Experiment 9: Fats and Cholesterol Week of October 11, 1999

PART ONE: Percentage of Fat in Popular Snack Foods

In the first experiment you wil determine the percentage of fat in a snack food. We choose to do Doritos!

Weigh approximately 0.50 grams of a snack food. If you get too much do not eat the excess!

Carefully transfer all of the weighed snack food to a mortar and crush the sample using the pestle.

Add about 3 mL of petroleum ether to the mortar containing the crushed snack food and grind the mixture using the pestle. Allow the misture to stand while you prepare the filter apparatus.

Obtain a piece of circular filter paper.

Fold in half.

Then into quarters.

Open and set into a plastic filter funnel.

Set the filter funnel containing the filter paper into a wire triangle which is resting on a ring clamp on a rind stand.

Obtain a clean 18 x 150 mm test tube and a 100 mL beaker. Determine the mass of both using the analytical balance and record the mass on the Results page in your laboratory manual.

Set the test tube beneath the filter funnel so the filterate drains into the test tube. transfer all of the snack food/petroleum ether mixture into the filter paper. You may need a spatula to help transfer all of the solid. Wash the mortar with 3 mL amounts of the ether to help transfer all of the mixture. The mortar may require several washings to transfer all of the mixture.

Take the test tube and beaker to the fume hood with the hot plate. Set the beaker on the hot plate and allow the petroleum ether to evaporate. This may take up to 15 minutes. Periodically check the sample. After the ether has evaporated remove the beaker and test tube from the hot plate and allow the sample to cool.

Re-weight the test tube and beaker to obtain the mass of fat obtained from the snack food. Calculate the % fat as described in the laboratory manual. Check with others in the laboratory to compare results.