Group 4: Food Chemistry

[JohnHumbra]

So, I need to do a group 4 project on the topic of food; I am a reluctant SL Chem student, with no idea what to do, especially as my partner moved from Chem to Bio about a month ago and neglected to tell me until now, a few weeks before the experiment is due.

Our previous plan was to test several organic/edible preservatives on slices of bread from the same loaf, or some other identical food product (this is basically the only idea that our teacher didn't reject); we were going to use identical amounts of honey, salt, lemon-water, and other preservatives we could find on our subjects and leave them in sealed containers, checking them until results started cropping up (hopefully in the form of fungus).

But looking at it now, a few days after I was supposed to have started the experiment, I'm not sure how valid it is. Maybe I just have a bad approach, though.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how I might make me present experiment more concise? If not, could you possibly point me in the direction of/offer a suggestion about/inspire me to think of a new food related group 4 experiment?

Many thanks!

[rosirosiful]

maybe you can test it also by exposing the slices of bread onto different temperatures

I was actually thinking about doing something similar but using tea e_e

[Drake Glau]

DEFINITELY check out the food chemistry option for ideas (I didn't do this option so I don't know if it will help but why not ). This is a tough chemistry one. Maybe there's something with the sugar? As a liquid it's a ring structure and as a solid it's a straight chain, does this new geometry matter with that fungus growth? Do they utilize one more than the other? With the lemon-water I'd be looking at pH. You can tie pH to chemistry and biology rather easily because a bacteria's enzymes will have an optimum pH for their function and if the lemon-water makes it to low or to high that enzyme could not work and thus no growth maybe?