G8-Acids & Bases -Lower-02

Your Uncle Julio is staying with you for a few days. Uncle Julio lives in Mexico. About once a year, he comes to visit your family. He is your mom’s oldest and most eccentric brother. He is a Science teacher in Mexico. You really like it when he visits because he is a lot of fun to be around. Julio also loves to cook. He often prepares dinner when he visits. Though he is a great cook, sometimes he gets carried away with the hot peppers. You recall last year when you bit into a chili pepper. You had to hold your tongue in a glass of water. Yikes!

Uncle Julio laughed as he said, “That won’t work. You need to drink milk.”
You gave him the death stare as your tongue felt like it was on fire. The water did not seem to help.
“Seriously,” he said. “Milk is the answer for a couple of reasons. For one, milk is an acid.”
You grabbed the milk and started drinking. Your mom was laughing along with Uncle Julio.

“Haven’t you learned about acids and bases in school?”
“Geez,” you thought to yourself. Your tongue felt like it was being burned off and Uncle Julio was about to start a Science lesson? You rolled your eyes through the pain.

Uncle Julio then explained that one reason why milk works great at neutralizing the burning sensation in your mouth is because it is an acid.

He explained:

“All compounds can be categorized as an acid, base, or neutral. A pH scale is used to measure how acidic or basic a compound is. The pH scale ranges from 1 to 14, with one being the most acidic, 14 being the most basic (or alkaline), and 7 being neutral.

You ate a hot pepper, which is very strong base (alkali) meaning it is high on the pH scale. To neutralize that extremely high pH, you need something on the other end of the pH scale, an acid. 

Milk is not very acidic, but remember I said it had some other attributes that help it combat the fire you feel in your mouth. Lemonade would have also helped as it is acidic too.”