FOOD COLOURING

INTRODUCTION
We are Eugena, Jasmine, Claudia and Bianca from the wonderful THREEELEVEN
This is our Chemistry SIA on FOOD COLOURINGS!

Artificial food colourings are widely used in our everyday lives and most foods do contain some kind of artificial food colouring whether very little or in excess. Therefore we have decided to base our research on Food Colouring

WHY WE CHOSE FOOD COLOURING
The society has become more health conscious and increasingly against artificial foods. Therefore we are interested in finding out if obtaining a natural healthy food colouring is possible and ideally source for a healthy and feasible alternative for the artificial food colourings.

ESSENTIAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How do we make our own food colouring using natural ingredients?
2. What are the harmful effects of food colourings sold these days?
3. What methods are available for us to obtain natural food colouring?
4. Is it possible to use fruits or vegetables that we find in our daily lives to make our own food dyes?
5. Is there any way to eliminate the taste from the fruits or vegetables used?

Thursday, May 03, 2007

EXPERIMENT 1

Aims and Objectives
· To find out if carbon/charcoal tablets will be able to remove the taste of fruits and not change the colouring at the same time.

Materials Used:
· Carrot
· Chilli
· Capsicum
· Plum
· Blender
· Carbon/Charcoal Tablets
· Blender
· Filter paper
· Water
· Eggshells

Procedure:
Carrot

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1. Chop up the carrots into small pieces
2. Blend the carrots with ¼ cup of water
3. Obtain the juice and taste
4. mix 1 and a ½ carbon tablets into the juice
5. Filter out the juice thru filter paper twice to remove carbon bits
6. Observe the colour and taste
7. Soak 3 bits of eggshell in the juice
8. Leave it there to dye for 1 hour

Red Chilli

1. Chop up the red chilli into small pieces
2. Blend the chilli with ¼ cup of water
3. Obtain the juice and taste
4. mix 1 and a ½ carbon tablets into the juice
5. Filter out the juice thru filter paper twice to remove carbon bits
6. Observe the colour and taste
7. Soak 3 bits of eggshell in the juice
8. Leave it there to dye for 1 hour

Green Capsicum

1. Chop up the capsicum into small pieces
2. Blend the capsicum with ¼ cup of water
3. Obtain the juice and taste
4. mix 1 and a ½ carbon tablets into the juice
5. Filter out the juice thru filter paper twice to remove carbon bits
6. Observe the colour and taste
7. Soak 3 bits of eggshell in the juice
8. Leave it there to dye for 1 hour

Plum

1. Chop up the plum into small pieces
2. Blend the plum with ¼ cup of water
3. Obtain the juice and taste
4. mix 1 and a ½ carbon tablets into the juice
5. Filter out the juice thru filter paper twice to remove carbon bits
6. Observe the colour and taste
7. Soak 3 bits of eggshell in the juice
8. Leave it there to dye for 1 hour

Results:
Although the colour remained mostly unchanged, the taste of the various was still there. However, it was slightly milder. This was probably due to the dilution with ¼ cup of water. We also tried using more carbon tablets and the taste was still very observable, while the colour was much darker. The eggshells were also not visibly stained and all turned slightly grey.

Conclusion:
This method does not help in eliminating the taste of the “natural colourings” and it also mildly distorts the colour. Therefore, carbon tablets are not effective in removing and eliminating the taste and should not be used.

CONCLUSION

From our first experiment, we were unable to eliminate the smell and taste of the fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, the colouring was also not effective in staining the eggshells. It is not easy to remove the smell and taste from these fruits and vegetables as those with deeper colours usually had stronger tastes and smell.

From our second experiment, we know that it is indeed possible to dye the hard-boiled eggs using natural ingredients. However, we only discovered a limited number of colours. Some of the colours were rather pale and were not very visible. The process of using only natural ingredients to make food colouring was also very troublesome and the results were not very desirable.

In conclusion, although it is possible to obtain natural food colouring, it is a long process. However, we may not have the proper equipment or technology to extract the colouring from fruits and vegetables. Moreover, the cost of obtaining food colouring is rather high and the process is also time consuming. Therefore the food industry would probably choose to use artificial food colouring as they are readily available and they will incur a much lower cost.

REFLECTIONS

Having completed this experiment, we feel that there were many areas for improvements, be it those that will affect the final outcome of our experiment or the way we managed this project.

Reflecting on what we could have done better to achieve better results, we feel that we could have improved on the methods we used, such as the following.

Even though eventually we managed to use natural ingredients to dye the eggs, both experiments failed to completely remove the smell and taste of the fruit or vegetable that we used. We feel that we could have researched and try to find other methods to remove the taste, instead of just relying on charcoal pills. However due to time constrains, we were unable to do so and this is certainly an area that we can work better on.

On the other hand, we only managed to obtain a limited number of colours. This was due to the fact that some of these dyes required items that were not easily purchased or were of a higher cost, thus not allowing us to be able to get the ingredients for that colour. For example, for blue dye, it would require blueberries that were expensive and could only be found in certain supermarkets. Our group agreed that we could have experimented on more ingredients, to obtain a variety of colours, rather than just following the chart we found on the internet. We concluded that we could have tried more colours and on various food items in order to have a more varied result. We did our experiment only on eggs as we decided that hardboiled eggs will enable us to observe the colour of the dye more carefully. If we had tried the natural dyes on other types of food, perhaps we may be able to achieve different results.

Besides that, even though we managed to dye our eggs, we were unable to produce liquid dye that could be readily used, rather than having to boil the food item with the natural ingredients. Thus, we believe that this is another area for improvement, as we could have experimented on different ways to obtain natural food colouring, just like those found on the shelves of supermarkets.

Throughout the course of this project, we have gained many new experiences and learnt important and enriching lessons. We feel that we have cooperated and worked well together as a group. Even though we may not agree with one another and have different opinions at times, we learnt to compromise with one another and respect our friend’s opinions.

However, we felt that we could have improved by managing our time well. Along the way, we met up several times. However, we often digressed and procrastinated during the gatherings and wasted a lot of precious time, resulting in us being unable to complete our assigned task for the day. And thus, we had to rush till the very last minute. From this, we have learnt an important lesson, and that is to stay on track and focus.

References
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/feature_ent.html?DOC=enthusiasts%5Cent_fooddyes.html
http://www.food.gov.uk/safereating/chemsafe/parared/
http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--1223/food-additives.asp
http://www.answers.com/topic/food-coloring
http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa042003a.htm
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Eggs/EasterEggDye.htm