"Eggsperiment"

As part of our Living Things strand in Science, we are studying the teeth. We are learning about the parts of the tooth and what kind of effects various liquids have on the enamel of the tooth.  We carried out an experiment with hard boiled eggs over the course of a week to find out.( Eggshells react similarly to substances to tooth enamel.) The liquids we used were: water, milk, coffee, coke, diet coke and a concentrated orange drink. 

 After Day 1:

Water

 Milk

 Coffee

 Orange

 Coke

 Diet Coke (a strange colour on top)

 Day 4

Water

 Milk

 Coffee

 Coke

 Diet Coke

 Orange

 After 1 week

Water-(no change)

 Milk-(no change)

 Coffee-(badly stained)

 Coke-(gritty texture on eggshell)

 Diet Coke-(a slimy coating on the eggshell)

 Orange juice from concentrate-this drink proved to be the most damaging to the eggshell therefore it is not the best thing to drink.

The shell blistered and weakened. We could actually scrape the eggshell off to reveal the white of the egg underneath!

 Quite shocking!

 The eggs left to right-water, milk, coffee, coke, diet coke, orange drink.

We discovered that the orange drink was most damaging so we examined its ingredients.

It contains:water

orange juice from concentrate (25%)

sugar

acidity regulator

citric acid

flavourings

antioxidant

ascorbic acid

sweetener

sucralose

colour: beta carotene

As you can see, this drink only contains 25% orange juice! 

We concluded that the other ingredients in this drink may damage the enamel on your teeth as eggshells and enamel react similarly to substances.