Question

Is a chicken noodle soup a colloid or a suspension?
And what is Salsa a colloid or a suspension? Am are sure that they are mixtures...PLEASE HELP!....:-)

Answer 1

They would both best be characterized as a mixture, because neither is anything approaching homogenous. If you mean just the chicken broth part of the soup, that iself might be characterized as a suspension, since it's usually got all kinds of little particles floating around in it, bits of chicken and fat and whatnot. It's not clear, you'll note, and you often get a sediment if you let it sit for a while. A cloudy broth that doesn't settle might be characterized as a colloid -- tiny globs of fat in the water. And a perfectly clear broth might well be a solution, with proteins and salt and so forth simply dissolved in it.

You can undertake the same analysis with the salsa, subtracting more and more of the visibly solid bits to produce mixture -> suspension -> colloid -> solution.

Keep in mind the divisions are somewhat arbitrary, and real-world substances may not cleanly fit into the divisions made in your textbook.