I've looked into how glow sticks work, but wonder if there would be any way to make edible ones using foodstuffs?..

 

I know that quinine is fluorescent, and apparently so is Vit-B12 and chlorophyll, but are there any other chemicals i could use to make them?

Also, are there any chemiluminescent reactions that could be used?

You would not want to use either quinine or Vit B12 (cyano cobolamine) because both are toxic in large amounts

Not to mention the fact that quinine is horribly, horribly, HORRIBLY bitter and nobody in their right mind would knowingly ingest any large quantity of it. (though you may be fortuneate and be unable to taste quinine. If you can taste it, then once is all you'll ever need).

neat quinine is quite nasty I gotta admit

 

ya shouldn`t have said anything and asked him get a webcam online before testing it, that would have been a Real Kodak Moment

 

potassium aluminuim sulphate is like sweetest sugar by comparison!

I wasn't going to use pure quinine, i did mean just using tonic water.

 

Im sure the website i looked on said Vit B12, and it said that it would glow bright yellow. It could easily have been B2, which if you've never seen before is ridiculously yellow! My work experience was at a vitamin mixing factory, and i came home caked in the stuff!

it might be worth trying to find out what that liquid is inside spirit levels too, and maybe a place that makes them might sell you a few liters of it? I`m not saying it`ll be Edible exactly, but I shouldn`t think they`de sell something that was Too toxic either, when you consider the abuse they get on a construction site.

My intrigue into Uv stuff took me to ebay to find a cheap UV tube....

 

I found a bid for 40!!! 9" Uv tubes, and i managed to get them for, wait for it.......... £7.50!! Theyr working lovely, I just made tonic water blue and a few mins ago found out that they cost £10 each.. Just thought id share my happiness with the world!

Spirit levels have fluroscein(mispelt i think), I believe.

Well you could mix luciferase (the glowing protein from fire flies) with ATP and eat that. Should be fairly non toxic. Though luciferase is pretty expensive stuff, and you'd have a hard time storing and working with it without denaturing it.

Actually you could probably clone the luciferase gene into some sort of vegetable or fruit and eat that. I know it glows pretty nicely when cloned into tabacoo.

This maybe awfully foolish of me, but seeing your reactions to quinine id kinda like to try it.

 

I like the idea of something bitter to the extreme, to the point where i'd never forget it... assuming it would do me no harm.

 

Just curious is all! I guess its like trying to imagine a colour youve never seen, i just cant imagine something so horribly bitter, i dont doubt it, but i'd like to try it and see!

 

Is there any way i can extract it from tonic water, or maybe buy it? (I suspect the latter would be expensive so id like to avoid that)