# I NEVER would have thought I’d find THAT in food!

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Thoisoi2 - Chemical Experiments!
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Cq2TRntVU
- **Дата:** 04.04.2026
- **Длительность:** 25:13
- **Просмотры:** 7,361

## Описание

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Thoisoi 
Attention! This video shows dangerous experiments! Do not repeat the experiments shown in this video!

Hello everyone! In this video, I’ll explain how food additives and preservatives work in beverages and food, and why many of them are safe for your health. You’ll learn how antioxidants, nitrites, and sulfites extend shelf life and protect food from bacteria and mold. We’ll conduct experiments with juices, compote, and culture media for microorganisms to clearly demonstrate the effects of these substances. I’ll also explain why synthetic and natural colorants behave differently and how scientific insights make our products tasty and appealing.
Welcome to my channel! It's dedicated to experiments in inorganic and organic chemistry! Here, you can find a lot of chemical experiments, each of which contains explanations that will be understandable even to people who are not into chemistry. In my video experiments, I also indicate chemical equations that will help you understand the essence of chemical reactions and transformations. If you have problems with the perception of difficult chemical reactions and chemical equations in school, then you can use some of my videos as a self-help guide in chemistry. Also, some experiments from my videos can be repeated at home, of course, in compliance with all safety rules. Many of the experiments that are shown in my videos are shown to children and used as classic demonstration experiments for schoolchildren or students. Each experiment will be explained as clearly as possible. Chemistry is easy for everyone, even for beginners!
#Thoisoi2 #chemistry

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Cq2TRntVU) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Hello everyone. I think you've noticed that many drinks, for example, even Teragan soda can be stored for weeks without refrigeration and still not spoil. The ingredients list shows preservatives, potassium sorbet, and sodium benzoate. But how safe are they? And what would happen if we didn't add them to store-bought drinks at all? Well, let's figure it out. I think that by now even people living on remote islands in the Pacific Ocean have heard about dietary supplements and this is particularly true about preservatives which have given rise to real phobias and conspiracy theories in many individuals today. But it wasn't always like this. Throughout human history, it was necessary not only to obtain food but also to preserve it. For example, in the past, the only food additive was common table salt. So food was either dried, salted or smoked for extended periods of preservation. But as technological progress continued to develop, these traditional methods were no longer sufficient. And in addition to simply storing food, it also needed to be ensured to be significantly safer for consumption. This is why humanity turned to the use of food additives such as the much maligned preservatives and colorants we know today. So are these additives really that bad? Really? Today I'll try to tell you about some of these substances and also dispel a few myths. And I think I'll start with the most harmless food additives for example with antioxidants. The first time I came across the name of these substances was on a package of bullion cubes. And in addition to the standard list of ingredients like salt and beef fat, rosemary extract was also specifically included as an antioxidant. That is quite interesting. I wonder why. It turns out that if you dissolve a bit of dried rosemary in alcohol and treat it for 20 minutes in an ultrasonic bath over time, some bioactive components will end up in the solution that help preserve the freshness of food. For example, in this green and rather pleasant, this highly aromatic and fragrant solution contains substances such as alphapanine, campfor and cineol, which are exceptionally and quite easily oxidized by atmospheric oxygen. And when such an extract is carefully introduced and added, for example, to bullion cubes, the substances contained in this extract are the very first components to be oxidized, thereby effectively absorbing free radicals and free oxygen that enters the packaging from the surrounding air. As a result, the shelf life of such a product is extended many times over. In addition to rosemary extract, a variety of different semi-finish products today also have vitamin E added as an antioxidant. For example, this component is frequently found in certain meat or frozen products or even in items like fish sticks. But besides fat, products may also contain other substances that are capable of oxidizing. For instance, the same proteins or carbohydrates. And to prevent this process, other substances are now added to food. For example, the familiar vitamin C or ascorbic acid. I think vitamin C no longer causes fear or distrust in most people since it is one of the most important substances in our diet. And when a person lacks it, various pathologies begin to develop, for example, a deadly disease, scurvy. And that's because in the course of evolution, our human bodies have unfortunately lost the ability to produce vitamin C or ascorbic acid. So we need to regularly and consistently obtain it from food. Unlike other animals, for example, cats or dogs who don't need to drink orange juice since they produce vitamin C internally within their own biological systems. Today, vitamin C is added as an antioxidant to many frozen vegetables or canned foods. It's also added to a wide variety of different fruit juices. Interestingly, you can accurately measure the concentration of this substance in orange juice right in your own home. Let's compare how much the ascorbic acid content differs in standard store-bought juice and in juice where vitamin C is specifically listed as an added ingredient. For this, the so-called iodometry method is used. To apply it, I took a regular pharmacy 5% iodine solution and diluted it five times with ordinary vodka. Since pharmacy iodine is too concentrated for this experiment, it's better not to dilute this solution with water because iodine does not dissolve in water and most of it will simply precipitate out. For the analysis, I took 50 g of regular juice and diluted it two times with water so that the color wouldn't be so intense and also to make sure I had enough iodine solution for the experiments. I place the solution on a magnetic stirer and above the glass I also secure a borete which is used in laboratories for a process called titration. I pour my iodine solution into it and then lower it to the mark. Now I need to prepare a starch paste solution to use as an indicator. To do this I simply mix a little starch with

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Cq2TRntVU&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

water and then heat it all up in the microwave. For the actual analysis, I add a little starch paste to the juice solution and then while stirring begin to add the iodine solution drop by drop. At this point, the iodine starts to oxidize the vitamin C present in the juice. So the color of the solution remains unchanged for now. But as soon as the last molecules of vitamin C or ascorbic acid are oxidized by the iodine, the excess iodine immediately reacts with the starch, turning the solution a bright blue color. Well, all that's left is to count the amount of iodine solution used and plug it into the calculations according to which 7 mg of ascorbic acid from the solution is consumed per 1 ml of iodine solution. And as a result, according to my calculations, the first juice contains 33 mg of vitamin C per 100 ml, which is quite a good indicator. And to replenish your daily intake of vitamin C, an adult needs to drink about a glass of orange juice like this. Yes, on such cold days, that's exactly what you need. I conducted the same experiment with a second juice, which contains added vitamin C. And it turned out that its ascorbic acid content is twice as high as in the previous sample. So apparently the manufacturer wasn't lying. And here the vitamin content is really almost the same as in freshlysqueezed orange juice. So, what about antioxidants? We've basically figured that out. But besides juices, which have vitamins added and are pasteurized to extend their shelf life, there are also a wide variety of other beverages. For example, sodas, which have various chemical substances added, such as preservatives. Look, if you look closely, it even says right here on the label somewhere, yes, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate have been carefully incorporated. But are these substances dangerous for humans? In fact, benzoic acid, whose sodium salt is known as sodium benzoate, is a naturally occurring compound. Most often, it is found in wild cranberries to prevent them from spoiling prematurely before the seed has a chance to sprout. But sorbic acid, from which potassium sorbet is originally derived, can also be found in Rowan berries, which grow abundantly in our specific climate zone. It's just everywhere. And even though these substances are naturally occurring in the environment, in this day and age, scientists conduct rigorous testing on every single food additive for toxicity and safety for humans using special scientific methods. To do this, the substance under study is given to laboratory animals, for example, mice, every day for a year. Different groups of animals are given different doses, increasing gradually, and after a year they observe what has happened. After that, from the various tested doses for the mice, they selected the highest dose that did not affect the animals health and then divide its concentration by 100. So even if you drink 5 L of such soda every day, you still won't even come close to reaching the maximum permitted dose of preservatives in your body that could potentially harm you in any way. In fact, it's the sugar which is present in large amounts in these drinks that is more likely to harm you. Sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate themselves slow down the reproduction and growth of bacteria in the product which increases its shelf life and also makes it safer. After all, nobody wants to eat salted herring contaminated with salmonella, right? By the way, sodium benzoat is almost always added to fish products these days at concentrations not exceeding 0. 1% since these products spoil faster than any others. To test how well sodium benzoeti and potassium sorbat inhibit the growth of mold and bacteria, I decided to conduct a microbiological experiment for which I first bought several sterile petri dishes. In them, I will place a nutrient medium for bacteria and mold which is sold in the form of this powder. I add the same amount of this powder to each of the four glasses for the experiment. In addition to the powders in three out of the four containers, I will also add different preservatives, the concentration of which I chose as half of the maximum allowable amount, namely 0. 05%, which translates to 0. 25 g of substance per half L of nutrient medium. In the first glass, I added sodium benzo water as a preservative. The second glass gets potassium sorbat. And in the third, I add a mixture of both. The glass on the far left will be the control, meaning it will not have any preservatives added. Now all that's left is to pour warm water into the containers and mix well. After which the solutions are placed in a water bath to fully dissolve the agar based nutrient medium. After everything is dissolved, I pour my solutions into all the petri dishes which I have already labeled in advance. It takes about half an hour for the nutrient medium to solidify. After which I can already inoculate the petri dishes

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Cq2TRntVU&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

with the microorganisms I need. The very top row of dishes. I will leave this one as it is as a control sample into which only airborne bacteria could have entered. In the second row, I will inoculate bacteria from my hands for which I press down on the solidified nutrient medium with different fingers of my hand. I decided to populate the third row with bacteria from my mouth. To do this, I first thoroughly rubbed my teeth with a cotton swab and then applied these bacteria to the nutrient medium in each dish. The fourth row, I decided to introduce wild bacteria from outside. So, I picked some ordinary grass in the yard and placed a piece in each jar. in each of the jars in this row. And I set aside the last row for bacteria from the human intestine for which I simply applied microorganisms from the inner part of the toilet bowl onto the nutrient medium. Yes. What won't you do for the sake of an experiment? Well, now I just have to wait about 4 days for the organisms I need to start multiplying in the nutrient medium. Then it will become clear how well the preservatives I added to the nutrient medium will protect it from the growth of various microorganisms. After half a week, it's already apparent that some form of life has started to develop in the petri dishes. And perhaps evolutionary processes have already begun there. Well, then let's take a closer look. In the upper control row, you can see that in the petri dish without preservatives, many bacterial colonies have formed within the nutrient medium. But the other dishes look much cleaner, especially the ones where I added benzoate. The first results from adding preservatives are already visible. In the next row, a small amount of bacteria and mold grew from my fingers in the control group. The other dishes are also cleaner. As for the bacteria from my teeth in the third row, they grew regardless of the addition of preservatives. Well, maybe the benzoatate slightly reduced their growth from a piece of grass in the control petri dish. Entire jungles of mold and bacteria grew. Interestingly, the addition of benzoate had almost no effect on mold growth, but potassium sorbate significantly reduced the proliferation of mold fungi. The best results were shown by the mixture of benzoate and sorbet, which almost completely stopped the growth of bacteria and mold. And the last row featured the most resilient bacteria from the human gut, which couldn't care less about those preservatives. They'd probably survive even in a solution of domest. And that's hardly a matter of chance since inside our intestines, numerous types of bacteria have already adapted to the very preservatives we eat almost on a daily basis. They've developed a condition known as resistance. So, they no longer react to preservatives. In addition to the nutrient medium in petri dishes, I decided to conduct a similar experiment with beverages. For this, I first cooked a rather tasty and sweet apple compost from village apples. While it was cooling, I prepared containers for storage, specifically four plastic bottles, three of which I also added preservatives to, namely sodium benzoate, sorbate, potassium, and their mixture. The concentration I used was the same as in the Petri dishes. Petri at 0. 05%. 05%. After the compost cooled, I poured it into all four containers and left them to be stored like that for a week. I'm curious whether the compost in the control bottle to which I didn't add any preservative will have time to sour and what will happen to the other samples. After a week, it was already clear that the preservatives did affect the preservation of my compost. In the control bottle, the color changed and something started growing at the bottom. some kind of kombucha-like fungus. Most likely colonies of fungi and bacteria formed here. All of this looked nothing like the apple sediment from the compost in the other bottle. In the other bottles, nothing like that formed at the bottom. This means that preservatives also work in beverages. So, in the end, we can say that substances like sodium benzoat and potassium sorbate are simply essential in the food industry. And if you are producing any kind of food products and don't want them to spoil the very next day, then you simply have to add some preservatives to them. These are still processed by the human body and are absolutely safe. In addition to preservatives for beverages and fish products, some people are often wary of so-called sodium nitrite, which is also a preservative. Nowadays, it is added to almost all meat products available for purchase in most grocery stores. But in reality, without the addition of this substance, all the sausages and hams in the store would be an unappetizing, unpleasant gray color. Yes, and after eating such a product, you could easily get botulism. Sodium nitrite itself in its pure form is a white substance with a slightly yellowish tint and is a mild oxidizer. For example, even if you mix it with magnesium powder and try to ignite it

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Cq2TRntVU&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

nothing will happen. But if you do the same thing with potassium nitrate, which is used as a fertilizer for plants, the reaction will be much more vigorous. Of course, for food, sodium nitrate is used. It is not added in its pure form, but first mixed with regular salt at a concentration of only 0. 5% resulting in what is called nitrite salt. It's easier to dose, and this kind of salt is better for storage. For example, to salt something, beef patties, usually about 1% nitrite salt is added to the ground beef. And if you recalculate the final concentration of sodium nitrate in the product, it comes out to just 5 mg per 100 g of such ground meat, sodium nitrite, which is an extremely small amount. Interestingly, patties made from ground meat with nitrite salt became much darker than those with regular salt because sodium nitrite reacts with myoglobin in the meat, which is responsible for its pink color. For a better comparison, I also fried both batches of patties. Once the cooking process is finished, you can clearly see that the patties containing nitrite salt have a much more pink and appetizing hue, whereas the regular ones look significantly grayer. This is all because during the heat treatment process, a bright pink pigment called nitroyl protoorpherin forms from the oxidized myoglobin found within the ground meat. That is exactly why many sausages or hams containing nitride salt end up with a much brighter and more attractive color. And of course, all these pigments as well as the products containing them are absolutely harmless. In addition to giving a pleasant color, sodium nitrite as well as nitrite salt helps combat many pathogenic bacteria. For example, one of them is claustrdium botulinam which in the course of its life activity produces a highly toxic substance called botulinam toxin. If this toxin enters your body, you can contract a rather frightening and unpleasant disease called bottism. So now without the addition of sodium nitrite already to eat meat products would be dangerous to consume and would spoil three to four times faster. Well, we've covered antioxidants and preservatives. But wait, there is still another substance that is both an antioxidant and a preservative and which some people consume quite often. I'm talking about those sulfites whose presence is indicated on almost every bottle of wine and which significantly extend its shelf life and stabilize it. More precisely, sodium or potassium metabulfite is added to wine at a certain concentration 0. 05% which is about 100 mg per liter of beverage. When wine is added, this substance gradually begins to decompose in an aqueous solution, releasing sulfur dioxide, which as they say kills two birds with one stone. It both absorbs the dissolved oxygen in the wine and slows down the activity of bacteria and mold, which inevitably remain even in a well- settled beverage. Usually, the decomposition of potassium metabulfite in water occurs rather slowly, but this process can be accelerated for a demonstration experiment. For this I made a very concentrated solution of potassium metabisulfite in water. Because of this, it even acquired a slightly yellowish tint. After that, I add a little potassium chlorate catalyst to the solution. And after just a few seconds, the solution begins to boil from the decomposition of sodium metabosulfite. This is the so-called process of autocatalysis which looks quite impressive. So if you don't like alcohol, this spectacular experiment is just for you. As for those who like to celebrate holidays with alcoholic beverages, there's no need to worry since the concentration of sulfites in wine is quite low and cannot cause any significant harm to your health. What you should be concerned about is the alcohol, which is present in large amounts in wine and isn't particularly healthy. So, with the help of a simple additive, you can extend the shelf life of wine products several times over without losing taste or aroma. Well, I think we can sort this out. And there's another class of food additives that many ordinary people are also afraid of, namely food colorings. These substances are especially common in carbonated drinks and various sweets which attract young buyers with their colorful appearance. But as you may recall from what I said earlier, all dosages of colorings in products are strictly regulated and usually do not exceed 30 mg per kilogram. And that's only 3,000% which is simply negligible. According to modern research, no harmful effects of synthetic colorings on the human body have been found so far. Although there was one study by British scientists who for some reason concluded

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Cq2TRntVU&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

that synthetic colorings cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children. But in reality, this study is not taken seriously in the scientific community at all because it was conducted with gross errors and in a very sloppy manner. But people already started to panic and many manufacturers began to abandon synthetic colorings and replace them with natural ones such as carotenoids or some other berry extract which is more expensive and not particularly effective. That's why now some manufacturers add so-called natural colorings to their products. For example, Fanta contains beta carotene from carrots while cola just uses caramelized sugar. And in other drinks, they simply use berry extract. The problem is not only that natural colorings are more expensive, but they are also extremely chemically unstable. Here's an experiment to illustrate this. First, in the first five glasses, I dissolve synthetic food dyes used for coloring eggs. You can see their names on the screen. After that step, I introduced a small amount of chlorine bleach to them, which just as we would naturally expect should bleach or decolorize the dyes in the glasses. This process happened rather slowly and it took about half an hour for all the solutions to become completely decolorized. Now take a look at how quickly natural dyes from regular sodas lose their color. Yes, here the color of all the substances disappeared in just seconds. That's why with these natural food colorings today, food technologists face a whole bunch of problems. How to dissolve them? How to dose them? For example, Fanta is now colored with beta carotene, which doesn't really dissolve in water. And in order to somehow color the soda, food technologists have to work magic with other substances to at least somewhat dissolve and tint the water with this beta carotene. And if you didn't know, beta carotene is obtained from carrots. And that's a process, too, not a cheap one. And so, in the end, the final product, lemonade colored with beta carotene, ends up being several times more expensive than if you had colored it, for example, with some kind of synthetic dye. The single most significant advantage of naturally derived colorants is that some of them can be used for stunning visual effects. For example, if you take turmeric powder and dissolve it in vodka, the resulting solution will emit a beautiful vibrant yellow glow under ultraviolet light. This is all because of a specific chemical substance known as kurcumin which has vibrant fluorescent properties. The same thing happens with vitamin B2. When it is dissolved in water, it also produces a strikingly beautiful yellow fluoresence. But I think most of you are probably aware that tonic water also emits a vibrant blue glow under ultraviolet light because it contains a chemical called quinine. By the way, I also have pure quinine which was extracted from the cincha tree and purified. And if you dissolve just a pinch of this substance in water, you can get mesmerized for several minutes when you turn on a UV lamp. Interestingly, quinine was actually the first substance used as a treatment for malaria. So, taking a couple of bottles of tonic water with you to Africa wouldn't be the worst idea. But no matter how stunningly beautiful these natural colorants appear, and no matter how intensely they might glow under ultraviolet light, many commercial manufacturers, for example, this specific brand of tarcoon, still choose to add synthetic food dyes to their products, which are significantly more stable over time and tend to dissolve much better in liquid. And overall, in all their characteristics, they surpass natural ones. Well, as for other food additives, I think that after watching this video, you are convinced of their safety and that there is nothing scary about them. But if that wasn't enough for you, then I recommend watching more. And also my other previous videos where I talked about emulsifiers, flavor enhancers, and for example, flavorings. Well, if you enjoyed this video, as always, don't forget to give it a like and subscribe to the channel so that in the future you can learn many more new and interesting things.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49305*