Flaming Beans

[Khaiqha]

I cook beans in a slow cooker, keep them in a fridge and then reheat them in the microwave for me and my bird to eat. I've done this for awhile now, and just the other day, the beans caught fire after 3 seconds.

The plate wasn't the issue. I looked it up online, and read that vegetables that grew in soil with alot of metals in them can catch fire in the microwave. It's weird because these beans came from the same bag as all my other ones, but now I'm worried that the beans might have too much metal in them? Has anyone had this crazy phenomenon?

[Naurthon]

I've never seen it, and I've been nuking food for a very, very long time. I did see a number of posts about this happening on line, however, including this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCNNqgKqnaQ

It doesn't have anything to do with the metal content of the soil. If there were enough metal in the food to cause it to arc, you would break your teeth on it.

[Cage Cleaner]

Unreal. I've never seen that in my life.

[Conure_Concierge]

I've experienced the same thing when trying to warm up less than a quarter cup of mixed veggies. It's caused by not having enough wet-food-mass to absorb the microwave energy; excess energy arcs and can not only burn your food, but damage the microwave.

With veggies I just add a little water and it heats up okay. Since you may not want to add more water to your beans you could always put another small container of water in the microwave at the same time.