this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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Won't the eyes get super hot?
I am unfamiliar with stuffed animal microwaving tactics, as I generally default to the air fryer, but have also heard good things about sous vide, fwiw.
The eyes generally just explode. /jk No, they don't get hot because they don't contain any moisture.
I should put a caveat in here: if your stuffed animal says to remove the bag and microwave it separately, remove the bag and microwave it separately. Also, don't put a stuffed animal in the air fryer.
Just to add on a clarifying detail: microwaves can heat things that aren't water, they just usually don't do so nearly as well. So while this sloth might have eyes that don't get hot, a different one might have them cheerfully get insanely hot very fast.
So do my plates contain moisture? How can a bowl be ridiculously hot to handle while the contents inside range from warm to ice cold?
There's a whooopoooole lot of factors that can be involved, and it can be a combination of all of them.
Background: microwaves don't just heat water, they heat things with molecules that, like water, have a lopsided electric charge. When the microwave energy comes in contact with something, it either goes through it without interacting, bounces off of it, or is absorbed. Light with a window, a mirror and black paint is the same.
Lopsided molecules absorb the microwave and wiggle, and wiggly molecules are what we perceive as hot.
Microwave safe items are transparent to the microwave energy, and it goes through to the food.
Depending on the material your plate or bowl is made of, it might not be properly microwave safe. Some ceramics have the lopsided molecules microwaves like, so they get hot.
The bowl might also be made of a material that transfers heat really well. Think about how air from a hot oven is tolerable to have hit your face but significantly colder water is lethal.
It's in continuous contact with something that's getting up to boiling, the steam on the food, and so it gets hot quickly and transfers the heat to your hand easily. Since water can absorb a ton of energy before turning to steam, the energy is there for a while and there's plenty to heat the bowl.
Finally, microwaves have hotspots, even with the rotating tray. This can work with either of the previous two things to allow the food to stay cold while pumping a lot of energy into the bowl or one spot in the food. It's why a lot of reheat functions run the microwave and then sit for a few minutes:it lets the heat from the hotspots even out.