off topic - metal in microwaves

[maxthaxe]

Hi there - this is very much off-topic, but perhaps someone can shed some light. I'm sure we all have been told not to put metal objects in the microwave. The other day I was at the local 99 cent store, and I purchased a 'Shephards pie" from the frozen foods section. It came in an aluminum tray, much like the standard TV dinners I have come to depend on so much in my divorced lifestyle. The instructions clearly said it was OK to put in the microwave, just to be sure two containers were not touching each other. I did as they said (they being some company outside of the good old USA), and the dinner appeared with no fires, sparks, or anything bad. Makes me wonder if all the other metal-tray dinner companies aren't just blowing steam. The dinner, by the way, was very good. Any thoughts on this?

[wellmashed]

It's coated aluminium.

Specially made microwave safe coated aluminium.

You can put normal tin (aluminium) foil in there in certain cases as well.

You can boil an egg in a microwave by wrapping the egg in foil and dropping it into a cup of water and boiling the water.
The foil will stop the microwaves from reaching the shell and the egg will be cooked conventionally by the heat of water.

But try putting an egg unbroken on a plate and cooking it in there.......

[marcusaxavier]

I've put metal in the microwave, and it does give off sparks. I also had a friend who put his pants (jeans) in the microwave for 5 minutes and destroyed his parents' microwave that way. He became pantless and got a tanned hide.

[wellmashed]

Metal does give sparks.....unless it's done a certain way....

You know how women sometimes time themselves while drying their hair........

No don't laugh...It's something to do with damaging it.....

There was a woman in my hometown that set the microwave for whatever time for the purpose of hairdrying,so that the dingy bell type thing would tell her that her hair was going to fry..............

Well................

Coz there was nothing in there to cook the microwave oven exploded.....................Blew out the kitchen windows and caused structural damage..........

Honestly............
I know you are going to think "Bollocks........" but it was a headline story in the local rag.

[jeex]

when i was like 11 i put a cd in the microwave upside down.. it was skipping and i was like, "hmmmm.. okay, if i put it in there upside down and let it heat up just a little bit it will melt the plastic ever so slightly and the scratch & skipping will go away.." well, no it didnt. it actually did a containted shattering of the cd.. its kinda neat to look at though.. give it a shot. it only takes a few seconds.

[maxthaxe]

Thanks for the suggestion, I think regarding scratched CD's I'll just stick to the old method of taking it out into the garage and running it across my power planer (planar?). It never fails to wipe out the scratches. Looking at the news just now, perhaps I should just mail it to India or Pakistan and let them try to fry the scratch.

[zzyzzx]

I put a big roach in the microwace once.

[maxthaxe]

Funny, but not necessarily that funny. I had an outbreak of cockroaches in my house two years ago, the first I had ever seen in twenty years. I have my house sprayed quarterly for fleas, and that seemed to take care of the roaches, until one day I noticed something moving in the display section of my kitchen microwave. Took it apart, and found that that was where they had retreated for safety. A little bit of the good old liquid killer, and I have not seen another for over a year.