Investigation Of Nutrients Essay, Research Paper

October 14, 1998

Lab report

INVESTIGATION 5: NUTRIENTS IN FOODS

This experiment has to do with foods and their nutrients. We are finding out how much nutrients these 6 specific foods have and don’t have: cheese, hotdogs, egg yolk, egg white and potato. We are testing them for starch, sugar, fat and protein.

For my hypothesis I will start with starch. I think that cheese would not have that much starch in it for the reason of this cheese is a dairy it is made out of milk. Hotdog’s don’t have starch because it is a meat and meat does not have starch in it. My next food is egg yolk. Egg yolk is also a dairy so just like cheese it is made out of milk also so egg yolk does not have starch either. Egg white is a dairy too so it too has no starch. The only food that has starch in it is potato. The reason for this is because it is a acid and it grows in the ground.

Next is sugar. I would have to say that I think sugar would be in cheese, hotdogs, egg yolk and egg white. But I don’t think it would be in potato again because they are grown in the ground.

My next hypothesis is on fats. I think hotdogs and cheese have fats in them but I think egg white and egg yolk and potato’s don’t have fats.

Next is protein’s. Proteins are very common in foods so I think all of the foods we will test has proteins.

MATERIAL’S

Safety goggles

Hotdogs

Cheese

Egg yolk

Egg white

Potato

Benedict’s solution

hot plate

large beaker

5 test tubes

test tube holder

test tube rack

crucible

Lugol’s iodine

paper bag

Biuret reagent

EXPERIMENT:

We started with testing starch. We took a test tube and put one piece of hotdog in it. I put in drop of Lugol’s iodine in it and waited for it to change colors. The drop will turn black if starch is present. The drop showed that the hotdog has no starch in it. Next we took a piece of cheese. We put one drop of iodine in it and it showed that cheese also does not have starch in it. After that we took a piece of egg yolk and put it in a test tube and put one drop of iodine as we did with the other foods. That showed us that egg yolk does not have starch in it either. Next we tested for egg white. We again put one drop of iodine the test tube. That showed us that egg white does not have starch in it either so every food we have tested so far has not had starch in it. We had one more food to test and that was potato. We put in drop of iodine in it and it showed that the potato has starch in it.

Next we tested for fats. We took a brown paper towel and placed a piece of hotdog and rubbed them together. Then we held the paper towel up to the light. It showed that hotdogs do have fat in them. Next we took a piece of egg yolk and rubbed it to the paper towel. The paper towel showed that egg yolk does have fats in it. After that we tested cheese . We rubbed it on the paper towel and it showed that cheese does not have fat in it. After we tested for cheese we took a piece of egg white and again rubbed it to the paper towel and that showed that egg white does have fats in it. The last thing we tested is potato. We rubbed it to a paper towel and that showed that potato does have fat in it.

After we tested for fats we tested for sugar. We took a test tube and put in a piece of hotdog in it. Next we put 10 drops of Benedict’s solution in it. After that we put it in boiling water for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes the solution showed that hotdogs do have sugar in it. After we tested hotdogs we took a piece of cheese and put 10 drops Benedict’s solution in it and boiled it for 2 minutes. The solution showed that cheese has sugar in it. Next we tested egg white and again put the same solution in it and boiled it for 2 minutes and that showed that egg white does not have sugar in it. Next we did the same thing for egg yolk. The solution showed that egg yolk also does not have sugar in it. Next we tested for potato. We again used Benedict’s solution and boiled it for 2 minutes and the solution showed that potato does have sugar in it.

The last thing we tested for was proteins. For testing proteins we put a piece of hotdog in a test tube and put 2 drops of Biuret reagent in it. That showed us that hotdogs have proteins in them. The solution turned blue. Next we tested cheese. We again put Biuret reagent in the test tube and that showed that cheese does also have proteins in them. The solution turned purple. After that we tested egg white. We did the same thing as the other 2 foods and the solution told us that egg white does have proteins. The solution turned purple also. Next we tested egg yolk. The solution turned light purple so that would mean it has a little bit of proteins. The last food we tested was potato we again used Biuret reagent and that showed us that potato’s do have proteins. The solution turned purple.

CONCLUSION:

After we did the experiment we made a graph telling all the results. For my hypothesis I got have of it right. For starches the experiment showed that cheese, hotdogs, egg yolk and egg white do not have starch in them, as I predicted. The only food that had sugar in it is potato. The foods that have sugar in them are hotdogs, egg yolk and potato. Egg white and cheese do not have sugar in them. I didn’t do so hot on that hypothesis. I thought cheese would have sugar in them, I also thought egg white would but it doesn’t. Next is fats. Out experiment showed that hotdogs, egg yolk, potato and egg white all have fat in them. The only food that didn’t was cheese. I was right about the hotdog having fat in them but I was wrong about cheese, egg yolk , egg white and potato, they all have fat except for cheese. After fats’s there are protein’s. I predicted that all the foods would have protein and I was right. Our experiment showed that every food we tested had proteins in them.