Food

The experiments in this section can be used to investigate the chemicals and chemistry involved in food, food production and cooking. Experiments included cover food additives (e.g flavourings and colourings), vitamins, preserving and preservatives and analysis techniques such as chromatography.

While we are still at an early stage with this website it's probably more useful to look at the page with our complete list of experiments in alphabetical order. See the list on About this website.

We are starting with GCSE-level experiments.
.

Experiments

• Unsaturation in fats and oils

  The amount of unsaturated fats and oils present in different foodstuffs is compared by titrating solutions of food samples with bromine water.

• Testing for enzymes

  Hydrogen peroxide is used to detect the presence of enzymes in liver, potato and celery.

• Energy values of food

  An experiment to estimate the energy present per unit mass of food.

• The cornflour ‘bomb’

  A small explosion, caused by the rapid combustion of cornflour, blows the lid off a tin.

• Detecting starch in food

  The presence of starch in various foodstuffs is detected using a microscale variation of the familiar iodine test.

• Extracting iron from breakfast cereal

  A magnet is used to extract some of the added iron from breakfast cereal.

• Chromatography of sweets

  A colourful experiment using chromatography paper to separate out individual dyes from different coloured confectionary.

• Microbes, milk and enzymes – souring process

  This experiment shows how microbes and enzymes affect various types of milk.

• Microbes and bread making using yeast

  This experiment investigates how temperature affects the expansion of bread dough.

• Emulsifiers

  In this straightforward experiment students test a range of substances to see which act as emulsifiers.

• Fermentation of glucose using yeast

  In this experiment students test for fermentation products, from the reaction of glucose with yeast.

• Rates and rhubarb

  A simple experiment showing how the rate of reaction between rhubarb and potassium manganate(VII) changes with surface area and concentration.