Re: What would happen to a live animal if placed in a microwave oven?

Dear Kitty:

This is certainly a rather... sadistic question. (= Basically, the answer is that the animal would be cooked like any other piece of meat, except that it would be (or have been) alive in the process of doing so. Obviously, the poor creature would suffer -tremendously-.

As you know, a microwave works by exciting the water, fat, and sugar molecules in whatever food is being microwaved. Other materials, like plastics, metals, etc. in the oven would not be affected because the frequencies of the microwaves do not excite them, i.e. cause them to be heated. Thus the animal would be cooked alive, evenly all round and inside out, apparently. You can simulate this by simply microwaving a slab of meat. The cells of the animal would rupture, the proteins in it would denature and coagulate, simply speaking, the critter will -cook-. Understandably, it would die after a short while, as it cannot continue its normal biological functions, the chemical pathways for that having been seriously disrupted by the great influx of heat. I seriously doubt it would explode dramatically, though some deformation will most probably be apparent.

There is an infamous case about a boy microwaving his cat, which survived, though having to have had some body parts amputated. There are two sites I found, one here (Scroll to last brief) and here (Second-to-last brief, same case). The physiological effects of being microwaved are apparent, though the psychological side would be harder to test.

Here's some information on how a microwave works from How Stuff Works.

I hope this answers your question. Keep up your.... uh, curiousity!

Thiam Hock "Microwave-Safe" Tan