How much energy is there in some foods that you eat?

GCSE Design & Technology

Christina Taryoto 10Q

HOW MUCH ENERGY IS THERE IN SOME FOODS THAT YOU EAT?

RESULTS

PEANUT

BISCUIT

WATER TEMPERATURE for Peanut & Biscuit

CONCLUSION

After looking at my results I noticed that a peanut provides more energy than a biscuit. The peanut released an average of 1.9 kJ/g and the biscuit released an average energy of 0.5 kJ/g. The peanut releases about 4 times more energy than a biscuit. I now understand that foods which provide a lot of energy are higher in calories than foods which provide little energy.

For anyone who is on a diet consuming peanuts would not be very good idea because peanuts provide a lot of energy are therefore high in calories and these calories can easily be stored as fat when not used. I think athlete, or anyone who does a lot of physical work, or anyone who is trying to gain weight could eat peanuts because they provide lots of energy/calories which are vital for their bodies to work.

EVALUATION

I think the experiment went well, I followed the instructions carefully and my results were very similair ...

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EVALUATION

I think the experiment went well, I followed the instructions carefully and my results were very similair for the same foods tested; in other words there are no obvious rogues. However the experiment itself is a very inaccurate way of finding how much energy is in foods. I looked in a biology textbook on how much energy is in everyday foods and I noticed that peanuts have about 24.5kJ/g. My results showed that the peanuts I tested had 1.9kJ/g. My results and the ones in the textbook are no where near each other, so this proves that the experiment is not an accurate way of finding the exact amount of energy from everyday foods.

Possible errors:

The water temperature might not have been measured properly before and after being heated by the flaming food. This would affect calculating the energy released from food because the formula requires the temperature rise.
For every piece of food tested we are suppose to use a different boiling tube with a fresh quantity of water which is suppose to be the same volume each time. Yet there is a possibility that we did not pour exactly 20cm3 of water each time. This would make it an unfair test and therefore affect our results.
Finding the mass of the food after burning may have been done incorrectly. The burnt food tends to break apart easily, turing into powder. So when you try to carry it to the electronic scale, some of the burnt food pieces might have fallen off the tissue. This would affect our results because we have to calculate the energy released from food by using the formula which requires the change in mass.
After the food is lit it is immediately supposed to be placed under the boiling tube, at this step there is a high chance that some foods were not placed immediatley under the boiling tube while other foods were. This would cause heat energy loss for some food and therefore make this an unfair and unreliable test.
When we hold the burning food under the boiling tube we are supposed to direct the flame at the boiling tube as accuratley as possible, but there is a high possibility that whoever is handling the burning food can not maintain the flame directly under the boiling tube because they loose concentration or become too tired from hold the burning food under the boiling tube.
For every food tested we have to make sure that it has burned out completely by trying to relight it until it will not burn anymore. There is a chance we did not check that the food had combusted completely so therefore the test would be unfair and would affect our results.