05/14/2013 7.1 Lab Report- Caloric Content of Food

TITLE: LAB 7.1 CALORIC CONTENT OF FOOD

PURPOSE: In this lab we will have the opportunity to measure the energy in a variety of foods, by heating/burning a portion of the food item and catching the heat released into a known mass of water in a calorimeter. We will also identify units of measuring heat such as calories and joules. We will use basic lab equipment provided in our labpaq and we will use several household items as well. We will follow all safety requirements and standard procedures for this lab.

We learned from the chapter that a “calorie: is a unit of energy, just like a kilowatt-hour or a joule. These units, represent the amount of “heat energy” it takes to …show more content…
initial|23°C|22°C|22°C|
Water temp. final|31°C|72°C|32°C|
Delta T °C, change|8°C|50°C|10°C|

CONCLUSIONS: Although I still do not like “burning things”, this one was rather neat. I am overweight and lately have really been watching calories, and by doing this experiment I have grasped a better understanding of how energy Is released from food and how to properly calculate caloric content. Although I do not believe I will be using any of these methods to calculate my caloric intake, I will just stick to my labels provided for me and hope that they are without error.

ANSWERS TO END OF LAB QUESTIONS:

A. The food that tested with the most energy per gram was the potato chip.
B. My results were somewhat lower than the averages, but according to the discussion prior to the lab it stated that this would be a possible issue, due to the heat loss in the air, and the beaker absorbing some of the heat as well.
C. The type of reaction used in calorimetry, would be a “combustion reaction”, which we learned about back in chapter 5. A chemical process may either absorb or release energy, and many times this energy is in the form of heat. In experiments we often need to know how much heat is absorbed or released when such a process takes place. The measuring of that