Veggie Tales: Acid or Base
by Conor L.
3rd Place - Chemistry

QUESTION: My question is does the color of a vegetable indicate if it is an acid or a base?

RESEARCH - In my research I learned that if a vegetable is yellow, red, or orange, starch amylose is not present, but if it is black, blue, or brown starch, amylose is present. If the vegetable is green it may vary. I also found out that red vegetables contain lycopene, beta, carotene, and vitamin C, that orange or deep yellow vegetables contain beta, carotene, and vitamin C, and that dark greens contain beta and carotene.

HYPOTHESIS - My hypothesis is that the color does indicate if a vegetable is an acid or a base.

EXPERIMENT - The steps of my experiment were to juice carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, yellow squash, and celery and then test them with pH strip to see if they were an acid or a base. The materials I used for experiment were an electronic juicer, fifteen pH strips, five glasses, one potato, two tomatoes, six carrots, one yellow squash, and three celery stalks.

ANALYSIS - While doing my experiment I observed that most of the vegetables were almost neutral acids with pH values of five and six, while the carrots and tomatoes were regular acids with pH values of four meaning they are stronger acids.

DISCOVERY - In this experiment I learned that the color of a vegetable does not indicate if a vegetable is an acid or base just what type of acid it is.

BIBLIOGRAPHY - I used www.indigo.com, www.elmhurst.edu, and
www.askdoctorsears.com to research my topic.