Can a steel utencil be used in micro oven by putting it in a bigger micro safe untencil?

Question

I have reports of people putting a smaller steel bowl in a larger microsafe glass bowl and then micro cook.

Answer 1

No because the microwave go right through the microwave safe glass bowl.

It would be as if the bowl did not exist - It is transparent to the microwaves.

Answer 2

No, the way a microwave works is that at that EM frequency, the light is only absorbed by water molecules, at high outputs (like 1000W) it will cause the molecules to vibrate causing heat.

Denser objects (metals) will not allow MW to pass through and are very bad at absorbing it.  Instead the waves are reflected back at the MW emitter causing a feedback that will eventually destroy the emitter (sorry, no explosions).  

Microwave safe bowls, utensils, ect... allow almost all of the microwaves to pass through without reflecting (causing damage) or highly absorbing (cause melting) the microwaves.  

anything that will shield metal will either heat up very fast or reflect too much of the microwaves back to the emitter

Answer 3

no, the micro safe thing doesnt stop the rays its just not as effected by them.if u heat up food in a micro safe container, is it still cold?    no

Answer 4

No - the steel (or any metallic object) will still reflect microwaves and cause problems for the microwave.  (anything inside the steel utensil would not be heated properly, and you might damage your microwave...

Answer 5

Putting metal in a microwave isn't really that unsafe. It will possibly cause arcs of electricity to jump around in the oven, and even destroy the oven after awhile, but it will not explode and kill you.

Answer 6

Yep, it sure can.

Answer 7

The usual answer is no, that you SHOULD NOT put metal of any sort ina microwave, it could arc, overheat or damage the microwave klystron tube.

But the real answer is yes, you can under certain conditions. And the proof of this is in those boxes of microwave french fries: They have a sheet of metal in them that heats up in addition to the fries that heat up and so you get browning from the heated metal as well as cooking.

Also sold are microwave browning containers which have a metal bottom that heats up in the microwave.

The reason these metal things are safe is because there are other things in the oven, like the french fries, to absorb the mocrowaves so the metal only absorbs a part of the radiation.

Most microwaves sold today are protected against reflection back into the Klystron, but the utensil could still get very hot and melt the plastic oven or even start a fire.

In fact the way to tell if something is "microwave safe" is to put it in the oven, alongside a glass of water to absorb radiation, and turn it on for a minute and if it comes out hot, if it does then its not suitable for the microwave.

In general leaving metal in the microwave is not someting you want to do, but a utensil left in with food will probably do no harm other than get hot.

Answer 8

Putting a metal bowl in a microwave safe bowl would be identical to putting it in by itself, since the microwave safe bowl is  totally transparent to microwaves anyway.

Having said that, metal isn't quite the microwave destroyer that reputation would have you believe. Small amounts of metal a safe distance from the walls of the microwave can actually be used quite safely. To use a metal bowl would be silly though because it will actually stop the microwaves from reaching the food. In addition it will reflect a large amount of microwaves back towards the magnetron, possibly overheating it. The same as if you turned on the microwave without anything inside it.