Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I need help regarding Does drinking milk decrease spiciness better than pepsi or water? I have researched and came up with milk but im not getting any information regarding what the actual differences in properites or ingrediants that make this actual. I know that capsaicin is in peppers and is also soluble in veg. oil and milk is a base with casein but to compare all three milk, pepesi, and water i can't come up with actual things in them to compare and see what is the difference between them and what powerful ingredient is in all three. I have to do a bar graph and i don't know what i would be putting on a graph if there is only certain ingredients in each that soothe the spiciness in the foods.

Dylan1996 - I am moving your post to the Life Sciences forum where I think you will get help from our Experts. The "Getting Ready for the Science Fair" forum is for when you're all done with your project and are putting together your materials for the fair itself.

Amy
Science Buddies

Dylan,

What exactly did you measure? That will help us help you figure out how to graph your results. Were you only looking at peppers, or at other 'spicy' foods?

Check out this paper on different treatments for capsaicin mouth burn: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 810dcff664 . You'll probably want to compare your results to theirs, but there will probably be a long discussion of why they got the results they did in the paper.

But, getting back to your results. Remember that capsaicin is hydrophobic. That means it will dissolve in oil/fat, but not in water. Take a look at the nutritional information for your various liquids. Which one has the most fat? Which one has the least? How does that compare with your results?

Hi Dylan,

The Mythbusters took a look at this question, and their methods and results might help you to organize yours. Here is a link to their results, which includes a link to the episode. Just a fun way to look at your project!

http://mythbustersresults.com/episode91

Cheers,
Heather