The Legislator

We believe food labels should include additives so that consumers can make an educated, informed decision in regards for what they believe is best for them and/or their family. Consumers should also be aware of the consequences that food additives may have on them. Some studies show that additives may cause hyperactivity in kids and some people might have a certain sensitivity of FD&C Yellow No. 5 in foods. Consumers might also be interested in knowing that large amounts of insects and carcasses of animals who have died of "natural causes" are in the food they consume on a regular. Weather it be anything with a red dye made from insect blood or sugar which is filtered with cow bones. 

The benefits of food labels are informed consumers, people will be more aware of what they consume which is reaching for a healthier America. If people were to know of all the unnatural things that go into their everyday food they are most likely to choose a much  health conscious decision. Although some people might still continue eating the same thing, others will have a choice as to what they consume instead of blindly stuffing their faces with things they don't know. If food companies are more honest with their customers they might see an increase in sales, especially if they have nothing to hide. 

The only risk we see in not labeling additives is the food companies losing money in fear that people will no longer buy their products. Which is understandable but food companies should strive for much healthier and safer ways of making their food. Consumers and big companies should work together to make food safe, affordable, and delicious so that everyone is satisfied without questioning what was killed going into a few jelly beans. 

Should we enrich or modify our food?

I believe food should be modified because people need calcium, vitamin A, and so on in order to be healthy efficient human beings. People who do not get enough calcium have long term complications such as low bone mass. As well as people who do not get enough vitamin A in their diet suffer from weak membranes around their organs making them vulnerable to diseases. Although some people know how to find nutrition in foods naturally such as milk, vegetables, bread, grain, fish etc. other people might not have the resources or knowledge to make such decisions. Which is why food should be modified to make sure everyone gets the necessary amount of vitamins and calcium they need. 

How do we enrich our food?

Iodine is a nonmetallic chemical element which is found in some minerals in the earth. Iodine is a critical nutriment for proper growth and metabolism. We can identify weather a substance contains iodine in it by using iodine antiseptic solution or by adding vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and corn starch to identify weather or not iodine is present. In our experiment we did both, first we added iodine antiseptic to a cup of corn starch and water and the cloudy water turned black-ish/purple. Then we tested three different types of salt to see which one contained iodine. Out of cups A-C cup C was the only one to turn the same color as the first cup we tested indicating that it contained iodine. Iodine is important for a healthy diet, if someone doesn't  have enough iodine in their diet it can cause severe physical and mental retardation, most third world countries suffer from malnourishment. 

Thickeners and Emulsifiers

Emulsion or to emulsify something in food is to mix two or more substances together, and keep them together. The emulsifier ingredient in this lab was the egg yolk. Emulsifiers are used in foods to keep the

Solutions and other Mixtures

In a heterogeneous mixture, the components are not spread out, or distributed, evenly throughout the mixture. A homogeneous mixture, the particles are spread out evenly. Keywords such as alloy, colloid, emulsion, suspension, solvent, and solution are important in solutions and mixtures.

Kimchi Progress

* 2 1/2 inches of water

* Strong smell

* We used 7 spoons of salt

* The water is brown

* The lettuce is crisp/soggy

* Bubbles still forming

* pH level of 6

What are the risks and benefits of using ammonia to sanitize beef?

Before reading:

1. How would you feel if you had to pay an extra fifty cents for your school lunch? 

How much would that add up to over a school year?

I would not enjoy paying an extra fifty cents for my school lunch because school lunch is not something I find nutritious, let alone something I would pay for. Paying for school lunch can also add up during the school year and can become very costly, its adds up to $90.

2. Statement: I don't care what goes in my burger as long as it's cheap, tastes good and doesn't make me
sick. Do you agree or disagree, and why?

I disagree with this statement because knowing what I put into my body is important to me and just because it doesn't make me sick doesn't mean its healthy. 

During reading:

1. Why did Beef Products, Inc. begin treating beef with ammonia?
To kill E.coli as well as salmonella.

2. What happens to a batch of beef that is found to be contaminated with E. coli or Salmonella? Whatabout if the beef is ammonia-treated?

If a batch of beef is found to be contaminated with E.coli or Salmonella the school lunch program will not buy the meat but there's no ban in selling it to the general public. If a batch of beef contains ammonia it will be classified as a "processing agent" and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels.  

3. How might the ammonia treatment process fail to kill microbes?

Ammonia treatment might fail to kill microbes if enough of it is not being used. 

4. What are the effects of the ammonia treatment process on beef odor and taste?

High doses of ammonia make beef taste and smell better to consuming customers, although its not very healthy for them.  

After reading:
1. What are the risks of treating beef with ammonia?
The risks of treating beef with ammonia is giving the general public food that contains ammonia which is not very good for the human body, putting the general public health at risk. 

2. What are the benefits of treating beef with ammonia?
The benefits of treating beef with ammonia is better smell and taste, its lasts longer and kill off microbes.

3. Do you believe that ammonia should be listed as an ingredient in ground beef, 
or remain as an unlisted processing agent?

I do think that ammonia should be listed as an ingredient in ground beef because people should have the right to know exactly what it is that they consume so they can make an educated decision about their food.  

The Benefits of Food Irradiation

What is food irradiation?

Food irradiation is a preservation method food that can eliminate disease-causing germs from foods. Like pasteurization of milk, and pressure cooking of canned foods, treating food with irradiation can kill bacteria and parasites that would otherwise cause foodborne disease. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention similar technology is used to sterilize medical devices so they can be used in surgery or implanted without risk of infection. The food that NASA astronauts eat has been sterilized by irradiation to avoid getting food-borne illness in space. The effects of irradiation on the food and on animals and people eating irradiated food have been studied extensively.

Benefits of Food Irradiation:

 * Disease-causing germs are reduced and eliminated

 * The nutritional value of the food is preserved

 * Reduced spoilage in global food supply

 * Increased level of quality of assurance in international trade of food products

Are irradiated foods still nutritious?

Irradiated foods are wholesome and nutritious. All known methods of food processing and storage at room temperature for even a few hours can lower the content of some nutrients such as vitamins. At low doses such as received by foods passing through Rapiscan scanning machines, nutrient losses are not measurable.

Does irradiation make food radioactive?

Food does not come in contact with radioactive material during food irradiation, and cannot be contaminated this way. Radiation that is too energetic, however, can disrupt the energy balance in the nuclei of food atoms, making them unstable (radioactive). This is known as induced radioactivity. Electron and x-ray beams can be energetic enough to induce radioactivity. To prevent induced radioactivity, FDA limits the energy of the radiation from these sources to less than 4 mega-electron volts. Radiation from cobalt-60 sources is not energetic enough to induce radioactivity.

Which foods can be irradiated?

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention the following foods can be irradiated:

* Meat

* Poultry 

* Grains

* Many sea foods

* Fruits

*Vegetables

However, not all foods are suitable for irradiation. For example, oysters and other raw shellfish can be irradiated, but the shelf life and quality decreases markedly because the live oyster inside the shell is also damaged or killed by the irradiation.

How can I tell if the food has been irradiated?

A distinctive logo has been developed for use on food packaging, in order to identify the product as irradiated. This symbol is called the "radura" and is used internationally to mean that the food in the package has been irradiated. A written description may also be present, such as "Irradiated to destroy harmful microbes". It is not required to label a food if a minor ingredient of the food, such as a spice, has been irradiated itself.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/foodirradiation.htm#whichfoods

LAB: Home-Made Kimchee

Myself, Lilo, and Joalis are studying the variable of salt concentration. We will study this variable by adding a certain amount of salt to one bottle and then a lesser amount of salt to another to see which one will preserve the cabbage faster. We will record our data by observing the smell, color, density etc. of the cabbage, also recording the pH level of the cabbage each day until it reaches the pH level of 3.5. We will record all of this in our virtual lab notebooks. The experiment will last up to one week, in progression to that week we will record data everyday until the last day of the experiment. Our hypothesis is that the bottle with more salt will preserve the Kimchee faster then the bottle with less salt.

Ionic and Covalent Bonding

Atoms form bonds when their valence electrons interact. Ionic bonds form between oppositely charged ions. Covalent bonds form when electrons are shared between two atoms.  Metallic bond has a distinctive property because it can conduct electricity when they are solids and can bend and stretch. Polyatomic ion are different from other ions because they are made of groups of atoms that are covalently bonded. 

Compounds and Molecules

Chemical bonds are forces that hold atoms or ions together in a compound. The chemical bond s can break and reform during chemical changes. The chemical structure of a compound determines the compound's properties.Bond length is the distance between the nuclei of two bonded atoms. Bond angle is the angle formed by two bonds connected to the same atom. 

.Modern Atomic Theory

Electrons are organized in an atom on certain energy levels or regions, around the nucleus. It is impossible to determine exactly where an electron is at any specific time. Electrons move between energy levels when an atom gains and loses energy. Orbital is a region in which an electron is most likely to be. Valence electrons determine the chemical properties of an atom and a photon is the smallest unit of light energy.

The Structure of Atoms

Atoms of the same element have the same number of protons in common, this is call isotope. The number of protons in an atom is used to determine which element the atom comes from. The mass number of an element equals the number of protons plus the number of neutrons. The number written above the chemical symbol is the atomic number. Mole is the SI base unit used to measure the amount of a substance and the unified atomic mass unit is a unit of mass that describes the mass of an atom or molecule.

Changes of State

During a change of state, matter changes from one physical form to another. Changes of state are cause by a transfer of energy. Though the energy of a substance changes, the identity of the substance does not change. You can change the state of a substance by adding or removing energy. Adding energy causes the particles of a substance to move more quickly. Removing energy causes the particles of a substance to move more slowly. Changes of  state does not affect mass of energy. Mass and energy cannot be created or destroyed. Changes of state are condensation, evaporation, and sublimation.

Matter and Energy

All matter is made of atoms. Matter can be classified as a solid, liquid, or gas by determining whether the shape and volume are definite or variable. Definite means something does not change. Variable means something can change. Particles in a gas move very fast and are usually far apart. Particles in a liquid move quickly but they are fairly close together. The particles in a liquid can move past each other, this allows a liquid to flow. The particles in a solid do not move fast enough to slide past one another. However, they do vibrate in place. All particles of matter have kinetic energy, the energy of motion. Both liquids and gases have variable shapes. When particles are free to move past each other its called a fluid. A different matter that has kinetic energy is plasma, plasma is made up of electricity charged, or ionized, particles. Plasma shares many of the characteristics of gas particles. Temperature is used to measure the average kinetic energy of its particles. The total kinetic energy of all the particles in a substance is called thermal substance. 

Changes of Matter

A physical change is a change of matter from one 

 to another without a change in chemical properties. A chemical change is a change that occurs when one or more substances change into entirely new substances with different properties. Parts of a mixture and a compound can be separated by evaporation, distillation, and filtration.   

Classifying Matter

Matter is made up of particles called atoms. Atoms make up everything, including molecules, which are made up of two or more different elements. Matter can be classified based on what makes it up, it is either an element, a compound, or a mixture. A compound is considered a pure substance. Compounds is a substance made up of atoms of different elements that are chemically combined. When elements combine to form a compound, they always combine in the same ratio meaning they can be separated both physically and chemically. An element is also considered a pure substance because it can not be separated or broken down into simpler substances. Elements and compounds differ from mixtures. A mixture is a combination of two or more pure substances that are not chemically combined. The opposite of a element or compound, a matter that has a fixed composition and definite properties.