Green Eggs and Ham–Yuck!
The part of the brain that lets you know that you are hungry or thirsty is called the hypothalamus. Different things initiate these messages. Of course when the body is lacking water or food to function, the hypothalamus sends out distress signals for you to eat or drink. But the hypothalamus is triggered by other messages, such as smells. You can be full but if your favorite cookies are baking, the sweet, tempting aroma wafting toward your nose makes you feel hungry. Just the sight of the gooey layers of cheese and meats shown on a T.V. pizza commercial makes you want a pizza.
So what about colors. Does the thought of being served green eggs and ham sound appetizing? A green egg makes me think the egg is rotten. But a tart, green Granny Smith apple makes my mouth water. It seems that color can stimulate our hunger but because our minds have been trained, we have learned what colors certain foods should be.
Research shows that some colors are more likely to make you feel hungry. The colors found to be more positive in triggering hunger are: red, orange, yellow and green. Scientists are not the only ones interested in this kind of information. For instance, Ronald McDonald is yellow with red hair. Next time you are out, make a point to observe the colors inside and outside of restuarants.
The color blue is known to act as an appetite suppressant. Would you like to have a blue banana? How many natural blue foods can you think of?
DISCOVER FOR YOURSELF
How important is the color of your food? Without informing your kids, prepare small amounts of different colors of cake icing. This can easily be done by adding food coloring to white cake icing (I use the prepared containers of icing). Use a label with a letter to identify each colored icing. Announce to the kids that they are to be part of a quality control group. Their job is to make a decision about a new brand of cake icing. Make the ususal colors of red, green, blue, and yellow. Then mix some of the colors to make "icky" colors.
Use an official evaluation sheet. A good way to evaluate each sample is to use scores from 0 to 10, with 0 being bad and 10 being wonderful. The summary is to be a sum of all the evaluations. So that no one is influenced by another person's opinion, have the children work separately and then compare the results.
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Icing |
Smell |
Texture |
Appearance |
Taste |
Summary |
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B |
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C |
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You can find more information about food in Janice VanCleave's Food and Nutrition for Every Kid .
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Februrary 11, 1847, is the birth date of Thomas Alva Edison, The American Inventor.
Have a science question you need answered? Leave a comment and our new science expert, Janice VanCleave, will come to the rescue!
Janice VanCleave is the author of fifty-two science experiment books for kids with fifteen foreign translations. Children and educators around the world use her books to explore the world of science. And now Homeschool Bliss readers can too!
Check back each Thursday for more science fun from Janice. But if you just can’t wait, visit her website Science Project Ideas for Kids .
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