The purpose of this lab was for students to calculate how many calories are in
food. Students did this on four kinds of food: a peanut, a cashew, a
cheeto, and a marshmallow. The definition of a calorie is the amount of
heat needed to raise one gram of water 1 degree Celsius. Students first weighed the food in grams.
They then put a 100 g water in a beaker, lit the food, and let the
heat from the flame heat up the water. Students calculated the amount of calories in
each of the four foods by taking the temperature change of the water x
100. Food calories are
actually kilocalories, so this number was then divided by 1000. Dividing
that number by the mass of the food gave cal/g. Each food was done twice
to get an accurate result.