Why does boiling water make eggs hard but pasta soft?

[Lendino]

[Anonymous]

Heat causes the protein in eggs to form longer molecular chains. Think of the molecules as like short segments of string that can slide around each other but are too short to become tangled. The heat turns them into long strands which grab and hold each other on the level of our perception it gels.

Pasta in the dry state is relatively short molecules but they are sticky and tend to cling to each other. When you put them in water it acts as a lubricant and lets them slide on each other. The pasta swells from the absorbed water and becomes flexible. Pasta will get soft in cold water as well as hot, it just takes a lot longer because the molecules aren't as energetic.

[YaBaba]

Omg who are you? 👌

[Lendino]

@YaBaba Probably Stephen Hawking or Neil deGrasse Tyson but because we can't see him I could also guess he is John Cena!

[shimmeryns]

I love this kind of answer!

[inneedofaname]

Pasta is dehydrated and gets filled with water when cooked,
eggs are full of proteins which become solid when heated to 40° C or more.

[LaurenGrace]

Why do men chop down trees so they can chop them up?

[Benedek38]

That's not a contradiction.

[HereIbe]

One answer is close but off the mark.

It has to do with chemical differences between proteins and starches. When proteins are heated, they "denature", which means the (mostly) flexible protein chains get "knotted" up and "clumpy" (that's a technical term, clumpy it is). This "clenched" structure is more solid. On the other hand, starches, when they get heated *in water* absorb that water and this pushes the starch fibers apart into a more loose (flexible) structure. Water is the key for pasta, because if you dry it out, it will become brittle again.

[Alice2398]

Because of the proteins init according to my mum

[Anonymous]

Why do your feet smell and your nose run

[rgb008]

Science