Question

If you are provided with some vegetables to cook. You generally add salt into the vegetables during cooking process. After adding salt, vegetables release water. What mechanism is responsible for this?

Answer 1

The mechanism responsible for this process is exosmosis. The addition of salt during cooking makes the surrounding medium hypertonic i.e., the surrounding medium has a lower water concentration than the cells of vegetables. As we know when a cell is immersed in a hypertonic solution, water leaves the cell by the process of exosmosis resulting in its shrinkage. Therefore, vegetables release water after adding salt during the cooking process