Reconstituting grapes

I was part of a recent discussion about a child who ate raisins and expelled grapes... a bit gross, sure, but it also makes a lot of sense.  Raisins are dried grapes.  Drying fruit removes all moisture from it.  In order to reconstitute, or restore the fruit to its original state, all you have to do is add the moisture back in.  

The thought of inputting raisins and outputting grapes intrigued me and I wanted to see it with my own eyes... but not in a diaper; just in the kitchen.  Therefore, Mini Me and I set up a science experiment.  


We wanted to see what happened with both raisins and dried cranberries if we let them sit in moisture (we chose 7Up because it's fun and bubbly).  Because I have a super awesome food dehydrator (a post on that is in the works) we could have also experimented with dried strawberries, watermelon, and cantaloupe, but I thought we should keep it simple.  

Our materials: raisins, Craisins, clear carbonated liquid (7Up), and clear bottles.  

Mini Me asked me if he could "knee" on the stool for this experiment and I said, "Yes!".  We poured the liquid in the clear bottles, then added the dried fruit.

Mini Me observed immediately that the liquid was very bubbly. 

Mini Me really wanted to see something happening right away.  He kept checking on our experiment.  For this reason, I'm glad I used the carbonated liquid because he thought it was "really cool" to see the Craisins "dancin' around".  I asked him what he thought would happen to the raisins and Craisins in the bottles and he hypothesized, "They will get really big like Daddy but they will be small".  Hm.  I think he was mesmerized with the bubbly stuff.

This is what we saw the next morning.  Mini Me concluded that the colored water was pretty, especially the red one.  And that the "brown fings" got really big overnight.

The Craisins had just turned to fiber-y mush, but the raisins were quite large.  

It doesn't look exactly like a grape, but still pretty awesome to see what happens when you add the liquid back to the dried fruit.  (It's a big gross, too, and I'm glad I saw this on my counter and not in a diaper).  This was the second- biggest one in our bottle as the biggest one fell down the garbage disposal.

Mini Me wanted to eat the "grapes" but I said no.  I'm sure they would have tasted like 7Up with raisins but...well... I just said no.  Maybe next time.