Chemistry DP Update and Reflection

By Delaney Kehm

Question A:
In this project I made a smoothie, and for my control I used different types of milk. I used
coconut milk, almond milk, and 2% milk. When testing these different types of milks in the
smoothie I found different results for each milk. How the coconut milk changed the
characteristics of the smoothie was that it was the sweetest smoothie out of all three of them, it
wasn’t frothy or very thick. The almond milk affected the smoothie in that it was not very sweet,
which could have been because I didn’t want the added sugars in sweetened almond milk to
have a large effect on how sweet the smoothie was. The almond milk was frothy and thick. The
2% percent milk had made the smoothie frothy, and was somewhat thick, but definitely not the
thickest when it come to the almond milk. As for being the thickest smoothie my results showed
that the regular milk was the thickest, and that the coconut milk was a close second, and that
the almond milk was pretty thin, but seeing as I probably didn’t do the test it right, I would find a
better way to test it so that it could be more accurate and line up with my survey and the results
that I got.
Why I chose that specific ingredient was because milk is the one ingredient that really
brings everything in a smoothie together, it’s a really major component when it comes to making
a smoothie. So when altering it I was able to see the types of thickeners used in the different
types of milks and how that had an affect on the smoothie. When looking at which smoothie was
the thickest, as well as looking at the amount of sugars put into each type of milk giving me
some type of idea of which smoothie would be the sweetest as well. When blending everything
together ice is used as a thickener as well when making a smoothie, and depending on what
type of fruit whether it be frozen or natural, than can also add to the sugar intake, so keeping the
amounts of ingredients the same I was able to see what could also affect the thickness and
what also might have an affect the sweetness besides the milk.

Question D:
How I think scientists and cooks are similar would be that when trying to make or test
something when trying to find something out or when they are baking they of course have to
follow some directions when it comes to proportions of an element or a having to put a certain
amount of an ingredient when cooking or baking. There has to be a certain amount of an
element or ingredient then that could give you the perfect end product or the product that you
expect if you follow the directions. The same goes for when you experiment, if you want to see
what a cookie would look or taste like if you put too much sugar, flour, or baking soda, or maybe
less than what the recipe calls for. This goes for chemists to. When they experiment, they have
could use less of what they want when expecting a reaction, or when something doesn’t work,
or it isn’t the end product that you want then the next time experiment you could add a little
more of an element or less, or time it longer. So with both cooks and chemists you can always
experiment and if you don’t like the way something tuned out then the next time you do it then
you could adjust the experiment or recipe to how you want the end product to turn out.
 How I think that chemists and cooks are different is that when looking at a recipe
card or an experiment they both have directions to follow, but there are different aspects to the
directions for a chemist and directions for a cook. Of course they are different because one
cooks food and the other puts chemicals together and sees what their reaction is, and tests
certain chemicals on certain objects, like what figuring out the mass after a certain object is
burned. Another difference is that between cooking and doing chemistry is that although you
can sometimes you use the same ingredients for cooking or doing an experiment, chemists will
usually use metals and or powders, while cooks usually use food and of course when baking
they will use baking powder or baking soda, but most of the materials that a chemist uses and
that a cook uses are not entirely similar. When cooking usually you can change something by
doing something with the temperature or putting a little less or a little bit extra of something,
whereas chemists can alter the size of something, the temperature, how long something can be
heated or chilled, can adjust the weight of an object, and can also alter the time for when you
trying to measure and seeing how long it takes, but also seeing at how long does it take a
certain thing to react to another chemical.