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Rotten
YOU WILL NEED:
One fresh apple
Knife

apple
Four disposable plastic cups
Table salt
Epsom salts
Baking soda
Spoon
If you leave an apple for long enough, it will start to decay. Micro-organisms
feed on the fruit and break it down into other substances, such as nitrogen
compounds and carbon dioxide. This is an irreversible reaction. You can’t
un-rot an apple – but you can slow the rotting down.
1 week

1
Number the cups from 1 to 4.
Cut the apple into four equal 1 2 3 4
segments and put a segment
into each cup.

SCIENCE AROUND US
Preserving food
Various methods are used for
preserving food. Refrigerators chill
it. Freezers freeze it. Food is also

1 2
2
Cover the irst three pieces of apple
with a different substance. Put preserved by being canned, smoked,
3 4 table salt into cup 1, epsom salts salted, dried, and pickled. All of these
into cup 2, and baking soda into cup 3. methods either stop or slow the
Don’t add anything to cup 4; it will be activity of the micro-organisms
your control cup. Store the cups in a cool that make food rot.
dark place where they will not be
disturbed for about a week.

3
After a week, compare the four
segments. The control segment has
Salt preserves probably gone mouldy. The segment
the apple by
removing all of
from cup 1 is probably the best preserved,
the moisture as salt draws the moisture out of food and
so the micro-organisms that cause decay
cannot thrive.

Some mould
appears on the
control piece
Salt

Frozen peas

Pickled tomatoes

Baking soda

Epsom salts Baking soda

appear to discolours
speed up the apple
Canned fish
the decay
Epsom salts Control

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