Amylase and Saliva

Here's a quick experiment you can try out to see what saliva does to foods.

1) Grind up some crackers (starch) and separate into three small batches (10mg).
2) Add a drop of iodine to the first batch. Observe the color. Iodine interacts with starch to make it darkish.
3) Add a few drops of water to one batch, and a few drops of saliva into the other batch.
4) Wait a few minutes.
5) Add iodine to both batches, and observe the color.

What you should have seen was that the saliva broke down some of the starch, and so the color should have been much lighter!

Check out the YouTube Video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPovByW_poo

Will saliva work similarly with other foods? Which foods have a lot of starch? Which foods have a little bit of starch? How can you tell?