Iron Chef Lab: Do Added Sugars Matter?

“Nearly half of Americans, 48%, report drinking at least one glass of soda per day, while 52% say they normally drink no soda. Among those who drink any soda, the average daily amount is 2.6 glasses, with 28% drinking one glass a day, on average, and 20% drinking two or more glasses” (Saad, Lydia, Gallup). This is all despite the fact that soda is full to the brim with added sugars, which are attributed to high blood pressure and heart disease (Corliss, Julie, Harvard Health). Children and young adults are the ones who derive most of their sugar from soda, which is a major concern for the next generation’s health(Saad, Lydia, Gallup). The question is, are added sugars actually worse than naturally occurring sugars such as in fruit and honey? To test this, Iron Chef Lab Group #2 tested to see how yeast, a fungi organism, reacted to added sugars versus natural sugars. Yeast feeds on sugar, and according to prior research of how yeast reacts to sugars, they could test for growth by measuring the amount of carbon they respirate. The stronger the sugar, the more the yeast would grow except with some exceptions such as honey, since it is such a strong sugar (Hewitson, John, Hill, Charles, How does sugar affect yeast growth?). The hypothesis was that yeast requires sugar to survive, but if it is given added sugar, it will not live as well as if it were given natural sugars. Essentially, the added sugars of a soda will have less of an effect than the natural sugars found in fruit drinks or natural sources such as honey.

These are the materials we used in the process of this lab:

50 ml Coca-Cola

50 ml Green Goodness Bolthouse Farms Juice

50 ml Pure Cane Sugar

50 ml Honey

5 beakers with 2000 ml of 110॰ water

8 flasks in ml

4 balloons

5 packets (each being ¼ of an ounce/ 2 ¼ teaspoons) of yeast

pH strips

Measuring tape (in inches)

Labels

The steps we took to make the lab:

1.) Fill all 5 beakers with 200 ml of room temperature water and label each.

2.) Then add 50 ml of coca-cola to beaker #1, add 50 ml of Green Goodness Bolthouse Farms Juice to beaker #2, add 50 ml of Pure Cane Sugar to beaker #3, add 50 ml of Splenda to beaker #4, and 50 ml of Honey in beaker #5.

3.) Add one packet of yeast ( ¼ of an ounce/ 2 ¼ teaspoons) to each balloon. Attach a balloon  to each beaker without letting the yeast drop into the liquid.

4.) Let the yeast drop into the liquid at the same time.  

5.) Observe the beakers every 15 minutes until the results are quantifiable (about 1 to 2 hours).

6.) Record your results by tying the balloons and measuring the diameters of each with a measuring tape.

This link leads to a video of us pouring living yeast into the beakers, all at the same time.

Here is the First Trial Results. Below is a time lapse of the whole experiment:

   

The Second Trial:

Third Trial: 

This is the data table of all the trials we did and what our results were. None of the results were entirely consistent except for the Coca-Cola.

		Amount of CO2 Circumference of Balloon (inch)	Amount of CO2 Circumference of Balloon (inch)	Amount of CO2 Circumference of Balloon (inch)
Type of sugar:	PH Levels	Test 1:	Test 2:	Test 3:
Pure Cane Sugar (mL)	pH 6	12	14.5	17
Honey (mL)	pH 8	12	12	8.5
Coca-Cola	pH 1	11	11	11
Green Goodness Bolthouse Farms Juice (mL)	pH 5	12	12	10.5

• The independent variable, or the x variable, is the different sugars we gave to the yeast; the added sugars in Coca-Cola, the natural sugars in Green Goodness Juice, Pure Cane Sugar and Honey.
• The dependent variable, or Y variable, was determined by the amount of CO2 that was exhaled out by the yeast. To determine this, we measured the circumference of each balloon and the height of the foam in each flask.

To tie loose ends together, the yeast survived the best in pure cane sugar in the control sugars, and the yeast in the juice did better than the yeast in the Coca-Cola. In the control groups, sugar always did better than honey, but that’s because honey is largely concentrated with sugar and too much sugar is bad for the yeast. The Coca-Cola stayed at the same amount of carbon, at an 11 inch circumference. The Green Goodness Juice usually stayed above that range at a 12 inch circumference, other than the final trial. Overall, this means that the most effective was the cane sugar, probably because it fits the perfect conditions for yeast or any organism to easily digest it, but those results weren’t the most impressive. The results that stand out are the Coca-Cola and the Green Goodness Bolthouse Farms Juice. The juice almost always was more effective than the Coca-Cola, which shows that the natural sugars were more beneficial to the yeast than the soda, but it might also be due to the fact that the Coca-Cola had a ph acidity level of 1, an incredibly high acidity. Either way, the results concluded that the natural sugars of the juice were much more beneficial than the added sugars of the soda.

            The hypothesis that Group #2 generated was that the juice would breathe out more carbon. While this isn’t true if you take in account the two controls, it is true when comparing it to the soda, which shows that added sugars are not as beneficial as regular sugars. Also, the are some tweaks that the group could have done to make the experiment better. They kept on running out of certain materials and the replacements weren’t of the same quality. This can be said about the honey, yeast and juice. Yeast also only intakes sugar, while humans find many other benefits to foods with natural sugars because they are found in foods with nutrients that are beneficial for the human body. If they were to do this experiment again, they would use Splenda instead of honey, since it is just too much sugar, and they would get enough materials to last all three trials. The results are somewhat conclusive because the group did three trials to be safe. The soda results were consistent at 11 inches and almost always were under all the other sugars. The honey was the least conclusive, since its sugar content is much higher than the others and they kept on running out of the same type of honey, yet they stayed consistent in two of the trials at 12 inches, the same as the other natural liquid, the juice. If someone were to replicate this experiment, they would get nearly the same results in the drink categories because they were the least likely to change results with each trial. The sugar was merely a control, and the results of that were the most spontaneous since the trials had a range of 12 to 17 inches. All in all, the results of this lab with yeast display that natural sugars, that were not added, are the most beneficial to life forms because of their nutritional content. The American People should note that their sweetness shouldn’t have to be added to their meals, but instead derive from the natural fruits and plants that are given to them from nature, and it will effectively be better for them, even going as far as keeping them from getting heart disease.

Works Cited:

Corliss, Julie. "Eating Too Much Added Sugar Increases the Risk of Dying with Heart Disease - Harvard Health Blog." Harvard Health Blog RSS. N.p., 2015. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.

Gallup, Inc. "Nearly Half of Americans Drink Soda Daily." Gallup.com. N.p., 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.

"How Does Sugar Affect Yeast Growth?" How Does Sugar Affect Yeast Growth?N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.

Unit 1: Nutrition Assessment

Emily Gonzalez

10th Grade

Neto

Tucker

N.E.W. School

10/27/16

Unit 1: Nutrition Assessment

The implications that food has on health, the economy, ecology, and the community is a subject that is rarely touched on in public high schools for more than a week in a health class. Except in N.E.W. (Next Evolution in Work Based Learning) School. Over the course of two months, I have learned about the chemical processes that organisms go through to make food into energy, the implications of industrial and organic foods, and the current research that is going into the

The chemical processes within cells that organisms cycle through every day are called cellular respiration (animals) and photosynthesis (plants) (Some fungi go through both or part of these processes). The first cycle we learned about was cellular respiration, which converts glucose, or sugar, into ATP, adenosine phosphate. To be able to go through this process in an animal though, food has to be digested by going through the digestive system. To represent this, NEW school used tubes and food to simulate the process of digestion. The digestive system breaks down food with both physical energy (mastication and stomach churning) and chemical enzymes, such as amylase in saliva or lipase and lactase in the intestine. The small intestine absorbs all of the nutrients, then the small intestine and rectum get rid of the waste.

Here is NEW learning about the digestive system by making a model of it with scissor and cup teeth, nylon intestines and plastic bag stomachs.

With only the nutrients left, sugar then goes into the cells to start the cellular respiration process. We learned this through the allegory of converting a cake mix (to represent sugar) into muffins (ATP). In cellular respiration, the cytoplasm organelle of the cell breaks glucose molecules into half, also known as pyruvate, then the mitochondria puts the pyruvate into the Krebs cycle, which creates hydrogens that go through the Electron Transport Chain, thus turning into ATP. Everything past glycolysis requires oxygen from the lungs to function. Photosynthesis is the opposite, turning sunlight and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen. So plants and animals depend on each other. The plants create the glucose for them to function, and breathe out oxygen that animals need. Humans, or the animals they eat, eat the plants that have the glucose they need to convert into ATP.

The process of cellular respiration in an animal cell

The process of converting sunlight into glucose - photosynthesis in a plant cell

After learning about the science that goes into bodies using food to make energy, I could better understand the implications that different food has on a person’s health. As omnivores, humans were able to live and thrive anywhere, but since humans have existed, they have encountered a dilemma. The dilemma of knowing what we should eat, versus what will kill us. Humans still encounter this today, in the aisles of the grocery store. Everything that they buy can have larger implications towards their community, their overall health, the environment and ethics. Through the process of reading Omnivore’s dilemma, I have learned about what goes into industrial food, and how it is ultimately unsustainable. It is all built on “a single species growing in a single landscape: a monoculture of corn” (Pollan, Michael, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, pg. 410). With the giant industry of number 2 corn in America, grown only for the use of chemicals, the United States has put it in everything, from cleaning supplies, to frozen dinners, to salmon, to beef, and to anything that went through a factory.  Corn in the forms it is transformed to might not even be digestible. Organic food is only so much better. Yes, it isn’t always filled to the brim with corn, but just because something has the USDA approved organic label doesn’t mean that is is truly sustainable. They still use up a large amount of fossil fuels to ship across the country. To keep their animals healthy, they usually have to lock them up in cages, which is the opposite of what consumers want. The only truly sustainable foods are local, naturally raised foods, which also pose a problem for people in areas where that is not possible. So, overall, all food has different implications on everything, and it is up to the consumer to decide what they want to support and what they want to put into their bodies.

While researching for the final unit project, I have learned about the necessary nutrients that people need to survive and how different diets affect people. For our final unit project, my partner and I discussed about the movie Forks over Knives, and then went into further detail about vegan and non-vegan diets. We also contacted two nutritionists to learn more about the topic. Through these interviews and research, I learned about nutrients that are necessary for the human body. Both of the nutritionists agree that every person’s best diet isn’t always the same, but it is good to eat whole foods such as vegetables, whole grains, fruits, beans, and possibly even milk and meat. Some people are affected differently by the same foods, so as long as you get the correct amount of nutrients and not eat things that are unnatural, or too much, then you will be healthy. Protein, Vitamin B-12 and Omega-3’s were all nutrients that my partner and I agreed were necessary, but could get from different sources. It all depends on a consumer’s choice of cuisine and culture.

(Here is a link to our Podcast if you want to learn more about this subject: https://soundcloud.com/emily-gonzalez-506558984/tracks)

To wrap things all together, this unit I learned why and how organisms digest food, how the food a consumer buys affects both the economy and health of the consumer and the nation, that it doesn’t matter what diet you are on as long as you are eating whole foods and getting the proper amount of nutrients. Nutrition is an important subject to learn, especially in this epidemic of health-related diseases. It is a subject that students should learn more about so that they can make the right decisions when they are older, and it is a subject that I am glad I learned in this new method of project based learning.

Hold Your Forks and Knives Podcast

For our N.E.W. class final unit project on nutrition, my partner Isabella Lacefield and I made a podcast talking about the documentary Forks over Knives and vegan versus non-vegan diets. Our podcast is split into two parts, the first talking about the movie and the pros of each diet, and the second having two interviews with nutritionists and cons of each of the diets.

Part 1: Hold Your Forks and Knives
Part 2: Hold Your Forks and Knives 

The conclusions we made after the talk were that it doesn't matter if you are vegan or anything else, as long as you are eating whole, non-processed foods and eating the proper amount of nutrients. Never get all of your information from one source, and talk to a nutritionist before changing diets.