In this Task I will examine the content and effect of having a Chicken Premier meal for every meal every day on an imagined individual. The individual is a male subject and is 19 years of age, with a weight of 75 kg.

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Dilwar Choudhury        Task 2

Living on Happy Meals

Introduction

Takeaways are very popular these days and especially from outlets such as McDonalds.  Their popularity derives from them having tasty products at an affordable price, and to the close accessibility of their stores to people’s homes.

In this Task I will examine the content and effect of having a Chicken Premier meal for every meal every day on an imagined individual.  The individual is a male subject and is 19 years of age, with a weight of 75 kg.  He is studying at university while living on the campus and he eats nothing but Happy Meal for each meal.

The Nutritional Content of a Fast Food Meal

I have chosen the Chicken Premier Meal from McDonalds as the example of a fast food meal.  The meal includes a chicken meat burger, medium fries and a medium coca-coal drink.  The burger consists of a bun, slices of a tomato, a chunk of shredded lettuce, a globule of mayonnaise and a piece of chicken meat coated in breadcrumbs.  The fries were made from thin slices of potato fried in oil and then sprinkled with a little salt.

The specific nutrients present in the meal:

To find out which nutrients are present in the meal, I went to McDonalds and asked if they could give me any information on their meals.  They gave me a sheet which contained all the nutrimental information such as which nutrients are present and the amount present.  After I received the information, I did some of my own research in the class.  I did various tests such as Starch test, Sugar test, Biuret test and Emulsion test.        

Below is a table of results I gathered through the tests on the meal.

Below is a table which consists of the nutrients I found to be present in the meal through the tests.

Summary:

The bun contains starch, glucose, protein and fat.  The chicken meat and french fries also contains starch, glucose, protein and fat.  The mayonnaise, tomato and lettuce salad contains starch, glucose and fat.  My results show that it does not contain protein, which is interesting since mayonnaise is made with eggs and it contains a lot of protein.  The tomato dip contains starch and glucose.  It probably contains glucose for added flavour.  It does not contain protein and fat, which makes sense to me.  The Cola drink contains glucose and starch and does not contain fat or protein as I expected.  The chocolate drink contains starch and glucose and does not contain any protein or fat similar op the cola drink.

The amount of nutrients present in the meal:        

The table below contains the information gathered from McDonalds which are relevant to the meal.

The Burger includes two buns, chicken premiere burger meat and a salad containing mayonnaise, tomato and lettuce.

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Standard Food Tests on the Meal

Below are the methods I used in my experiments to test the meal for lipids, carbohydrates, protein and reducing sugar.

Method for Starch Test

  • Place two drops of the solution into a well on the spotting tile
  • Add two drops of Iodine in potassium Iodide solution
  • The positive reaction is a blue-black colour
  • The negative result is the solution remaining orange/brown

Method for Reducing sugar Test

  • Place 1 cm3 of the test solution into a test tube
  • Add 1 cm3 of Benedict’s Reagent the ...

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