Discuss the role of chemistry in our daily life
Answers
Foods we eat have to do with chemistry. They consist of organic compounds like carbohydrates--starch and sugar, protein, and lipids. Other nutrients like vitamins and minerals and water are all important chemical compounds. The process of respiration removes oxygen from the environment while adding carbon dioxide and water. Plants use these to carry out photosynthesis, while releasing oxygen and water again out of their leaves. Again, chemical reactions important to everyday life. The drugs people use are all extracted from plants or synthesized in laboratories--chemistry! Soaps, detergents, household cleaners are all chemicals made in a lab. The art of cooking is a chemical reaction. Once food is cooked, it is never the same! A piece of bread vs. toast, or a raw piece of steak, vs. a cooked steak. The makeup and anti-wrinkle cremes, the sunscreen, all chemical products devised in labs and sold on the market place. The ph of various things in the home have to do with chemistry from the acidic orange juice to the alkaline bleach. When you eat foods, hydrolysis or digestion occurs in the alimentary canal. This is a series of chemical reactions using enzymes, to change complex chemicals in food to endproducts that can be absorbed by the body's cells. The caffeine in the coffee and tea we drink affects our mood and keeps us awake. These are all chemical reactions in the body. Fermentation, another chemical reaction produces beer and wine, cheese and bread. Chemistry certainly affects us all from the time we are born until the day we die. Even then, decomposition occurs and chemical elements return to the Earth to be reused.