Restaurants sometimes add baking soda to a vegetable to make it look good or cook faster. Does it work?
Things Required:
Broccoli flowers or zucchini strips
A pot of boiling water
1 teaspoonful of baking soda
Directions:
Place the broccoli in the boiling water and add the baking soda.
This Is What Happens:
The vegetable stays green, but after a short time it turns mushy.
Science Behind It:
Baking soda is an alkali, the chemical opposite of an acid. When it is added to the water, it neutralizes some of the acids of the water and the vegetable. Because there are so few acids, the vegetable stays green but the alkali dissolves its firm cell wall. The vegetable tissue rapidly becomes too soft.
Baking soda also destroys the vitamins of the vegetable. It’s a high price to pay for looking good but less on health.
