• Question: why do some food items mix when others don't

    Asked by christian to Ciara, Elaine, Golnaz, Gonzalo, Yannis, Yvonne on 6 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Golnaz Ezzati

      Golnaz Ezzati answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      It depends on the properties of that food item. For instance if they are watery they might mix well with more solid foods . You might be able to add some solid food to another solid food but they won’t get mixed up as they can not make any molecular bond with each other .

    • Photo: Yvonne Lenighan

      Yvonne Lenighan answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Hi Christian,

      There are two ways that you could answer this question-the answer by Golnaz on food properties is one!

      The other is to do with the different flavours and textures of the foods… For example, whether they are sweet, salty, fruit, veg etc. Some flavours go better together so that’s why we eat them.. We like curry with rice… However, we usually wouldn’t eat curry with breakfast cereal as these two tastes don’t go well together!

    • Photo: Ioannis Zabetakis

      Ioannis Zabetakis answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      in foods, we have some compounds (items) that are water soluble and some that are lipid soluble.
      Water soluble are termed as hydro-philic (from the greek words water and friend) and the lipid soluble are hydro-phobic (water and fear).
      This is the reason that these compounds do not mix.

    • Photo: Ciara O'Donovan

      Ciara O'Donovan answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Hi Christian,
      As the others have said it is to do with the properties of the foods.. i.e whether they are water-loving or water-hating. If you want to mix a water loving and water hating food together you can add something called an emulsifier. This is how mayonnaise is made.. you add egg yolk (an emulsifier) to vinegar and oil. The egg yolk will hold together the vinegar and oil, which do not usually combine, to make mayonnaise. Hope that helps answer your question! 🙂

    • Photo: Gonzalo Delgado-Pando

      Gonzalo Delgado-Pando answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      I think my fellow scientists have responded really good already. But I will try anyway:

      If you put any food in a kitchen blender it will mix but after a few minutes (or even less) some of the mix will separate from the other, as foods are composed by water-loving ingredients and water-hating ingredients (as Ciara and Yannis have said). As Ciara said about emulsifiers, this ingredients can make water-haters and lovers be mixed for longer time, mayo is the most common but really any sauce has emulsifiers (natural or added) that holds the ingredients altogether.

      If with mix you refer to why we eat mixes of different or similar taste. I won’t say there are foods that don’t mix, I would say we could like or could not, even we are used to it or not.
      Did you know that a very typical mexican dish mixes chocolate with meat?
      Did you know that a mix of meat and fish is a very usual meal called surf’n turf?
      Have you ever tried bacon pancakes with maple syrup?
      or hot chocolate with a pinch of cayenne?

      As you see there are weird mixes of foods, it all depends if you like it or if you are used to it. Of course there are flavours that mix better but don’t be afraid of trying new mixes, this is what novel cooks do these days!

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