Microwavable Baby Vegetables

Most recent answer: 10/22/2007

Q:
What effects does a microwave have on seeds? such as alaskan snow peas, radish seeds, and tomato seeds. Thank you.
- leah (age 16)
j.f.k. high school, Babbitt, Mn usa
A:
Leah -

Having never actually tried this, the best I can give you is my guesses. Probably the best way to find out is to get some seeds and try the experiment yourself. But here’s some science to think about:

Microwaves work by taking all of the water molecules in your food and shaking them around a whole lot. So the immediate effect on the seeds would probably depend on how much water they have in them. If the seeds are totally dry, they probably won’t heat up the way that seeds with lots of water in them would.

The other type of effect you might see is on how the seeds grow after they’ve been microwaved. It’s possible that shaking up the water molecules in the seed will damage it enough that it won’t be able to grow at all. It’s also possible that the microwaves themselves could cause small mutations in the DNA of the seeds. If this happened and the plant was still able to grow, you might notice that it growing differently than unmicrowaved seeds would.

Again, please remember that these are just my guesses. I’ve never tried this, so I don’t know exactly what would happen. But it sounds like a great opportunity for you to try an experiment!

-Tamara

(published on 10/22/2007)