Glucose in Food
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Science Concept & Application
For my experiment, I tested the glucose levels in common foods. I started by creating positive controls using water and glucose powder. During this step I created solutions with glucose concentrations of 2%, 1%, 0.5%, 0.25%, 0.125%, 0.0625%, and 0%. I tested these solutions with the glucose test strips I bought so that I could compare the results with the ones I got from testing the foods.
Next, I tested the foods. I selected a mandarin orange, an apple, apple juice, baby food, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and Coke for testing. I was very interested to see the difference in glucose between the three popular sodas. I chose to dilute the sodas, apple juice, and baby food due to the amount of glucose I estimated the drinks to contain, and to make the baby food a testable consistency. To get my results, I compared the strips from the positive controls to the strips from the tested food. I collected these results:
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Career
A dietitian is a healthcare professional who works with nutrition. Dietitians have job responsibilities like assessing someone’s nutritional needs, educating patients, and meal planning for clients. People visit dietitians for a number of reasons, like high blood pressure, diabetes, digestive issues, or simply wanting to improve their diet. Dietitians research how nutrition affects one’s health.
Dietitians usually have to earn a bachelors and a masters degree. They work in a variety of settings like hospitals, schools, and private practice. Their salary ranges from around $55,000 to $81,000 per year. Scientist
Gerty Cori was born in Prague on August 15, 1896. Throughout her childhood she had various family members who supported her interests and math and science. In 1914, Gerty was accepted into medical school, something uncommon for women of the time. Gerty was especially interested in the study of biochemistry.
Shortly after graduating medical school, Gerty was forced to move from her home country to the United States because her Jewish heritage was posing a risk to her family. After moving, Gerty and her husband studied the metabolism of carbohydrates, and together, they discovered the “Cori Cycle”, which describes the body’s process of utilizing glycogen and converting it into glucose. Gerty Cori went on to earn a Nobel Prize for her studies, and two months after, was promoted to a professor. |
Essay
For my science experiment, I tested the amount of glucose in common foods. I started my project by gathering the required materials:
Next, I prepared my positive controls using water and glucose powder. I began by gathering seven of my disposable cups and labeling them “2%”, “1%”, “0.5%”, “0.25%”, “0.125%”, “0.0625%”, and “0%”. Then I added 100 ml of water to each of my cups, adding an extra 100 ml to the cup labeled “2%”. I measured four grams of glucose powder and thoroughly mixed it into the 2% cup before using my graduated cylinder to collect 100 ml, or half, of the solution and adding it to the 1% cup. I mixed the 200 ml of water in the 1% cup well and then measured 100 ml and added it to the 0.5% cup. I continued to repeat this process for each of the 0.25%, 0.125%, and 0.0625% cups, carefully rinsing the graduated cylinder before each repeat to make sure that there wasn’t any of the stronger glucose solution remaining from the previous cup. Through this process I created six solutions, each diluted 50% more than the previous solution. Next I had to make my 0% cup, which I did by simply adding 100 ml of tap water to the cup labeled 0%.
I continued by using my glucose testing strips to determine the concentration of glucose in each of my positive control cups. The test strips I bought instructed me to swirl the end of the strip in the solution for one to two seconds, and then let it sit for three minutes before analyzing the result. I labeled each testing strip with the percentage of glucose that the tested, and took a photo of the testing strips to use as a reference for the rest of my project. I chose to take a photo because I knew that the strips would darken and become less accurate the longer I let them sit while performing the rest of my experiment.
Then it was time to actually test the foods I had selected. I labeled cups with the names of the food I was intending to test. Then I had to prepare the food for testing. To prepare the fresh fruit I chopped it into pieces to expose the juice and fruit inside. To prepare the baby food, apple juice, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and Coke, I used the pipettes to create a one to nine ratio between the food and the water. I chose to dilute the apple juice and sodas due to the high level of glucose they contained. I tested each item according to the package instructions (for the fresh fruit, I used two test strips for each, one where I pressed the strip against a fresh cut side and one where I squeezed some of the juice onto the testing strip) and compared them to the results I got from my positive controls. After comparing the strips, I found that each of the fruits contained roughly these percentages of glucose.
There were a few things that I had trouble with while doing this experiment. For example, whenever I tested the mandarin orange the results showed as 0%, which I found surprising. Another interesting thing from my experiment was that the diluted apple juice tested as containing 0.125% glucose, while the regular apple juice tested as 0%. I thought that both of these might have been due to a mistake that I made, so I tested them again in order to be sure, but my second tests yielded the same results as the first.
- Disposable cups for my positive controls
- Disposable spoons for mixing my controls
- A kitchen scale
- Household foods for testing (for my project I used a mandarin orange, an apple, apple juice, baby food, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and Coke.)
- Glucose powder
- An 100 ml graduated cylinder
- Glucose test strips
- 3 ml pipettes
Next, I prepared my positive controls using water and glucose powder. I began by gathering seven of my disposable cups and labeling them “2%”, “1%”, “0.5%”, “0.25%”, “0.125%”, “0.0625%”, and “0%”. Then I added 100 ml of water to each of my cups, adding an extra 100 ml to the cup labeled “2%”. I measured four grams of glucose powder and thoroughly mixed it into the 2% cup before using my graduated cylinder to collect 100 ml, or half, of the solution and adding it to the 1% cup. I mixed the 200 ml of water in the 1% cup well and then measured 100 ml and added it to the 0.5% cup. I continued to repeat this process for each of the 0.25%, 0.125%, and 0.0625% cups, carefully rinsing the graduated cylinder before each repeat to make sure that there wasn’t any of the stronger glucose solution remaining from the previous cup. Through this process I created six solutions, each diluted 50% more than the previous solution. Next I had to make my 0% cup, which I did by simply adding 100 ml of tap water to the cup labeled 0%.
I continued by using my glucose testing strips to determine the concentration of glucose in each of my positive control cups. The test strips I bought instructed me to swirl the end of the strip in the solution for one to two seconds, and then let it sit for three minutes before analyzing the result. I labeled each testing strip with the percentage of glucose that the tested, and took a photo of the testing strips to use as a reference for the rest of my project. I chose to take a photo because I knew that the strips would darken and become less accurate the longer I let them sit while performing the rest of my experiment.
Then it was time to actually test the foods I had selected. I labeled cups with the names of the food I was intending to test. Then I had to prepare the food for testing. To prepare the fresh fruit I chopped it into pieces to expose the juice and fruit inside. To prepare the baby food, apple juice, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and Coke, I used the pipettes to create a one to nine ratio between the food and the water. I chose to dilute the apple juice and sodas due to the high level of glucose they contained. I tested each item according to the package instructions (for the fresh fruit, I used two test strips for each, one where I pressed the strip against a fresh cut side and one where I squeezed some of the juice onto the testing strip) and compared them to the results I got from my positive controls. After comparing the strips, I found that each of the fruits contained roughly these percentages of glucose.
- Mandarin orange- 0%
- Apple- 2% or higher
- Apple juice- 0%
- Apple juice (diluted)- 0.125%
- Baby food (diluted)- 0%
- Pepsi (diluted)- 0.5%
- Coke (diluted)- between 0.5% and 1%
- Dr. Pepper (diluted)- 1%
There were a few things that I had trouble with while doing this experiment. For example, whenever I tested the mandarin orange the results showed as 0%, which I found surprising. Another interesting thing from my experiment was that the diluted apple juice tested as containing 0.125% glucose, while the regular apple juice tested as 0%. I thought that both of these might have been due to a mistake that I made, so I tested them again in order to be sure, but my second tests yielded the same results as the first.
