What’s Cookin                                                                              LAB 2          Fall 2005

 

Pass the Salt Please

 

Purpose

          1)  To determine the amount of sodium chloride in a typical shake.

2)  To try and get both a molecular and macroscopic understanding of how much sodium is in common foods.

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

Sodium chloride is put in many foods as a flavor enhancer.  Table salt is a source of sodium ions into the diet.  Today we focus on table salt, particularly the sodium ion. 

 

The role of sodium ions on health has been investigated.  (A babble on health)  “Too much is a bad thing” appears to be the common wisdom.  Your text has information

 

To understand how much salt is in the diet we will investigate the salt content of a number of foods.  Being chemist we will pay attention to moles and such.  Eventually we will be noting the amount of sodium in particular foods.

 

 

Experimental

 

          You will work in teams.  The number of samples of food I obtain will determine the size and number of groups.

 

 

Part 1:  Note the Morton Salt label I have.  Obtain the “daily amount of sodium recommended by this label”.  Note the result section for what I want.

 

 

Part 2:  Obtain a salt shaker and shake some salt onto a piece of paper as if you were seasoning your favorite salt needing food.  Repeat this a number of times.  Please put some thought and discussion into how exactly you want to do this.  Your goal in this part is to calculate how much salt (mass in grams) is there in a shake.

 

 

Part 3:  Obtain a sample of food. Your team’s goal will be to understand how much salt is in a serving of your food.  You will show us a serving size and then show us the package and state how many servings there are per package.  You then will put a serving in front of us and state how much salt is in it.  Then you will state how many shakes are needed from your salt shaker to obtain this amount of salt.  You then will demonstrate this by shaking in front of the class.  You then will report on how many normalized shakes it took.

Results

Part 1:  From Morton Salt Label.

Amount of sodium/serving  =                   __________  grams

Amount of sodium/serving  =        __________  mols

Amount of sodium chloride/serving  =             __________  mols

Amount of sodium chloride/serving  =                       __________  grams

Recommended servings per day =    ____________

 

Part 2:  Analysis of Morton Salt Label.

Amount of sodium/day  =                         __________  grams

Amount of sodium/day  =     __________  mols

Amount of sodium chloride/day  =          __________  mols

Amount of sodium chloride/day  =          __________  grams

 

Part 3:  The shaking.

 

                                             Trial 1                         Trial 2                      Trial 3

 

Mass of salt/shake:            _________                _________                _________

 

mols of salt/shake             _________                _________                ________

 

mols of sodium/shake:     _________                 _________                _________

 

mass of sodium/shake       _________                _________                ________

 

Average mass of sodium per shake:            _____________

 

Average moles of salt per shake:            _____________

 

Average mass of salt per shake:                  _____________

 

 

Part 4:  The Food analysis.

What was your food?  How many grams of salt per serving?  How many shakes is this?  How many normalized shakes is this?