Freak your family and friends out with this minty fake blood. You will need: 175 grams cornflour 75 ml water 175ml golden syrup 3 teaspoons red food colouring 1 teaspoon green food colouring Peppermint essence 1. Mix corn flour and water together in a bowl or jug. 2. Add the golden syrup. 3. Add the red and green food colouring. You will need to play around with the quantities of red and green food colouring. Adding more red food colouring will make the blood more pinky and adding more green will give the blood a more browny colour. 4. Add a drop of peppermint essence to give it a minty taste. What’s happening? Blood gets its colour from haemoglobin - a protein containing iron that is found in red blood cells. Oxygen diffuses from the lungs and into the blood where it binds with haemoglobin and is carried by the red blood cells to tissues around the body. Blood appears red because when white lights falls on it, it absorbs all the colours in sunlight except red, which it reflects. Red food colouring is much more of a pinky colour than blood so you need to add green to remove the pink tinge. Green food colouring absorbs all colours apart from green, so when mixed into the red colouring it absorbs some of the red light that was previously been reflected. This makes the blood mixture darker and the colour 'dirtier'. Instead of a bright clear red, it becomes a sludgy brown. By adding only a little bit of green to the red food colouring you should get just a brown tinge to the blood. Go back