Why does blowing on food make the food colder?

Question

Great question because your breath is not allt hat cold so it must have somehing to do with molocules. I dont kow I will let you guys figure it out ;)

Answer 1

Does a fan cool you down when it blows on you? As long as your breathe is cooler than the food, it will cool it.

Answer 2

Are two effects in my eyes, but I don't know which one is stronger:

(1) The more colder air you bring e. g. to a table spoon of hot soup the more heat will be taken from that soup. Your breathe normally is colder than the hot soup and also your breathe is drawing additional fresh air from outside itself in turbulences to the spoon. So both of these streams load heat and carry it away.

(2) Your breathe and the attracted fresh air can take evaporating water from the soup. This evaporation additionally is cooling the soup.

Answer 3

the food heats up the air around it, transferring heat. As that air heats up, less heat moves because an equilibrium is reached.

But if you move the wind around it, the energy can continue to be transferred.

Just like having a fan on you on a hot summer day, or the cold wind in the winter.

Answer 4

Since your breath is kind of a "mini wind source", the fast-moving water molecules inside the food have an easier way to break free from the slower molecules that they are bonded to. Since the fast molecules left due to the force of your breath, all there is left are the slower moving molecules.

Answer 5

As you blow, your breath and surround molecules in the air comes in contact with the item you are blowing on. The hot item has energy in the form of heat which is transfered to the lower engery molecules in the surrounding environment - breath, air, etc.

Answer 6

convection (forced convection to be picky)- when you pass air of a lesser temperature over a hotter mass it will carry some of the heated boundary layer away with it allowing the molecular motion in the hotter mass to reduce by transfer (radiant) of heat to the boundary layer. this of course assumes an atmosphere to form a boundary layer as well as to provide breath for the blowing action.
(I am a self trained generalist engineer and a physics freak).

Answer 7

it actually helps to blow your food or soup or rice a little, but the open air and the sorroundings is the mainreason why your food can actually get cold faster or not depending on the temperature, because if you blow your food on a desert, it will take more time than in a cold place or winter temperature where the cold sorroundings can easily affect the hotness of an object.

Answer 8

Transfers the heat energy of the hot food to the cooler air.

Answer 9

Your breath becomes colder as it travels distance to the food. And it is cooler than food.Try blowing on your fingers :)

Answer 10

I am a chemical engineer.
If the air is colder than the source then blowing will cool it down.
Air does not transfer heat efficiently.
So, blowing does help.
Wind will normally cool you down.
A fan is cheaper than A/C