Determination of the physical characteristics of the left-over water from cooked maize and their comparison with those from cooked beans and human urine

Abstract

The present paper aims to highlight the physical characteristics of the left over water from cooked maize and to compare them with those from fluids from cooked beans, human urine, and water used for the cooking process. This is motivated by the desire to verify if the set of information’s collected during the studies made on fluids from cooked beans can be applied with all the foods undergoing a stage of boiling during their transformation at home. For that purpose, solutions from cooked maize were produced by cooking 2kg of sorted and quickly washed maize seed with 8kg of water with known physical characteristics. The cooking process was done just with water during 6 hours. The samples of solutions were collected, cooled, and store for the various tests. They include: color, mass, volumetric mass, density, settling, and infiltrometric tests. Apart from the infiltrometric tests which took place on the field, the different other measurements were made in the laboratory. The color of the water used for the cooking process is translucent. Concerning solutions from the cooking, those from cooked beans are brown while those from cooked maize are whitish to yellowish. Fluids from cooked beans contained greater quantities of flakes compared to those from cooked maize. From the water used for the cooking processes to the end of the different cooking fluids, the mass, the volumetric mass, and the density increase. The infiltration tests made show that the infiltration rate of the water from cooked beans is low compared to that of the water from cooked maize, and very low compared to that of human urine and water used for the cooking processes respectively. The total infiltration of solution of the end of cooking the bean and the maize reveals on the infiltration surface the presence of a film of a material bearing molds, generated by the progressive settling of this solution. Odor risen from fluids from cooked beans is stronger compared to that from fluids from cooked maize. The repulsive character of the odor from human urine is effective; however, the subjectivity of that character cannot really help to identify which among odor from liquid from cooked bean and human urine is more repulsive. At rest, one can find formed at the surface of the water from cooked maize the presence of a film. Settling occurs at rest within the fluids from cooked maize and cooked beans at rest. Flakes from cooked beans and cooked maize fluids both attract flies; but only those from cooked maize attract also mice. The correlations established between the different parameters followed up here are highly positive. But in detail, the influence of an under laid parameter, known here as temperature, has been identified as being the responsible of the questioned behavior of the parameters taken in peers in the case of correlation studies made.