Questions tagged [food]
61 questions
54
votes
3 answers
Why is Microwaved mac & cheese burnt where they touch?
After reheating cold about 1.5 oz. of Annie's Mac & Cheese shells for 15 seconds on high power in the microwave, the mac & cheese was burnt black only at certain points where the pasta is touching each other. Does anyone have an idea of what might…
Zooky
- 521
29
votes
3 answers
How do microwaves heat moisture-free items?
Today I learnt that microwaves heat food by blasting electromagnetic waves through the water molecules found in the food.
Does that mean food with 0% moisture (if such a thing exists - dried spices?) will never receive heat from a microwave oven?…
Daniel Wilson
- 393
24
votes
3 answers
Could you compress chocolate such that it has the same density and shape as a real copper coin?
There are many cultures around the world that have traditions of chocolate coins around Christmas time, mine included. Recently I wondered if it was possible to compress chocolate to give it the same density as a real coin (which are mostly made of…
JohnMcSwag
- 353
23
votes
1 answer
Why is steaming food not faster than boiling it?
A recent Physics SE question asked "Why is steaming food faster than boiling it?, and specifically why food heats faster in steam than in boiling water. As noted in my answer to that question, if we only count the time after the food is placed in…
David Bailey
- 13,658
20
votes
3 answers
Why does chocolate burn if you microwave it with milk?
Chocolate Science!
I melt 3 spoons of dark chocolate in microwave oven in low. It melts in 3 minutes and it's just mildly warm. I add half a spoon of milk which makes it a bit cold again. So I microwave it again and in 10 seconds it BOILS!! In 20…
Anonymous
- 311
19
votes
4 answers
Why is steaming food faster than boiling it?
I had for a long time been of the belief that steaming food (say broccoli) was faster than boiling it. That is, over a fixed period of time, the heat transferred from steam in a closed pot of boiling water would exceed the heat transferred by the…
Jack
- 1,257
- 6
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18
votes
3 answers
When a microwave oven stops, why are unpopped kernels very hot and popped kernels not hot?
A commonplace empirical observation is that when a microwave oven stops, unpopped kernels are very hot (it's physically painful to touch them) and popped kernels are not.
Is there an elementary (or not) exposition of the physics involved?
Michael Hardy
- 718
18
votes
4 answers
Why does pizza cheese seem hotter than the crust?
When I eat hot pizza or a melted cheese sandwich, the cheese feels a lot hotter than the crust or bread: in particular, the cheese might scald the roof of my mouth. but the crust will not. Is this
my imagination, or
because the crust cools a little…
msh210
- 428
15
votes
2 answers
Patterns on melted, then solidified chocolate
Observation
I have melted some chocolate (in a bain-marie, or water-bath) in a bowl, and then turned off the stove. I let the hot and liquid chocolate stand there, letting it cool for a few hours at room temperature. Then (it was solid, albeit not…
DominikS
- 259
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15
votes
5 answers
How do we calculate energy of food?
Here is the problem, according to me:
In a classic hamburger, according to my internet research, approximately 906 kJ are contained.
Now take a car of 1 000 kilograms, and push it to 30 m/s. It has a certain kinetic energy, which is:
1 000 * 30² =…
totalMongot
- 251
14
votes
7 answers
Microwave inside-out cooking true/false
The wikipedia article on microwave ovens says
Another misconception is that microwave ovens cook food "from the inside out", meaning from the center of the entire mass of food outwards.
It further says that
with uniformly structured or reasonably…
Erhannis
- 327
14
votes
4 answers
Why are coke bottles that much fizzier if you shake them?
We've all been there: you drop your bottle of soda at some point and when you try to open it, it bursts into foam.
My question is, then: why does shaking a carbonated drink make the dissolved gas escape?
Emilio Pisanty
- 137,480
13
votes
4 answers
Can we detect whether food has previously been heated in a microwave oven?
An acquaintance told me that she refuses to eat microwaved food because she read that the microwave changes the molecules of the food somehow. Her statement is vague and her sources are dubious but I am curious.
I know that microwaves tend to heat…
Robert
- 1,111
11
votes
4 answers
Why do we use microwaves in microwave oven?
We know that any object above absolute zero emits electromagnetic radiation. The hotter the object, the shorter the wavelengths. In the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, radio waves have the longest wavelength, then microwaves, then infrared, then…
Bhavesh
- 1,923
10
votes
5 answers
Why does microwave take more time to heat more food?
As I understand, a microwave works by generating an electromagnetic field. As food enters this field, waves will transfer energy to those food particles that are intercepted by waves, and those particles that are not intercepted by waves will not…
Maurice
- 101