How does the poultry, pork and beef enjoyed by so many get from the farm to your table?  

The U.S. meat and poultry industry proudly processes, packages and delivers a variety of the meat products to us every day.  In fact, in the U.S. alone billions of pounds of meat is enjoyed each year. 

So, what path does it take to get to our plates?  It starts with teamwork on the farm. Farm families, agronomists, nutritionists, veterinarians … all working together to produce crops to raise healthy animals, like using high quality soy protein in livestock and poultry feed.   

Next, livestock and poultry are transported to packing plants where they’re processed into meat and undergo rigorous federal inspection to ensure its safe and properly labeled. Then it’s off to companies that specialize in preparing a variety of products – packaged meat, sausage, chicken nuggets or custom cuts.     

Critical to food safety and security is cold storage – facilities that keep these products frozen until they’re needed.  And When the time is right, our favorite beef, pork and poultry products are shipped across the U.S. and around the world … not only to grocery stores and restaurants … but to hotels, event centers, schools, hospitals, military bases and more. 

Whether it’s wings, steaks or bacon … the path to our plates is a complex one that involves essential steps along the way and millions of people dedicated to ensuring we don’t miss one bite.    

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To test out our experiment, we ran to the local grocery store and picked up limes and lemons. We tested our fruit three different ways – whole, peeled and sliced. Each time, we noticed that the lemons floated to the top of the bowl while the limes stayed relatively close to the middle/bottom of the bowl. When we peeled and sliced the fruit, the separation just continued to grow.

What we found strangest, however, was that when we peeled the fruit the limes only continued to sink deeper in the bowl while the lemons began to sink a little bit further into the bowl, but remained close to the top. The phenomenon continued when the fruit separated further after they were sliced. We assumed this happened because the fruit was sliced, therefore making the individual pieces lighter.

Based on our observations, we wanted to know the science behind why this was happening. Why, based on our observations, were the larger fruits floating to the top while the smaller fruits were sinking to the bottom? Does it have something to do with the acidity of the fruit? The weight of the peel? Or just the overall mass? We asked Sarah Downs, RD, for an explanation.

So, why do lemons float and limes sink?

Sarah Downs, RD: “The reason limes sink and lemons float is due to density, or the mass per unit of volume. An object will float if it is less dense than the liquid it is placed in and will sink if it is denser than the liquid it is placed in. Lemons and limes both have densities that are very close to water, so you would expect that they would both float. However, limes are slightly denser than lemons, which is why they sink and lemons float.”

Intrigued? Check it out for yourself in the video below:

The post Why Do Lemons Float and Limes Sink? appeared first on Best Food Facts.