Have The Fire Department On Speed Dial If You Microwave This Fruit

Although grapes aren't exactly in demand to be served hot, I would highly recommend that you do not microwave them. While it takes over 1,000 grapes to make a single bottle of wine, it only takes one sliced grape to start a fire! And microwaving grapes doesn't just create a small fire, it actually creates plasma. Not plasma as in the stuff in your blood — plasma as in the same state of matter as the sun.

The good news is that you can't create plasma by microwaving a single grape. The energy from the microwave has to be channeled into a small area: between two grapes or halves of one grape, which must be touching or connected, even if by only a thin piece of skin. The energy strips away the electrons in the salts found in the grapes from their positively charged nuclei and become plasma, which reacts to electrical and magnetic fields. If this happens, the plasma can become enough to burn a hole through your microwave.

While the idea of making plasma from an electromagnetic field between two grapes in your microwave sounds cool, you really shouldn't. And while we're on the subject, you also shouldn't put these 15 foods in your microwave, either. And there are plenty of other foods which, while not potentially destructive, just don't react well to microwaves. We've all had poorly or unevenly reheated dishes, soggy french fries, and sad, half-frozen meals. 

Microwaves are advertised as being convenient and easy to use, but it's more than likely that we don't entirely understand all the ways to use a microwave. For example: don't heat or reheat at high power all the time.  If that's news to you, or if you have any other microwave-related questions, consult any of the many online sources that provide proper ways to use your microwave.

And if you're still gripped by the need to heat up grapes, you can simply roast them for an amazing, salty-sweet caramelized side dish. You can also add feta while the grapes roast for a very Greek-like presentation. Or you can consult the dishes created by the people of France's famed Beaujolais wine region, who often cook with grapes and incorporate them into cheese, sausages, or other food items. Alternately, you can skip the heat altogether and freeze your grapes, with which you can do a lot, or just snack on them, as most people do. Just keep them out of your home science experiments.