Slowness of Meat Heating in a Microwave?

This might be an easy to answer question. But why does it take so long for meat to heat up in a microwave?
- Anonymous
New York City, NY USA

It's simply a matter of the volume and specific heat of the stuff you put into the microwave oven and the power rating of the microwave generator.  The specific heat of water is very high i.e. it takes much more of heat to warm up a 100 grams of water than 100 grams of most other materials that do not contain water.   Meat is 70 to 75 percent water, so it takes a long time to heat up.     Here is a web site that gives information of specific heats for various substances:


LeeH

(published on 12/29/2009)