HowTo: Clean Your Microwave the Non-Toxic Way

by Adrian How

Here’s a useful tip from the folks at FamilyHack describing the ‘Simple Non-Toxic Microwave Cleaning‘ method

Place a large coffee mug that is 1/2 full of water in your dirty microwave oven. Bring to a rolling boil, then let it sit in the closed microwave for 10-15 minutes. Wipe clean with a paper towel

Simple as that!

Here are some extra cleaning tips:

add some lemon juice into the water
add a dash of vinegar into the water

Both the above mentioned actions adds extra cleaning power if your microwave is in a state of mess (trust me, I’ve seen some pretty grimey and icky ones). I can proudly say that mine’s spanking clean as I washed it only last week.

A word of caution – it is extremely important to leave cup in the microwave for the specified 10-15 minutes period to avoid the risk of water blowing up in your face causing major burns. In technical terms, this is caused by superheating – normally, we think of water boiling when it reaches its boiling temperature. But, boiling doesn’t start until there is “nucleation” of bubbles – some irregularity to get the process started. If there is no nucleation, the liquid can be heated above its boiling point. [http://www.iapws.org/faq1/mwave.htm]

To further understand the dangers of superheating water in the microwave, read the following articles:

So make sure you leave the water in there until it’s cooled before you begin cleaning.

Imagesource: FamilyHack