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Will Food GO BAD in a Vacuum Chamber?


a lot of food goes stale or rotten when
it’s exposed to air or moisture what
happens if they stay in a vacuum chamber
where it doesn’t have either one
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YouTube user grant felts asked if food
would get stale in a vacuum chamber
grant that is a great question and we
would love to try that out so today
we’ve got a variety of foods that go bad
when they’re left out we’ve got some
jars that we’re gonna try and turn into
small vacuum chambers with the food in
them and see what happens to that food
after a couple of weeks here’s what
we’re going to try we’ll modify these
jars so they can hold a vacuum with the
food inside we’ll have some food in the
vacuum two jars as well as keeping some
food out of the jars as a control after
two weeks we’ll see what’s happened
we’ve got five different foods that
we’re gonna test let’s take a look at
them first we have a couple of apples
we’ll cut these into slices one bunch of
apple slices will go into a jar with all
of the air sucked out the other batch of
apple slices will still go in a jar but
we’ll leave the lid off hopefully we can
keep too many fruit flies from finding
it we may end up putting a thin cloth
barrier just to keep them out we’ve got
some milk with an expiration date of
less than two weeks from now and we’re
gonna put some of it in the jar in a
vacuum and some of it just leaving it in
the bottle and let it sit for two weeks
and see what happens
graham crackers are something that I
think get very noticeably scaled pretty
quickly if they’re fresh they break
fairly easily they’re pretty crumbly and
they have a nice and dry crunch to them
normally if you leave them out they get
really soft almost mushy you can’t even
really snap them they almost Bend so
we’re gonna try some graham crackers in
a jar and some graham crackers just
sitting on a plate potato chips
famous for coming in bags full of air
will also go stale if you leave them out
now a lot of potato chip bags actually
come full of nitrogen rather than normal
air and that’s because the nitrogen
doesn’t react as much with the chips
inside and we’re gonna be able to
comparison between storing chips with
nothing not even nitrogen and just
leaving the bag open these aren’t stale
yet delicious
Lay’s that will be 1 million dollars
please please and finally we have some
white bread bread if you leave it out
you just gets really really dry at least
in this climate we’re gonna see if the
same thing happens in a vacuum chamber
we’ve got all our food laid out so it’s
time to start making our vacuum jars and
we’ve done something similar to this
before we took some glass soda bottles
drilled
small hole in the cap and had a piece of
rubber that sat over that hole we put
the whole thing inside our larger vacuum
chamber and the air is able to get
sucked out of the jar when we put
pressure back in that rubber seal gets
pressed up against the hole keeping it
nice and closed so that’s what we’re
gonna try doing we’ve got some of these
larger jars so we can fit a good amount
of food in it and see how it works now
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we’re using some electrical tape to hold
this rubber in place we’re not trying to
hold it down we just want it to not go
anywhere so I’m not stretching the tape
tight I’m not pressing it down over the
whole thing
we still want air to be able to escape
out past this rubber and then have it
get kind of sucked down on once there’s
low pressure in the jar let’s give this
a test
beautiful we let the air back into the
main jar but the rubber stopper
prevented it from filling the little jar
now I think if we peel this stopper away
here the air and watch the marshmallows
collapse a little or a lot yeah yeah I’d
say that’s working pretty well wonderful
we can fit whole graham crackers into
this jar so I’m just gonna throw a
couple in there whole slice of bread
does not fit in but I’ll just cut it in
half I think will be the best test is
I’m just gonna put half of it into the
jar and leave half of it in the other
bottle that way there is some air in the
don’t expect graham crackers are gonna
do a whole lot in a vacuum
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that already has moisture in it the the
sides of that I’ve started fogging up
and I’m pretty sure that is moisture
leaving the bread and all that moisture
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who it is boiling
the juice seems to be getting pulled
right out of our apples it’s kind of
hard to keep them in zero pressure and
keep all the juice in place so the
results on the apples may be a little
strange I think in the spirit of making
everything as equal as possible trying
to eliminate variables we’ll just store
the non vacuum versions in jars but with
the lids off well it was it pressurized
why are they all pressurized with the
apples I am going to put a piece of
paper towel over the top maybe even try
poking some holes in it
I want there to be good air exchange but
I also don’t want to fill the house with
fruit flies now we’re going to set these
aside for two weeks and see what has
changed the milk will be in the fridge
both of them everything else will just
be sitting out time has now passed and
in fact more time than we originally
planned we’re gonna go for two weeks and
then we just got busy with our scheduled
filming other videos so it’s actually
been four weeks that we’ve let these
things sit out which is plenty of time
for stuff to go bad let’s see how things
are we’re gonna start by just popping
all of the seals and we’ll see it’s
possible that we haven’t kept a perfect
vacuum on all of these but we’ll see how
much air seems to rush in as we break
the seals on side-by-side tests
graham-cracker sitting open in a jar for
about a month does have a little bit of
snap left to it not much and it
definitely tastes like an old graham
cracker that’s quite stale too no I
think of graham crackers is something
that started tasting bad but that was
much more crumbly as it snaps much
crisper and a lot more crunchy you can
actually hear that when I squish it it
makes like crunching sounds and this one
just kind of pushes this one
snaps apart into crumbs so graham
crackers worked really well now the
bread I already know I’m not gonna want
to do taste tests because there’s mold
on both of them however the mold on the
open one very minor there’s just a
little bit growing around the edges the
biggest difference of course is that
this is basically croutons thread in our
vacuum chamber while moldy and not
really fit for consumption is still
completely squishy
like there has been no loss of any of
the moisture not gonna eat it because of
that I’m also not gonna eat this one and
that’s not because I’m old so much as it
is because this is no longer bread fit
for human consumption and this smells
bad that’s going back in the jar potato
chips
sitting open in a jar there’s no stale
vacuum chamber chips
tastes like just open the bag I don’t
know if I can really show the breakage
is different with a stale chip I mean
they both break but that one is softer
and tastes bad that one is much crispier
and tastes delicious apples right away
you can see that things have transpired
with the apples the ones in this
container have obviously lost a lot of
moisture there is some mold forming the
peels have become all shriveled the
Apple in general has just become
shriveled it’s dehydrated a fair amount
and there is some mold growing on all
parts of it obviously not something that
we’re gonna eat our vacuum chamber
apples don’t look like they’ve really
lost much moisture maybe a little bit we
saw some of it even getting sucked out
of the apple and you put it in the
vacuum in the first place the other
biggest difference is that these have a
lot more mold on them and I think that’s
probably because they still have all of
their moisture it dried out apples don’t
give as moldy the apples that just sit
cut open but have a lot of moisture in
them mold central now we have milk this
jar has been sitting open in the
refrigerator you can see that the level
of the milk has dropped it’s dehydrated
that much whereas this one I don’t think
that’s changed it’s in the same spot
that it was before there’s like lines on
the walls but that’s from when I carried
it to the fridge and it just swirls a
little bit so first test that doesn’t
smell nearly as much as I thought it
would this is well expired milk at this
point and a lot of the time when milk
goes bad it smells terrible you can
smell it easily and from a distance or
this
really doesn’t have a smell
unfortunately I am not brave enough to
try drink you can see a little bit of
stuff has formed on the surface I don’t
know how to describe it better than that
I think that’s having some kind of mold
maybe that’s just the formation of the
milk solids how it happened to form up
alright so this actually has more smell
and it doesn’t smell rotten it just
smells like milk try mixing this up a
it’s not still good like it has a little
bit of that buttermilk taste if you’ve
ever tasted buttermilk it lets me
beginning just a little bit sour
if you’ve ever just had milk that’s gone
bad like you accidentally poured a cup
of it or in your cereal like it’s
disgusting you want to spit it out and
then maybe go vomit right away it
doesn’t taste like that but I’m
impressed at how well it preserved this
one that is about three weeks past
expiration Matt grant felts what you
asked is if food will get stale in a
vacuum chamber and I think that we have
demonstrated that in terms of just going
stale a vacuum does a really good job
our graham crackers and our potato chips
taste like they’re completely new they
haven’t gone bad at all and I think that
this is a decent way to preserve them I
don’t know that it’s any better than
just keeping them in a seal the ziplock
bag or something like that but this did
work the bread did not go stale it
didn’t keep that from happening but it
did not prevent it from rotting
this says mold all over it and is
definitely not edible same thing with
the Apple it didn’t dry out but it did
go bad it’s moldy and you can’t eat that
the milk I think it probably preserved
it somewhat it didn’t go bad as much as
this one which I admit I’m not willing
to taste because yuck but it’s still not
good so keeping it from going stale yes
it does keeping it from going bad in all
situations no it definitely does not
grant thank you for your great idea of
something scientific we could try out
using our vacuum chamber if you check
your youtube inbox we’re going to be
sending you 25 bucks and guys remember
if you’ve got a good idea let us know
down in the comments and if we use it to
make a video we will send you $25 guys
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