Scientists have discovered that chocolate contains high levels of phenolics, chemicals that are thought to help lower the risk of heart disease (they oxidise the low-density lipoproteins if you must know). Chocolate causes spots. Or does it?? Several studies (including one by the US Navy) have shown that eating chocolate (or giving it up) has no effect on acne sufferers’ skin whatsoever. If you’re spotty now, you’ll be just as spotty after a chocolate log or two. Enjoy! That’s not all. Chocolate contains more than 300 known chemicals, and it is the combination of ones such as caffeine and theobromine (a weak stimulant) that researchers believe is what makes us enjoy eating chocolate so much. That and the taste of course … Chocolate also contains a chemical called "phenylethlamine" a strong stimulant which is thought can help us pay attention and stay alert. So if you’ve got exams to revise for these holidays a bit of chocolate could be just the thing!

	Investigate the chemistry of confectionery yourself with Planet Science sweet chromatography experiment. Try it out in a kitchen instead of a school lab and you get to eat the sweets when you’ve finished!
	You will need: access to water, some coloured sweets (jelly beans or sugar-covered chocolate), a few sheets of thick absorbent paper (filter paper or kitchen roll), and some salt.
	Step 1: Extract the chemicals you will investigate.
	Drop a few sweets into a glass with just enough water to cover them (you might find warm water works best).
	Leave it for five minutes.
	Remove the sweets to leave yourself with a coloured liquid, which is your "solute".
	Step 2: Prepare your absorbent paper.
	Cut it into a strip that is narrow enough to fit into the glass.
	Using a (clean) finger, drip a drop of your solute onto somewhere around the top of the paper.
	Step 3: Make your "solvent".
	Nothing to do with glue … it’s just a few shakes of salt dissolved in some water in a (clean) glass. (A solvent is a liquid that can dissolve other substances. Things that are dissolved in a solvent get called the "solute". You’re going to dissolve your coloured water in your salt water, which is why we call them the solute and solvent)
	Finally: Ready to get dissolving?
	You need to mix the two together.
	Put the bottom of the filter paper (the end without the solute mark) into the glass of salt-water solvent.
	Leave for five minutes and watch the colours spread.
	Why?
	The solvent will move up through the filter paper because of capillary action (a force which pushes liquid through small tubes). Once it hits the spot of solute it’ll take all your sweets’ colours with it. Each dye in your solute is a different chemical and will travel different distances depending on how attracted it is to the paper and the solvent. Or to put it back into English, when you put dye on paper and dip it into salt water the liquids spread out, but each colour will spread out difference distances.
	Want to take things further?
	If you want to get really science-ey, then you can divide the distance traveled by each colour by the total distance travelled by the solvent and get a "retardation factor" for each colour. Try using one colour of sweet at a time or comparing different brands. You can even plot a graph if you feel inclined