“Fake Blood” experiment

Hal­loween with­out blood isn’t Hal­loween. Here’s a home ex­per­i­ment for mak­ing fake blood.

Reagents and equip­ment:

• sug­ar;
• cit­ric acid;
• wa­ter;
• red and blue food col­or­ing;
• in­stant cof­fee;
• flour;
• hot­plate;
• saucepan.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Add sug­ar, cit­ric acid and wa­ter to the saucepan. Bring to the boil, then al­low to cool. Add red food col­or­ing, then in­stant cof­fee, blue food col­or­ing and flour. Mix to­geth­er thor­ough­ly! The blood is ready!

Pro­cess­es de­scrip­tion

When sug­ar is boiled with cit­ric acid, the sug­ar hy­drolyzes to form glu­cose and fruc­tose. So-called in­vert sug­ar is cre­at­ed. This means the “blood” can keep for longer: the sug­ar crys­tals don't set­tle, and the “blood” pre­serves its nat­u­ral ap­pear­ance. Cit­ric acid acts as a cat­a­lyst in this re­ac­tion. Flour main­ly con­sists of starch, which in­creas­es the vis­cos­i­ty of the so­lu­tion. Or­di­nary in­stant cof­fee and blue food col­or­ing pro­vide ad­di­tion­al shades that make the col­or deep­er.

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

This ex­per­i­ment is safe. You can wear gloves to avoid stains from the food col­or­ing.