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Microwaved Water Kills Plants
Status: Undetermined
I've posted before about theories that microwaved food is bad for you, but this is slightly different. Some guy has posted pictures of his granddaughter's science fair project in which she tested the effect microwaved water would have on a plant. The result: the plant died. (Yes, the water had been cooled before she watered the plant with it.) But the plant given water that had been boiled on a stove did just fine. So what does this prove? That microwaved water is toxic? Not necessarily. The guy notes:We have seen a number of comments on this, such as what was the water in the microwave boiled in. The thinking is that maybe some leaching took place if it was in plastic. It was boiled in a plastic cup, so this could be a possibility. Also it was not a double blind experiment, so she knew which was which when watering them. On top of that she was wanting the microwaved ones to do poorly, and although most scientists would dismiss the idea, it is possible that her thoughts toward each plant had an effect as well. Bottom line is, the results are interesting, and duplicate the results that others have reported (try Googling '"microwaved water" plants') more experiments need to be done with better controls and as a double blind study. But this was a simple 6th grade science fair project, and was never intended to be anything more than that. The plants were genetically identical, they were produced from graphs from the same parent plant, so that variable can be eliminated.
Intriguingly, the Straight Dope (a source I usually trust) has written an article about the controversy over microwave cooking, and he notes that scientists actually do not fully understand the chemical changes that take place when food is microwaved, and so there may indeed be some kind of "microwave effect." He notes a 1992 Stanford study that found microwaving breast milk mysteriously reduces its infection-fighting properties, as well as studies that have found that microwaves can accelerate certain chemical reactions. He writes: "'One suggestion,' a bunch of chemists wrote recently, 'is that this is some form of 'ponderomotive' driving force that arises when high frequency electric fields modulate ionic currents near interfaces with abrupt differences in ion mobility.'" He doesn't attempt to explain this theory.
I would repeat the girl's experiment myself, but everything I try to grow mysteriously dies, so there wouldn't be much point. (via The Greener Side)
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
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If anyone wants to verify if the water will kill plants, just start watering one of your plants with microwaved and cooled water. Don't dismiss the results without doing your own testing.
Posted by Dave in Arizona on Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 02:06 PM
pattyf77 said, "Why are we so quick to denounce efforts to reveal the truth when those truths may affect capitalistic enterprise or our modern conveniences?"
The key point is the experiment above is a fraud. Follow this link for why I say this:
http://www.eclecticscience.net/experiments/001-microwave-plants/original_experiment/index.html
You can't tell the truth through a lie. Just because Dr. Mercola is popular doesn't mean he is correct. Here's another view of him:
http://gyxe.com/breast-implant/5-073-dr-mercola-is-a-fraud-read.shtml
or simply Goggle his name along with the word quack and you get a lot of interesting reading. If you fear microwaved food, by all means avoid it. But don't defend obviously fraudulent web evidence. Stick to the science journals and trusted sources.
Posted by Mark on Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 07:27 PM
The key point is the experiment above is a fraud. Follow this link for why I say this:
http://www.eclecticscience.net/experiments/001-microwave-plants/original_experiment/index.html
You can't tell the truth through a lie. Just because Dr. Mercola is popular doesn't mean he is correct. Here's another view of him:
http://gyxe.com/breast-implant/5-073-dr-mercola-is-a-fraud-read.shtml
or simply Goggle his name along with the word quack and you get a lot of interesting reading. If you fear microwaved food, by all means avoid it. But don't defend obviously fraudulent web evidence. Stick to the science journals and trusted sources.
i am doing this for my science fair.... i will keep in touch w/ photos + info from my project, this will be decent info.
Posted by William in Why do you care? on Thu Nov 01, 2007 at 05:54 PM
i think ur all wrong yo
Posted by jesz in longbeach on Mon Nov 19, 2007 at 01:52 PM
You stupid crackers ....microwave water is good for plants it makes my apple trees produce oranges....fuck ya
Posted by Pompousass in Da Hood on Tue Jan 08, 2008 at 09:23 AM
leave the litle gril be..people keep giving me a hard time and that's why i got knocked up...let her be..or she'll get stressed and do the same thing...BE NICE
peace
i love my sis brit..and my lil nephews...foget k fed
Posted by Zoey 101 in Pregoville on Tue Jan 08, 2008 at 09:25 AM
peace
i love my sis brit..and my lil nephews...foget k fed
I have actually done an experiment on that and when we fed plants microwaved water there was no difference between that and the control group
here is the text of my abstract
We did an experiment on microwaving water. We wanted to see whether the rumor was true that microwaving water killed plants. We had looked online and supposedly some girl had done an experiment where she microwaved water and fed it to one plant and then fed another plant tap water. She said the one that got microwaved water died. We checked many other places and we also found that a Swedish scientist named Dr. Hans Hertell had conducted a similar experiment. He and some of his colleagues had eaten nothing but microwaved food for a week. After the experiment, they had increased cholesterol and decrease hemoglobin levels and they also had a lower white blood cell percentage. When we tried to find more experiments with plants we could not find anything but the one source. So we decided to do an experiment with more complicated variables to see if it really was the microwaved water that killed the plant.
For our experiment we fed 8 different solutions to 32 different pole bean plants. Our solutions were microwaved, boiled, distilled, and tap water all either with or without fertilizer. Each day we fed the plants a set amount of their solutions usually from 3 to 5 tablespoons on each solution. Then we measured the plants. We only put in fertilizer once a week. We user skewers to hold the plants up and we tried to measure them several times.
Our experiment is done and we have found that the microwaved water has not killed the plants. The microwaved plants were actually doing quite fine and some are taller than the boiled and distilled too.
Posted by scientist on Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 05:39 AM
here is the text of my abstract
We did an experiment on microwaving water. We wanted to see whether the rumor was true that microwaving water killed plants. We had looked online and supposedly some girl had done an experiment where she microwaved water and fed it to one plant and then fed another plant tap water. She said the one that got microwaved water died. We checked many other places and we also found that a Swedish scientist named Dr. Hans Hertell had conducted a similar experiment. He and some of his colleagues had eaten nothing but microwaved food for a week. After the experiment, they had increased cholesterol and decrease hemoglobin levels and they also had a lower white blood cell percentage. When we tried to find more experiments with plants we could not find anything but the one source. So we decided to do an experiment with more complicated variables to see if it really was the microwaved water that killed the plant.
For our experiment we fed 8 different solutions to 32 different pole bean plants. Our solutions were microwaved, boiled, distilled, and tap water all either with or without fertilizer. Each day we fed the plants a set amount of their solutions usually from 3 to 5 tablespoons on each solution. Then we measured the plants. We only put in fertilizer once a week. We user skewers to hold the plants up and we tried to measure them several times.
Our experiment is done and we have found that the microwaved water has not killed the plants. The microwaved plants were actually doing quite fine and some are taller than the boiled and distilled too.
pattyf77: Stop your jibber-jabber. I pity the fool who believes in psuedoscience....
Posted by Mr. T on Wed Apr 09, 2008 at 09:38 AM
My daughter decided to do a similar experiment so I decided to run my own in parallel (because I could let things grow longer than she could due to her school assignment deadline). Here are the photos I took along the way.
Yes, it's a tiny sample set. Yes, lots of things could account for the differences. I don't claim anything other than "here's another datapoint".
The water used for both plants came from the bottled water we have delivered to our house. We boiled one batch on the stove in a pot and the other in a pyrex container in the microwave. The water boiled for 10 minutes in each case. It was then stored in plastic Dasani water containers which had been washed out with soap, rinsed thoroughly, and allowed to dry. After that, we simply watered the plants every day making a small effort to put the same amount of water into each pot.
Here's the link to the images:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/11367898@N06/tE769B
Posted by Mike in Vancouver on Tue Apr 15, 2008 at 09:35 PM
Yes, it's a tiny sample set. Yes, lots of things could account for the differences. I don't claim anything other than "here's another datapoint".
The water used for both plants came from the bottled water we have delivered to our house. We boiled one batch on the stove in a pot and the other in a pyrex container in the microwave. The water boiled for 10 minutes in each case. It was then stored in plastic Dasani water containers which had been washed out with soap, rinsed thoroughly, and allowed to dry. After that, we simply watered the plants every day making a small effort to put the same amount of water into each pot.
Here's the link to the images:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/11367898@N06/tE769B
In another experiment, anthroposophist A. Bohmert, reported that water samples were heated, some in a microwave oven and others conventionally, and then left to cool before use. These water samples were used to bring grain to germination. The grain in contact with microwaved water was the only one that did not germinate.
Posted by Cancer-causing chemicals in cooked meats in finland on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 08:39 PM
well i am doin a sci project about watering plants with tap and microwaved water to see what is good or bad for the plants so i htink that microwaved water is so bad because what people say about using microwaved so ya 
Posted by Gerrinan in somewhere in the us on Fri Jan 30, 2009 at 12:32 PM
what a fucking ass is this these bitchis are gone mad fuckerrrrrrrsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Posted by samantha in america on Thu Feb 12, 2009 at 03:36 PM
My son and I just performed this experiment double blind. This is disproved. All plants are fine. Snopes also debunked this some time back. (Wish I had found that before we did this as an experiment for school.)
Posted by Big Daddy in Texas, Baby on Sat Mar 21, 2009 at 02:22 PM
You might be interested in an experiment I am presently conducting with tomato seeds:
http://microwavetest.blogspot.com/
Posted by Robert Harwood in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada on Sun Mar 22, 2009 at 10:11 AM
http://microwavetest.blogspot.com/
hello hello
Posted by GG in somewhere in the us on Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 12:27 PM
I microwaved my Congressman and he started to spend money uncontrollably. Do you think this is related to the microwaving, or to the fact that he's an out-of-touch millionaire with many sleazy ties to special interest groups?
Posted by Joey in Alabamy on Sun Mar 29, 2009 at 07:54 AM
I think it's VERY goodMicrowaved water may not be harmful but it is dfinitely not the same as unmicrowaved water. Microwaved food has been PROVEN to be different and harful to human consumption in many rigourous scientific trials. Microwaved water may be benign it may be healthier and it may also be harmful. SWhy not seriously examine this instead of taking it personally and dismissing it? People are too insecure to look at their lifestyles and objectively analyze anything.
Posted by victor in T&T on Tue Oct 20, 2009 at 08:19 PM
That "experiment" is a hoax. There are several websites that expose it for what it is - bunk. You can find links to these sites on post below. That plant was trimmed to death within minutes. If you superimpose the photos over one another you'll see the experiment plant does not change position, yet plants move all the time.
For the person claiming "Microwaved food has been PROVEN to be different and harful [sic] to human consumption...," please list the studies. I know of no reputable study that confirms this statement. I'm not saying it isn't possible, I saying show me the evidence.
Posted by Mark on Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 09:02 AM
For the person claiming "Microwaved food has been PROVEN to be different and harful [sic] to human consumption...," please list the studies. I know of no reputable study that confirms this statement. I'm not saying it isn't possible, I saying show me the evidence.
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