BAKERSFIELD, CALIF (KERO) — If Thanksgiving has left you with some extra veggies on hand, why not use them for science?
What you need:
- A jar with red cabbage juice
- A jar with baking soda
- A jar with vinegar
First make your red cabbage juice by simply boiling a head of cabbage in some water.
While we wouldn’t recommend drinking it, it does have pretty cool color changing properties.
The juice is normally a deep purple, but when we add some baking powder, it turns blue. If we add a little vinegar it turns back to purple and if we add even more vinegar it turns pink.
Explanation:
So why does this happen? The chemical that gives red cabbage its distinctive color is called anthocyanin. And anthocyanin is what’s called an indicator, which is something that changes color when it comes in contact with either an acid or a base. If we add a base to the juice it turns blue, green or yellow, and if we add an acid it turns pink or red.
Red cabbage juice is safe to mix with just about anything, so try mixing it with different liquids around the house and see what the results are, and find out whether the liquids are an acid or a base.
If you’re going to use something besides vinegar and baking powder you should only mix the juice with one liquid at time, because mixing random chemicals together can be very dangerous.
