What happens to plants when given microwaved water? (Is it time to ditch the microwave?)

I grew up using a microwave on a daily basis. Half of what I ate in high school was something I took out of the freezer and popped into the microwave.

As an adult, I began cooking my own food, but I continued to rely on a microwave to re-heat the food for a second or third meal.

Not too long ago, I started hearing some things about how using a microwave isn’t good for you.

As a scientist, I wanted to put this to the test to see for myself.

So I purchased two plants and decided to water one plant with water that had been heated to boiling on the stove and another plant that had been heated to boiling in the microwave. In both cases, I let the water cool down to room temperature before giving it to the plants.

Note: Find more science experiments on my Science Activities for Kids page!

The two plants I used were purchased at the same time from our local hardware store. Both plants were approximately the same size and had a similar number of purple blooms on them. Both plants sat right next to each other in a sunny spot on our front porch.

I watered the plants almost every day (the almost will become relevant later in this post), always with the same amount water. The only difference is that one plant received water that had been heating to boiling on a stove (i.e. “stove-boiled water”) and one received water than had been microwaved to boiling (i.e., “microwave-boiled water”). Note that I always let the water cool down to room temperature before giving it to the plants.

After 11 days, there was already a very big difference in the health of the plants.

While the plant provided with stove-boiled water grew and thrived, the plant given microwave-boiled water had turned very dry and lacked the beautiful purple blooms of the other plant.

So it looked like giving the plant microwave-boiled water had definitely lead to its demise, but I wanted to run the experiment again to see if I would get similar results.

I purchased two more plants, this time Calibrachoa plants with yellow flowers. As before, the plants sat together on our sunny front porch and I watered them every day with equal amounts of water.

This continued for about three weeks, and I got discouraged as the plants were both thriving and doing well. I thought maybe the results from the first experiment had been a fluke.

Then after diligently watering the plants every day, there was one really hot day that I forgot to water them.

I went out the next morning and found that both were wilting from the hot temperatures. But it was also clear the the plant given stove-boiled water had fared much better than the plant given microwave-boiled water.

Looking back, I realized there were days during the first experiment with the purple flowered plants when I had forgotten to water them as well, which may have contributed to the quick differences I saw in their overall health. I was so diligent about watering the plants on a daily basis the second time that it obscured the developing health issues that were occurring in the microwave-boiled water plant.

What I concluded from this experiment is that both stove-boiled and microwave-boiled water would help the plants do well under optimal conditions. But as soon as the plants were stressed (such as from a hot day with no water), the plants given microwave-boiled water proved to be much more vulnerable than the plants given stove-boiled water.

This experiment has convinced our family of the need to give up our microwave. Something about using a microwave is changing the water in a way that does not promote optimal health and vitality.

What do you think?

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