Talk:Microwave oven/Archive 3

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Popcorn makers increasingly being used rather than microwave ovens?

"Popcorn is a very popular item with microwave oven users but increasingly being made in domestic popcorn makers."

Is this true? Popcorn is increasingly made in "domestic popcorn makers" rather than microwave ovens?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tpl6060 (talk • contribs) .

In the United States, hot air popcorn makers came and went in the late 70s and early 80s. Nowadays, the only place I see them is the "still good stuff" pile at the city dump (landfill). But microwave popcorn still seems very popular. Atlant 22:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Microwaving Clothes

i like to microwave my shirts when i get home. i think someone should make a wiki about it. anyone else do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.176.183.15 (talk • contribs) 17:44, 30 October 2006

nutrients loss

I do not understand your conclusion about nutrient losses (not substantial according to the article) which is in total contradiction with the two other references given. It seems that microwave is actually totally destroying flavanoids, which is not the case for other means of cooking. I would thus change this biased conclusion to it seems that some nutrients are greatly affected by microwave irradiation and hot debates are still ongoing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.11.223.47 (talk • contribs) 17:58, 26 November 2006

Comment. First, we have to establish that bioflavonoids are "nutrients" (ala vitamin P) rather than simply phytochemicals with possible medicinal properties. The vitamin claim was an early one by Szent-Gyorgy, but so far as I can tell it was never proven. A nutrient is something animals can't live without, or at least have shortened lifespans, if deprived of. No flavonoids I know of, qualify. Which is why there is no vitamin P these days. Most of the nutritional microwave studies have been done looking at conventional vitamin and protein contents. SBHarris 20:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

History of cooking

Wasn't there a huge push to cook dishes and made-at-home meals in microwaves around 1980, which didn't really take off? I've seen some interesting cookbooks from this era, but since those days it seems all meals (except for TV dinner type entrees) are made in the oven. I didn't see much in the article regarding the history of microwave oven usage and its role in the home. -Rolypolyman 01:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Radiation or power?

The history section includes this sentence regarding the first manufactured microwave:

It was water-cooled and produced 3000 watts, about three times the amount of radiation produced by microwave ovens today.

Is "radiation" the proper word here, or would it be more accurate to say "power"? Hoof Hearted 14:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an engineer, but my basic understanding of the way appliance energy usage is calculated is that this would be the amount of power going in to the microwave, which includes radiation produced but also wasted heat, fans, controls, lights, etc. Manassehkatz 15:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I happen to be an appliance engineer (but obviously not for microwaves) and you are correct that appliances are rated according to power consumed by all components. I guess what I'm getting at is that watt is a unit of power, whereas energy (or radiation) would be measured in joules. Is there some overlap in these terms in the microwave oven industery? Is the sentence understood to mean "...three times the radiation (power) produced by microwave ovens today"? Hoof Hearted 19:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what amount of radiation the early units produced, but it would be perfectly kosher to quantify that radiation output as a power (J/s = watts) just as you do for any RF output. If it was in joules, I wouldn't be sure what it meant. The oven makes 3000 joules of microwaves-- fine. How long does it take to do it? SBHarris 11:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

If constant radiation from a source is to be measured, it seems natural to measure it in watts. A radiologist might be more likely to measure dosage in joules, or some equivalent. Potatoswatter 08:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

You have to know the time or the energy deposited. Radiologists work in rads/dose. Or mSv/dose. But there's no way of calculating "dose" for a microwave oven. For where? For how long? Per meal? What? SBHarris 08:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Residential vs. Industrial Commerical Microwaves

Why do residential microwaves operate at 2.45GHz, but large industrial and commercial ones use 915MHz? - MSTCrow 07:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Not all commercials do, but the very large production-line units operating on larger batches of food moving very quickly, use the lower frequency (one of two permitted FCC cooking microwave bands) to get better food penetration and thus more uniform results in the shorter time they have for the job. For example, you may not need to perfectly dry a soda cracker with no residual moist spots, in a few seconds, in a home microwave oven use. But commercially it's very helpful if you can. Also, the typical oven cavity size makes the > 1-foot wavelength of the commercial frequency much more difficult to manage in terms of stirring and cavity "cold" resonance mode areas. That's not nearly so much a problem with large-cavity commercial units in which food items can be moved on conveyor belts for long distances inside the oven. SBHarris 11:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

More Dangers?

66.209.39.89 posted a reference to a web page with supposed research by William P. Kopp basically saying that microwave ovens are responsible for everything going wrong in the human body. In particular it mentions a ban on microwave ovens by the Soviet Union in 1976 - I found some references on the web that the ban was short-lived - and I found an article basically debunking the whole thing. The only references I could find to William P. Kopp were either web pages posting some or all of his "findings" or debunking those findings. Snopes had nothing, but it all sounds like an urban myth. Manassehkatz 23:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't call a decade "short-lived", but the information on that ban (including the actual reasons) are quite sketchy. Lars T. 17:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

As such legislature go, a decennium is a very short time. Essentially it's a way to say "we were wrong". --Tunheim 10:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Frequency

Why is 2.45 GHz the most common frequency? -- Beland 19:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Because the FCC says so. And it's well absorbed by liquid water. Potatoswatter 08:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

More like "The previous administration was wrong (of course)". Lars T. 17:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Illustration

A cutaway showing where the microwaves are generated and how they are reflected into the food chamber would be useful. I'm also unclear on whether most microwaves have rotating reflectors, and if so, how these are oriented. -- Beland 19:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Turntables have replaced "stirrers" (that fan-like reflector) in essentially all higher-end microwaves. I can't speak for the cheapest models, though. Atlant 00:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)