FOOD COLOURING
INTRODUCTION
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EXPERIMENTS
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BACKGROUND
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CONCLUSION
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 2Aims and Objectives- To dye hardboiled eggs
Materials Used- Red Onions Skins
-Yellow Onion skins
-Spinach Leaves
-Purple Grape Skin
-Plum Skin
-Red Cabbage Leaves
-Hard Boiled Eggs
ProcedureRed 1. Boil the red onion skins. (A dark red solution is obtained.)
2. put the hard boiled egg with the solution
3. continue to heat the solution over medium fire till it boils
Orange 1. Boil the Yellow Onion skins. (A yellow solution is obtained.)
2. put the hard boiled egg with the solution
3. continue to heat the solution over medium fire till it boils
Green 1. Boil the Spinach Leaves till they turn soft.
2. put the hard boiled egg with the solution
3. continue to heat the solution over medium fire till it boils
Purple 1. Boil the Purple Grape Skin, Plum Skin and Red Cabbage Leaves
2. put the hard boiled egg with the solution
3 . continue to heat the solution over medium fire till it boils
Results
Although we managed to dye the eggs, there were certain colours that we were unable to obtain.
For example, we failed to obtain red, even though we followed the procedures
carefully. Instead, we obtained brown.
The colour that we obtained from spinach was a light pale shade of green, that was hardly visible. This was not the desired results.
We also found out that we could obtain different colours, simply by taking into consideration the time the hard boiled egg was left to boil in the solution. From our table of results below, it is shown that both yellow and orange were obtained using the same ingredients, however the only difference was the time the egg was left to boil in the solution.
Colour Ingredients Time taken to obtain colour
Brown Red Onions Skins (boiled) 17 min 30s
Orange Yellow Onion skins (boiled) 4 min 30s
Yellow Yellow Onion skins (boiled) 3 mins
Purple Grape Skin Plum Skin Red Cabbage Leaves 6 mins
Green (pale) Spinach Leaves 11 mins 30s
Our Yellow, Orange and Brown Eggs!
BACKGROUND INFOMATION
We derived our main idea of extracting natural food dyes from the idea of making natural easter egg dyes from ingredients like Onion skins, plums, Blueberries and many other fruits and vegetables. However, we realised that if we extract the colouring, the taste of the fruit or vegetable would still be there, therefore we tried out Experiment 1 to find out if Charcoal pills would help in removing the taste. We are also aware that certain artificial food colourings may harm the body. Hence, we decided to look for a healthier and natural alternative.
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
Chemistry Student Initiated Assignment 2007
