Joseph Radovich

Abstract:

My research was about apples going bad after being cut up. My research is related to other tests on food preservation. This is important because understanding why things such as apples can lead to wasting less food. Previous studies in fruit and vegetables going bad and particularly turning brown have shown the PPO enzyme, an enzyme found in some fruits and vegetables causes browning. The objective of this experiment is to determine the best additive to apples to cause less browning. My hypothesis was; If, I add white vinegar with pH of about 2 to apple slices then the apple slices will stay fresh, because, the reason lemon juice stops apple browning is it’s low pH. It was proven wrong because vinegar, what I thought would cause the least browning caused the most. For the experiment, I tested if lemon juice itself, vitamin C, or the low pH (vinegar) causes the lemon juice to stop apples from browning. I did this by testing 12 sets of apple slices. 3 were the control with nothing, 3 dunked in a bath of lemon juice, 3 in vitamin C solution, and 3 in a bath of vinegar. Vitamin C comes in powdered form so I used distilled water to dissolve it. Vitamin C comes in powdered form so I had to dissolve it into a solution, I did this by adding water to 80g or Vitamin C until it dissolved. They were set aside in plastic bags to sit for 4 hours and were checked at 30 minute intervals checking the color and overall how they look. In each bag there was half an apple sliced up into 6 slices. My data suggests that lemon juice and vitamin C were the most effective at stopping the apples from browning.

Awards won: 1st Honorable Mention