An acquaintance tried to convince me that microwave ovens caused unhealthy changes in the food that they heat. Maybe so. Maybe not.

But when he told me that plants watered with microwaved water would not grow, I became very skeptical. He invited me to perform the simple experiment of growing two plants from the same packet of seeds, one of them watered with water boiled on a conventional stove, the other with water heated by a microwave oven. Of course the water is allowed to cool before being applied to the plants.

I read of one experiment that supports this idea, but it was not scientifically run, no double-blind (or even single blind) methodology, and was a 6th grade science project. Perhaps microwaving leached contaminants out of the plastic container, or perhaps contaminants already present in the water might have been adversely affected by microwaves, or perhaps the experiment was never run at all and the results were made up, or ??

Does anybody have any insight into this idea? I remain highly skeptical, but am tempted to repeat the experiment myself.

tanstaafl.