Expert: Henry Boyter - 8/29/2004

Question
Is spagetti sauce a heterogeneous or homogeneous mixture.
i have a test coming up and my mother is testing me and i did not this answer so she tld me to look it up. She suggested this site.
Could u give an explanation why so that i could understand why the answer was given.

Answer
To be homogeneous, you have to not be able to see distinct different parts in the solution.  With spaghetti sauce, you can look at it and pick out meat, onions, peppers, and even just places where it is thicker and these are not completely uniform throughout the sauce.  Bay leafs make it easy.  Based on this it is hetero.

If you hold it up to the light, you can't see through it so there have to be solids in the liquid water.  So it is a hetero SOLUTION (must be the same phase).  

If you made the sauce so there were no parts, no lumps, etc (basically puree it, very very fine), then it could be a homogeneous MIXTURE, since you couldn't pick out the peppers, lumps, etc. or other differences.  Theoretically, if all the big parts were distributed exactly even, it could be homogeneous, but that is not practical.

Bottom line, it depends on your spaghetti sauce.  Normal and my sauce would be hetero.