Are these questions suitable for a good project?

[anuami]

My son is in 1st Grade and wants to find the following?

Why do some foods that contain sugar in them not taste sweet?


My daughter wants to research?

Do artificial flavors / colors make food taste better?

[Amber_MIT]

Hi anuami,

To answer your first question:
Why do some foods that contain sugar in them not taste sweet?
This would be a difficult project for a first grader because there are many factors that determine whether food is sweet or not. Other ingredients may be more powerful in taste (perhaps there is salt too), or there might not be a lot of sugar added.

Here are a couple of simpler ideas:
You could test the difference in sweetness between lemonade that uses sugar vs. other sweeteners. We have a project idea that gives a bit more information: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p016.shtml. This project would be pretty easy to do and I think it is something a 1st grader can understand.

You could make different batches of cookies with varying amounts of sugar. This would help him understand how changing the amount of sugar added makes the cookie sweeter or less sweet (more like bread). At a certain point, they won't taste like cookies at all. I'd probably substitute flour for the missing sugar.

Another idea is to taste different concentrations of sugar in water. Here's a project idea (it is advanced for a first grader, but it looks like it would be pretty easy to simplify this project for his level): https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... p010.shtml

For your second question:
Do artificial flavors / colors make food taste better?
I think this is doable. You could make a batch of cookies and put dye in icing for some of the cookies, and leave the others plain. You could also try to find some sort of artificial flavor (maybe something fruity?), to put in the icing, and then an equivalent amount of natural flavor (so maybe you could make orange icing with artificial flavors and then orange juice, I'd look at some recipes online for fun icing).

You would want your daughter to understand that putting dye/artificial flavors on all foods would not necessarily make them taste better or worse. But you can answer her question for one type of food at least. I'd also tell her that most natural flavors are healthier .

For all of these examples, you could have 10 people do a taste test and rank the level of sweetness (or taste quality) on a scale of 1-5. For the dye/artificial flavor cookies, I'd do a blind taste test so that your testers don't know what kind of cookie they are eating. You'd also want to mix up the order that people taste everything.

Good luck and let us know if you have any more questions by replying to your original post. Or, if your kids don't like any of my suggestions, I can help you think of some more.

[anuami]

Dear Amber,
I really appreciate your response. This is the first Science Fair Project in our family. So we are all learning.

Upon reviewing your response, this is what we are thinking about my daughter's topic
1. Can people identify junk food (food with artificial colors/flavor) from healthy food by looking at it?
2.Can kids identify junk food from healthy food by tasting it?

She is thinking of having people try samples of identical looking foods and guessing 'all natural' and 'artificial' foods and having them taste it and then record the results.

Do you think this process is good enough for a project ?


We are still brainstorming what my son could do.
Thanks
Ami.

[Amber_MIT]

I think your idea sounds fine. You might just focus on the taste test (and I'd have the testers be blindfolded). For the looking at junk/healthy food, would you also be making it, or would you just take something that is already made? If it is already made, people might recognize the product, which would not be helpful. And if you make the food, both versions might look so similar (except maybe a difference in color), that it would be difficult for the testers to make a guess of which one is which. So that's why I think doing the taste test only would be better.

[anuami]

Hi Amber,
Now, regarding my son's project
He still wants to research and find out the reason for 'not tasting sugar in foods that contain sugar'
To be specific
He is curious about Plain Yogurt, Lemon, Pasta/Bread, Pretzels etc.
Yogurt has 17g sugar but tastes sour/buttery.
Juice of 1 Lemon has 6g sugar but tastes sour
Milk has 12g sugar but is not that sweet but Graham cracker has 6g sugar but tastes more sweeter.

The hypothesis he is building in his words
"Let's say that we have water and salt is in it then sugar gets in. but you can't taste it because salt already took over'
That can be explained in regular foods but what about dairy? How do you explain the reason for milk/yogurt being high in sugar but not taste sweet.
How do I go about finding that answer and what could be a possible experiment for it?
Thanks
Ami

[Amber_MIT]

A lot of the foods you just listed all contain different kinds of sugar. Milk has lactose, table sugar is sucrose, and fruit generally contains fructose.

Each sugar has a different amount of sweetness when tasted. Fructose is actually the sweetest, but in a lemon the citric acid and other flavors may be so sour that it counteracts it (perhaps your taste buds get overwhelmed by the sour part). Sucrose (table sugar) is also quite sweet. Lactose is not very sweet. Here is a diagram that shows the relative sweetness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Relativesweetness.png

You could modify this experiment, which I mentioned before: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p016.shtml

Or you could make cookies with the different sugars and see how they taste.

But you could use sucrose, fructose, and lactose instead of the artificial sweeteners (unless you want to test them, too). If you can't find lactose and fructose in the grocery store, you can find them on amazon for pretty cheap (a couple of bucks).

As I mentioned earlier though, the sweetness of the sugar isn't the only thing that determines the overall taste. The amount and properties of the other ingredients also play a factor. It looks from your previous post that your son understands this part. You can, however, say that changing the kind of sugar in a particular type of food will affect its sweetness.

You may need to be careful when you measure out the sugar. Since the weights of these sugars are different, you would actually have fewer molecules for some of the sugar. For example, let's say you have a basket of bananas and oranges. Each banana weighs 1/2 lb. Each orange weighs one pound. If a recipe calls for four pounds of bananas (i.e. 8 bananas in this case), you can't necessarily substitute four pounds of oranges (4 oranges in this case) in order for the recipe to turn out right. It might be that the recipe requires 8 pieces of fruit, but they put it in pounds. Similarly, lactose is heavier (and bigger) than fructose, so a cup of lactose actually contains less sugar molecules than a cup of fructose. I'll ask the other Experts to see if they have any ideas on how to measure out the sugar. You wouldn't want the cookies or lemonade to taste less sweet just because there is actually less sugar in it!

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have more questions.

[anuami]

Hello Amber,
I have one more question for you.
My daughter has designed her test for Food Additives as follows
1. Make Cookies with icing made of Artificial Orange Flavor and Natural Orange Flavor (Juice)
2. Cheetos (All Natural / Regular) - store bought
3. All Natural Jelly Beans vs Artificially Flavored Jelly Beans
4. Popcorn Natural Butter vs Artificial Butter Flavoring
5. Lemonade - Natural vs KoolAid
See is thinking of having about 10 people taste it to tell the difference.
My questions is -
1. Would her controlled variable be Food Additives / Natural Ingredients?
2. Would her dependent variable be Binary Variable - Can taste the difference or Cannot taste the difference?
3. Would her independent variable be the person tasting it?
4. Do we need the kind of additive constant between different food groups?
Any changes that you would recommend is appreciated.
Your suggestions have really made is easier for us to progress.
Thanks
Ami

[Amber_MIT]

Hi Ami,

You almost got the variables right. Variables can be confusing.

Read this page on variables to get a better understanding: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... bles.shtml

Controlled variables are the things that stay the same for each experiment. For example, the method you choose to have the tasters test the food should be the same each time (each one will be blind folded, they will need to answer the same questions each time, the rating scale for taste will stay the same)

The independent variable is what you change during the experiment. In this case, you are changing both the kind of food (cheetos, lemonade, etc.) and whether it is natural or artificial. You only want to change one thing at a time for each trial of the experiment.

The dependent variable is what is observed during the experiment, and it depends on the independent variable. You got that one correct. The responses of the testers is the dependent variable.

You'll have to put some effort into designing how you are going to test the testers' experience with the food. For each thing they taste, ask them if they think it is artificial or natural, and just let them go with their gut instinct, and don't let them change their answers after tasting the second one. In addition to asking whether they can tell whether one is artificial or natural, after they taste both you could also ask them which they prefer, and by how much over the other one. You should also tell them that they might receive the same brand of food twice (the second one might not be different). This will hopefully help them to not imagine differences when two foods taste almost exactly the same (if they already know that they are being given different foods, they might start out trying to find a difference, but there might not be much of one).

Technically, there are tons of other variables at play here (I'm sure the recipes for some of the foods you have chosen are different, and they may taste different not because of the natural flavor, but because of other substitutions made, too), but at this stage, it is most important that your daughter learns about the scientific method and applies it to a project than stressing over how controlled everything is in the experiment. However, you do want her to understand the importance of only changing one thing at a time, and being meticulous with the experiment in general.

Good luck and let me know if you have other questions.

[Amber_MIT]

I just wanted to give you an update on how to measure out the sugar. I talked with one of the other experts and he thought that making cookies with the different kinds of sugar was not a good idea, as the cookies' textures and taste might come out differently when you substitute ingredients, which is what I was afraid of. He thought lemonade was a much better idea, but we are still discussing on the best way to measure it out. I'll get back to you when I figure out the answer to that.

[Amber_MIT]

There's a couple of options for the sugar:

1) You can measure out the same amount of sucrose and lactose, since they are about the same size.

But for fructose, do half the amount of sucrose and lactose, because fructose is about half as small.

If you are having trouble explaining why you need to do this to your son, I would take a cup full of two differently sized objects (maybe different sized marbles or something similar?). Fill one cup with the large items and the other cup with small items, then count how many of each are in each cup. Explain to your son that you want to make sure that you have the same number of items in each cup, which means that you have to fill the cup with the small items up less in order for them to be the same.


2) If he doesn't seem to be getting the idea, then I think it is ok to just use the same amount for all of them. He is only in first grade after all. At this stage, it's more important that he understands the process of the scientific method than making sure the procedure is perfect.

Please let us know if you have more questions. Good luck with the experiment!