The Wonderful World of Food Science

Zach Clark

Food and science

Many different combinations and reactions take place in the foods we eat every day

For many of these foods to obtain the flavors we love so much, science is needed

Foods and Science

Sometimes these chemicals and reactions can create reactions that are quite surprising

I wanted to explore just a few of the different reactions that foods have and find out answers to small questions in life

Lifesavers

Try this, get a roll of Wint O Green Lifesavers and turn off all lights

Look into a mirror and bite down hard on the Lifesaver

What do you see? A spark?

Lifesavers

The spark all hard sugar-based candies emit some

degree of light when you bite them, but most of the time, that light is very faint

Triboluminescence—emission of energy when something is torn or ripped

Triboluminescence

1. When the crystalline sugars are crushed they release electrons

2. Electrons bump into nitrogen molecules giving the nitrogen molecules energy

3. Nitrogen molecules have too much energy, release energy as light

Why Wintergreen

The Wintergreen flavoring absorbs the non visible light and reemits it as visible light

Mentos and Coke

Have you ever shaken a coke and opened it before the drink had settled? What happened? Everyone knows that coke will foam up and

pour out of most containers you have them in. Take 3 mint Mentos and drop them into

coke and watch the results

Explosion!

There should be an explosion of soda all over the place…but why is this?

Why it explodes

When you drop the Mentos into the soda, the gelatin and gum arabic from the dissolving candy break the surface tension.

Each Mentos candy has thousands of tiny pits all over the surface. These tiny pits are called nucleation sites - perfect places for carbon dioxide bubbles to form

Why is explodes (cont)

These bubbles literally push all the liquid out of its way, which is out of the bottle

The fact that the Mentos is a heavy candy and sinks in the soda helps propel more soda out of the container

Egg in the Bottle

You are going to need a hardboiled egg, a match, and a wide mouthed bottle with the mouth a little smaller than the egg

Hint: you will need the match before you need the egg

Solution

First you light the match and drop it into the bottle

Immediately cover the mouth of the bottle with an egg

When the match goes out the egg will be sucked into the bottle

Science behind trick

The match heats up the air within the bottle causing the molecules to expand and press against the wall of the bottle

When the match goes out, the air cools and rushes to the center of the bottle, this is when a “vacuum” is created, sucking the egg into the bottle

WOOAHLA!!

Resources

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000109

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/question505.htm

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000022

Google images for pictures