My cat food caught on fire!

exoticbabee

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Well, it didn't exactly catch on fire but it was sparking!! I put some wet food (Natural Balance) in the microwave. I saw a spark but I thought I was seeing things. Then it started sparking some more! I stopped the microwave and when I took the plate out, the food was cinged and sizzling. I'm guessing there was a piece of metal in there but I couldn't find it. I'm so glad that I heat up her food because if I had given it to her straight from the can, she could have eaten a piece of metal.
I always check her food for any strange objects but now I'm even more paranoid.
 

natalie_ca

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Arching isn't necessarily due to metal. Most microwaves can tolerate small amounts of metal without arching. In fact my microwave cookbook has suggestions of placing bits of aluminum foil on parts of certain foods to prevent them from drying out.

When arching of food occurs its primarily because of the shapes associated with that food. Basically certain shapes when close together can produce an antena. And not all foods that will arc in one microwave will arc in another, and it may not even be repeatable in the same microwave. A bit of a stir would probably have taken care of the matter and stopped the arcing.
 

tickytat

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Every time I heated up cat food it did the same thing. Don't know why! Never actually saw any metal in there. I stopped heating it up. She likes it cold anyway. Ewww!
 

ethereal

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Ahhh, thats not good. Why do you heat your cats food up? Do you not know that microwaves put plasma into our food? Microwaves are even banned in some countries and doctors tell parents not to use the microwave to heat up their babies milk because of the radiation. I havent used a microwave in a longggg time, and when I do I get headaches!
 

yosemite

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Originally Posted by Ethereal

Ahhh, thats not good. Why do you heat your cats food up? Do you not know that microwaves put plasma into our food? Microwaves are even banned in some countries and doctors tell parents not to use the microwave to heat up their babies milk because of the radiation. I havent used a microwave in a longggg time, and when I do I get headaches!
Most of us heat the food if it's been in the refrigerator to just take the chill off.

I personally don't buy into the scare re microwaves. I'm a believer in moderation. I don't do all my cooking in the microwave so re-heating/thawing something isn't going to kill me IMO. If we believed everything "they" told us would hurt us, we'd all live in a bubble.
 

ethereal

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Originally Posted by Yosemite

Most of us heat the food if it's been in the refrigerator to just take the chill off.

I personally don't buy into the scare re microwaves. I'm a believer in moderation. I don't do all my cooking in the microwave so re-heating/thawing something isn't going to kill me IMO. If we believed everything "they" told us would hurt us, we'd all live in a bubble.
I dont believe everything "they" say either. I only believe in something once I do my own research on it


Especially because I get headaches after eating microwaved food now :\\
 

Moz

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That's so weird! At least it didn't actually burst into flames... the smell would be horrible (wet cat food smells bad enough when it's not burned
) and your microwave would be toast!
 

pipersjo

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Originally Posted by Ethereal

Microwaves are even banned in some countries and doctors tell parents not to use the microwave to heat up their babies milk because of the radiation.
Don't Dr's tell parents not to use the microwave to heat up milk or formula because it breaks the milk or formula down? I don't have kids and I am not a ped's nurse, but that's what they told my sister when she had her kids.
 

ethereal

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Originally Posted by pipersjo

Don't Dr's tell parents not to use the microwave to heat up milk or formula because it breaks the milk or formula down? I don't have kids and I am not a ped's nurse, but that's what they told my sister when she had her kids.
Ive never heard that before, I guess thats another reason. The doctors told my parents when she had me, my brother and sister to not microwave our milk because a babies body is too small to handle the radiation it puts in the milk and could make the baby really sick. Ive also heard that from other sources.
 

strange_wings

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^The radiation would be less then what you would get from sitting in front of your tv or computer screen.
And there's no plasma, do you even know what plasma is and where it's most commonly found is huge amounts? It would burn right through a microwave...
You might need to do more research..

pipersjo is right, and I have mentioned it before in a past thread too. It can potentially break some substances down on the molecular level. Destructive to proteins and amino acids, which is why it's a bad idea to put baby formula in there. Blood is another substance that is destroyed/altered by microwaving.

Your headaches from microwaved food could easily be blamed on either a) microwaving in improper dishes, chemicals leeching into food or b) what you were microwaving. Premade frozen microwave foods tend have a lot of preservatives and additives -like msg or other sodium for flavor.
 

ethereal

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Originally Posted by strange_wings

^The radiation would be less then what you would get from sitting in front of your tv or computer screen.
And there's no plasma, do you even know what plasma is and where it's most commonly found is huge amounts? It would burn right through a microwave...
You might need to do more research..

pipersjo is right, and I have mentioned it before in a past thread too. It can potentially break some substances down on the molecular level. Destructive to proteins and amino acids, which is why it's a bad idea to put baby formula in there. Blood is another substance that is destroyed/altered by microwaving.

Your headaches from microwaved food could easily be blamed on either a) microwaving in improper dishes, chemicals leeching into food or b) what you were microwaving. Premade frozen microwave foods tend have a lot of preservatives and additives -like msg or other sodium for flavor.
I live in a house where nobody uses microwaves. I used to use them all the time, and when I stopped I felt alot better in general. I never use the microwave now but ive only used it to make popcorn, and when I eat it I get headaches. My family knows the evil of microwaves LOL.
 
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exoticbabee

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I only microwave her leftover food but now I'm trying to heat it up with hot water. She's not liking it too much. I caved last night and microwaved it. No sparks last night! I'm still paranoid though.
 

natalie_ca

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Originally Posted by ExoticBabee

I only microwave her leftover food but now I'm trying to heat it up with hot water. She's not liking it too much. I caved last night and microwaved it. No sparks last night! I'm still paranoid though.
It wasn't metal. When a microwave cooks it sends out "waves" and depending on where those waves hit they are either absorbed or bounced back. The shape of things that they hit is a big factor.

You can reproduce arcing in the microwave from microwaving things such as grapes, chopped up onion, ground meats ... are some examples. As I said earlier, it was just the luck of the draw that you put in a plate of wet cat food and it arced. If you had given it a stir and tried again chances are it would not have arced. The reason it arced was because the waves hit a shape and bounced off and hit something else which caused an antenae which was the cause of the sparking.

If you want to read about the full details on why some foods cause sparking in the microwave, you can read these links.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...9641.Ph.r.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/tv_and_rad...icrowave.shtml
 
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