Are you sure it’s not the removable rice bag in the ass of the sloth that’s supposed to be microwaved… Not the entire plushy?
I have the same one.
We have lots of these. Our sloth definitely goes all in.
Basically anything made by Warmies won’t have a removable bag, everything else will (in my experience).
A lot of the Sainsbury’s ones appear to be made by Warmies. They don’t have removable bags - just stick the entire critter in.
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.
The trick is to cover the eyes and entire head with aluminum foil, then soak the animal in kerosine before making your child watch you microwave it.
Ah, I was thinking you’d want it to ignite in the child’s hands to really maximize the lifelong trauma and deep seated trust issues.
This is a much better plan, but how do you ensure the delayed ignition? Some kind of det cord? Or a chemical catalyst?
Yes, fair enough. I think the ones which are designed to go in on the microwave are designed so the eyes don’t get hot though!
Oh 100% they are. It would probably be harder to design them so they did get hot than otherwise, since I think the most suitable resin for eyes and buttons doesn’t get hot. But it’d be a shame if someone got burned. :)
The microwave energy will absolutely heat the eyes, and everything else in there, regardless of moisture. The dielectric materials will heat quickly as they offer resistance to the RF.
You must be thinking of humans, as human eyes will generally heat quicker when a body is exposed to RF. The rest of the human body will heat as well, but the eyes may melt first, while electricity arcs between the fillings on their teeth.
There are a lot of assumptions here. The specific frequency of the microwave oven is tuned to be absorbed by water molecules.
Yes other materials, particularly metals, (shape and size matter too) can absorb the RF energy as well, but a lot do not, and the RF passes harmlessly through them.
Just like the massive amounts of RF that is going through you right now, every second of everyday. It is everywhere, but the wavelength is something that ignores almost everything you are made of.
There are assumptions for sure, as to the materials of the sloth, and how it interacts with the microwave energy. Will the eyes heat? Probably. Will they heat before the rest of the plushy erupts into flames? Not sure, but it’a testable, just not in my microwave.
There are many sections of the electromagnetic spectrum, but we are dealing with microwave energy in a microwave. Communication signals bouncing off the ionosphere and RF generated by car ignitions doesn’t seem relevent to the discussion.
The RF, as electromagnetic energy, will induce current in metal objects that cut across the path of propagation. Yes, size, shape, material are important, which is why the plushie doesn’t immediately catch fire.
If you allow microwave frequencies to cut across a human body with sufficient output power, you will heat that body and cook them with similar effects as food in a microwave.
Not sure, but it’a testable, just not in my microwave.
If the instructions say to microwave the thing whole, then it was presumably tested in the manufacturer’s microwave, though
That makes sense, I just remember a painful burn decades ago when hugging one that was in the back window of our car in a sunny parking lot.
That’s a pretty different situation though.
The one that I have has embroidered eyes, so no worries there
Before clicking, I was going to suggest to check if it’s an ass rice design.
OOP should make REAL CLEAR to any kids that you can’t do this to living creatures.
You do this with a frozen hampster in The Day of the Tentacle, which seemed so morbid to me.
If it helps this was one of the earliest uses of the microwave. They were experimenting with reheating frozen hampsters to see if a creature could be revived from such a state. The issue was that the defreezing options at the time were too slow, and didn’t penetrate the outer layer into the core of the creature, but with the invention of the microwave they actually got the process working.
Okay so typing this out it is a little cruel actually, but it’s still kinda neat and led to furthering our knowledge of the universe.
Huh, so there was actual basis for that in the game? That’s so interesting!
There’s a great Tom scott that goes over it, it’s really neat and wild that this was before the microwave was widely used as like a food thing.
frozen hampster
reheating frozen hampsters
Hamsters?
Did we just witness double trouble?
They’re crispier in the air fryer.
Don’t put the rat in the fryer
That’s got to be one of the worst thing I’ve read in a few months
You’re not my supervisor!
Hehe Hehe, cool! Burn it! Burn burn!!
Air fryers aren’t microwaves heating things in weird ways. It’s just an oven that gets hot faster and blows air around a lot. Why would a mouse explode?
Also, I’m assuming mouse because how could a rat get in an air fryer without you noticing? Hell I’m not-sure how a mouse could but a rat seems far fetched.
Yeah, lots of unanswered questions here.
I have two air fryers, a smallish one with a slide out tray, and a largish one that looks more like a toaster oven (glass door that opens downward). The first absolutely isn’t big enough for a rat to fit, and the second could maybe fit one, but it’s nowhere near big enough to not notice.
I could see a mouse though, especially smaller field mice. I don’t think it would “explode,” but I could see blood from it trying to escape frantically.
I didn’t know there was a difference between mice and rats but after looking it up (read: asking ChatGPT), yes it was a small mouse. Also I forgot the air fryer half open at night.
Air fryers aren’t microwaves heating things in weird ways. It’s just an oven that gets hot faster and blows air around a lot. Why would a mouse explode?
idk man maybe the air inside the mouse expanded until it exploded or something? I can’t really give you a definitive answer since I didn’t dissect the little guy. All I know is that I heard something pop, and when I looked inside my air fryer there was a twitching dead mouse with a splash of blood coming out of its mouth.
Oh I missed you had screen shotted your own comment. Not sure why someone downvoted you.
Rats are huge compared to mice, I had assumed you meant a mouse.
Also I wouldn’t really consider a mouse bleeding out it’s mouth “exploding”. I had assumed pieces were splattered around. Just a difference in interpreting words.
Microwaving dyes and synthetic fabrics doesn’t seem safe
Microwaves are tuned to heat water molecules.
They’ll pass right through fabric and plastic/synthetics.The standard technique to heat non-water based things is by using a thin layer of foil (e.g. microwave Popcorn or some instant meals).
It could be a gel too, but there may be a danger if hot leak.Unless the plushie is on fire when it’s given back to the child, I don’t see how this could go wrong.
Heating plastics can release VOC. Many plastics will get hot in a microwave. It’s recommended not to heat food in plastic containers for this reason
This applies to food, I doubt it’s relevant in this scenario, but I am open to being proven wrong.
The point is VoCs and plastic particles move to other surfaces more readily (or to the air) once heated. Kids who play with toys breathe the air around them. The also touch them, and sometimes chew on them. I fail to see the meaningful difference.
We have the turtle warmie. Kiddo calls it ‘warm turtle’. I will never feel ok microwaving a turtle
What about doing it sous vide?
This suffocated the turtle
But how was the taste?
Like slightly fishy chicken, with a hint of polyethylene.
Apart from the last part, that is how I have described the taste of alligator meat to people before.
Americans will do anything except use an electric kettle
I told my friend from Australia that I heated water for tea on the stove in a saucepan and she said it was barbaric
Do the British heat their lower back with tea?
Yes.
I enjoy my under sink instant hot water heater.
It can produce 14 liters of water at 70 to 100°C per hour.
I never need to boil water really on the stove, fill a pot and let it boil for like spaghetti. But for like instant raman noodles, just adding the water in a bowl with it works perfectly fine.
I live in America and they aren’t the most common thing installed in kitchens
Is there an advantage of a kettle over instant 100°C water on tap? Couldn’t you just use it to make tea?
It depends how much boiling water you need per day. Unless you use a LOT it’s more efficient (cost/energy wise) to use a kettle. Plus there’s a significant upfront cost to install a boiling water tap. However, if you drink a shitload of tea, or use a lot of boiling water in cooking, it’s generally better to have the on tap option.
I feel like if I were a tea drinker, it would be a no-brainer to get one over using a kettle every morning.
You can buy a whole unit on a large website for 302.43. Just a place at the top searches. So maybe cheaper somewhere else.
Most people are going to have power for their dishwasher or garbage disposal
Getting a hole in the countertop would be the hardest DIY part about it.
Non-stone countertop, and I’d probably charge like $200 to put it in for like 1 hour of work at most.
It’s easily worth 300-500 dollars to get instant tea every morning for years.
Better yet installing a small filter water system while you’re at it. While plumber is there, it would be easy to add both at the same time and you’d get a discount rather than doing them at separate times.
The 302.43 unit comes with “cold” tap water dispensing as well. You could have filtered “cold” tap water on demand as well with the single faucet.
It’s an amazing upgrade for a house if you can afford it. I do see some electric kettles for <$10. Apparently, some you can keep plugged in and running always, didn’t know that. Sounds risky unless you get an expensive one and they you should probably just go all out for the faucet.
Most of us don’t drink tea. My wife does and we have an electric kettle. It’s fantastic.
Still not as weird as microwaving tea.
Don’t people microwave the water, not the tea?
Yup, 70-80s in the microwave, add the tea bag, cover the cup, then wait a few minutes for it to steep. Likewise for hot chocolate, but cut to 70s to not scald the milk.
I did this for years before we got a kettle, and now I use the kettle more for general water heating than tea (we don’t drink much tea).
Username doesn’t check out.
People! Just get a kettle 😳
My partner has a sheep one that she uses to help with period pain, can confirm it’s very weird.
New SCP just dropped.
“subject is able to store and emit large bursts of microwave radiation, causing the eyeballs of several Class D personnel to melt upon hugging the subject”
There’s a video game from my youth about this, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LgOJkdLLGvs.
We’ve got our ways to make you speak
We’ve got our ways to make you talk
I see you took our microwave. Look its fine, just bring it back first thing tomorrow morning. Good night!
