Please answer if your good in science?

Question

Im doing my science experiment to see if the processing
of food produces gas. I was told that you do this by getting the
vegitables or fruit, grounding them up, mixing them with vinegar and putting it in
a test tube and then place a balloon over it to see if gas is produced.
First I tried mixing the foods (Im using canned, frozen and fresh blueberrys
first to see if it works) with the vinegar and put it in a test tube and
I placed a balloon over it but no gas was produced.
my question is if i added baking powder to the vinegar would that show the fruits gas or the gas from the bakinging powder.

Answer 1

Baking powder or baking soda?

The easy way is to do a process of elimination. Instead of looking at it your way, reverse it.

Add baking powder (if that's what you really mean) to vinegar. Put a balloon over it. Does anything happen? Then add in your food item. Is it any different?

Baking soda and vinegar makes a heck of a mess, just so you know. It's fun to watch, but it'll definitely give you a reaction.

Answer 2

Baking powder is CaCo3 + an acid in the form of cream of tartar . You don't need to add acid just water to set up the reaction which Will cause the hydrogen in the cream of tartar to dissolve the the calcium and release the CO2.
The resulting reaction would be completely independent of the food product[s] involved.
If you need gas I think there are a couple of ways to do it. You can rely on naturally occurring yeasts. Make a bread dough using water , flour and a little sugar leave it open and in a warm place it a couple of days it will start to ferment. Trap the gas - CO2
In food sanitation there is an acronym called FAT-TOM which stands for Food, Acidity, Time Temperature, Oxygen[ or lack of] & Moisture.
These are the six things that life needs to have in order to thrive . In sanitation we want to deny microbes as many of those six as possible . You on the other want want to provide bacteria with as many of those as possible, Use moist raw protien products. Fresh chicken is great and encourage bacterial action to make a goo out of it -gas will released.
Do not use foods that have been cooked such as canned goods or pasturized products.
If you can find it raw non pastuerized grape juice will ferment and make wine of it's own accord.
OOPS ! Wrong formula- I was tired-
CaCO3 is chalk/limestone
Sodium bicarbonate[ baking soda ] is NaHCO3 + an acid in the form of cream of tartar
Have fun

Answer 3

The baking powder would react with the vinegar. you will never know if the blueberries ar e producing gas that way. Are you using other types of food too, or just blueberries? It's a good idea to study the effect of the experiement on more than one type of food.

Answer 4

Are you trying to make a volcano? If not, don't use vinegar and baking anything- those are for leavening. You are on the right track, vinegar acts like stomach acid, though weaker, it is safer than using hydrochloric acid. You should start with foods that are known to be "gassy" like broccoli or beans, then get fresh, frozen, and canned and compare the three environments. Fyi- to make it more interesting, you could get a product like Beano (which is said to interrupt gas production) and do three test tubes (fresh frozen and canned) with beano and compare them to the test tubes without beano!