Happy Meal Lab

In life, many people participate in various daily events and activities that help them enjoy being who they are. People may enjoy getting together with friends, going to the mall, going to an amusement park or simply finding relaxation in nature. However, a big part of everyone’s life is of course eating and many people find pleasure in doing so. Eating is a very enjoyable and delectable must for everyone but should be done so, like everything in life, in a smart and intelligent way. Being smart and perceptive when eating is a large part of nutrition.

CO #1 Assess whether nutritional intake provides basic nutrients for optimal health and wellness. (PO #1, PO #2)

2. Four unknown samples were included in the lab kit: flax seed meal, potato starch, egg whites, and dried milk. Using the results of the biochemical testing, determine which number corresponds to the correct unknown. (8 points)

This activity is to teach participants how to understand what their food label means. This activity will be a part of the “Are you smarter than a Food Label”. Participants who take part in learning about how they can better understand their food label and will be given a goodie bag which consist of a granola bar, bottle water, Crystal Light and pencil, while supplies last. Copies of “The Nutrition Fact Label” will be available on the table. This activity will be used to draw participants into taking part of the “Are you Smarter than a Food Label”

Often times on many products the nutritional values do not add up. The consumers receive the product believing that the nutritional value is correct when in fact it is the opposite. Because consumers are, on various occasions, being deceived by the manufacturers, this experiment was done to test to see if the protein in commercially available products is correct. A spectrophotometer was used to measure the concentration of the molecule that was being investigated. A colorimetric indicator was added to the standards, and a graph was formed. The graph was used to determine the mathematical relationship between concentration and absorbance. In this experiment three product’s protein content (whole milk, muscle milk, and protein shake) were tested. The milk and muscle milk content for protein was approximately right, but the protein content for the protein shake was wrong. The whole milk had a final concentration of 41 mg/ml, protein had a final concentration of 34 mg/ml, and muscle milk had a final concentration of 70 mg/ml.

TCO 5) Sex hormones and adrenal hormones are substances derived from which class of lipid?

In this investigation concentration of protein was to be found using the concentration of a known protein( already labeled) by measuring the concentration of protein in milk and the absorbance of light. It is hypothesized that the protein that will be tested will be the same as the already labeled one. The outcome from the lab shows that the protein that was used did not respond the same as the already labeled one known from the standard curve, therefore rejecting the hypothesis.The results prove the hypothesis as incorrect because the proteins concentration were different when the concentration was calculated and all had a high percent difference.

What three facts do you find particularly interesting about the excess or lack of micronutrients in a fast-food diet?

If I were to conduct this experiment again I would use more test groups. I would use additional store brands and additional national brands.

In looking over my Food Journal Summary and my Intake Compared to DRI dealing with micronutrients; I noticed my intake of Vitamin A was 88 micrograms and my DRI was 700 micrograms. I got 49% from the grilled cheese and 1% from the banana chips. To improve my Vitamin E intake I should eat more beef and cooked vegetables such as carrots. My Vitamin D intake was below the recommended range at 0 mg; I should eat more fish such as salmon or possibly find a Vitamin D supplement. My consumption of Vitamin E or Alpha-Tocopherol was an intake of 1 mg and my DRI was 15 mg. 28%, 3%, 19%, and 15% came from the chicken tenders, banana chips, grilled cheese, and French fries. To get a

We took two versions of the same foods, one with additives and preservatives and one without, and fed them to participants. The foods are as follows: Canned and preserved carrots and carrots that were boiled in salted water at home, chemically preserved bacon and naturally preserved (salt) bacon, coke sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and coke sweetened with cane sugar, and mountain dew sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and Mountain Dew sweetened with sugar, and made from scratch vanilla cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes made from a boxed cake mix. We ended up having store-bought vanilla cupcakes with poppy seeds for the first half of our experiment and vanilla cupcakes made from boxed cake mix for the second half because we did not have access to boxed cake mix at first and then re ran out of vanilla cupcakes with poppy seeds, so the box-made cupcakes were introduced. They were very similar in flavor and the change made no impact on our experiment. The participants were fed the food, one version and then the other for all the categories and then asked to identify which foods they thought had additives and preservatives and then asked to justify their answer. This was to ensure that they were not simply guessing the

My hypothesis was proven correct. The Oreos had the highest volume of fat extracted. The potato chips had the second-most amount of fat, and the Doritos had the least amount. The extracted fats from the potato chips and Doritos had liquid, translucent fats, whereas the fat from the Oreos was more opaque and solid. Also, the extracted fat from the Oreos was the only kind that retained an obvious smell. The other two had a much lighter scent.

Moreover, a list of foods and the amount of fiber of each food have is provided, as well as lower-fiber foods for evaluation. Chapter 4 mainly stated information about carbohydrates in our food, types of carbohydrates, and how carbohydrates are digested and absorbed. Since companies understand that fiber is an important part of people’s diet, companies have figured out a way to put fiber as a supplement in more types of foods such as yogurt, ice cream, water, and juice. I have seen a lot of new foods in the market stating to have health advantages because of the added fiber. I have purchased and tried out such foods like, Fiber One brownies. It tastes good, it satisfies my chocolate craving, and it’s only 90 calories. However, it has been a while since the last time I bought anything like

Do the test smell and food, then no smell and food, then only food. Continue with these steps until experiment is finished. The results for cinnamon scent and food 11/12 correct, for cinnamon with no scent and food 12/12 correct, for cinnamon with food 12/12 correct. The results for mint scent and food 8/12 correct, for mint no scent and food 12/12 correct, for mint with food 12/12 correct. The results for vanilla scent and food 12/12 correct, for vanilla no scent and food 12/12 correct, for vanilla with food 12/12 correct. The predicted results were that with scent and food that the volunteers wouldn’t be able to still taste. What could be done differently if this project was performed again is having one volunteer at a time doing the test. Another thing is give the volunteer a glass of water to clean the mouth from any taste when tasting something new. Experimental error were not taking the volunteers smell away completely. The hypothesis, if the smell was cinnamon then the taste of ketchup will decrease. The hypothesis was not supported. When comparing the foods with smell against the foods without smell the cinnamon had a 9% difference, mint had a 40%

For our week-long nutrition study, we decided to make three graphs: A bar graph, a scatter plot, and a box plot. For the bar graph, we wanted to compare protein, fat, sodium, and sugar because although they are not huge, we thought they should still be represented. As for the scatter plot, we analyzed our caloric intake per day throughout the week because we wanted to see how much we eat by day. And for the final graph, the box plot, we found the spread of how many grams of carbs we had per meal, as carbs is one of the biggest nutrition components.