Summer SAVY 2017, Session 2/Day 1- Food Chemistry (Rising 4th/5th)
We have an exciting week ahead in Food Chemistry as we learn all about the molecules that make up our food. We started with some Chemistry basics today and we learned:
-How to read and use the Periodic Table of Elements
-What an atom looks like (protons, neutrons, and electrons)
-How covalent and ionic bonds form between atoms to make molecules (it’s all about the electrons)
-What atoms make up the macromolecules that we know better as carbohydrates (polysaccharides and monosaccharides)
We did an experiment to test various foods for the presence of polysaccharides (starch) and monosaccharides (glucose or sugar). Unfortunately, our starch experiment didn’t work for some reason. Even our “positive control” (starch plus potassium iodide) did not change color in the way that it was supposed to. We learned that we have to record our data no matter what happens because a good scientist does that and makes a change and repeats the experiment (over and over and over).
Tomorrow we will extract lipids (fats) from various foods and we will learn how to QUANTIFY our data from an experiment.
Dr. LaPointe
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