like that could lower the lifespan of the magnetron in your microwave, but otherwise it's fine. Just don't make a habit of putting metal bowls in there and you should be ok.

posted by court siem 10 December | 03:27

Or what they said.

posted by court siem 10 December | 03:28

There's really a thing called a magnetron? It sounds like something that might attack Godzilla. Or a huge something that's hurtling toward Earth. Or a maybe a Transformer.

posted by deborah 10 December | 10:57

If you ate the oatmeal, Shane, then your brain will at this moment be cooking from the inside out.

IANAscientist.

posted by essexjan 10 December | 11:06

Do you have superpowers now? Cause I want some superpowers, and I like oatmeal, and I have a microwave.

posted by theora55 10 December | 12:04

Yes, I have superpowers. I can snorf oatmeal thru my sinuses. And do other things. But I need a magnetron for world domination.

posted by shane 10 December | 12:33

So how's your pee today? Pretty cool, eh?

posted by Five Fresh Fish 10 December | 14:32

There's really a thing called a magnetron?

Yep, along with your old style tv/crt the only vacuum tubes in a modern house.

posted by Mitheral 10 December | 18:29

← Grammar buffs, to me! || I thought this was a cool bit of Jimmy and Stevie Ray Vaughan playing together... →

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