Figuring out Food: Part 3

1. Additives within Cream Cheese and Chives Crackers and their uses in the food.

• Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, and Folic Acid– All of these additives are nutrients found in the crackers. They replace vitamins and minerals that were extracted or lost during the cooking and processing stage of making the food. They also are added to help provide for nutrients that may be absent or missing from the diet.
• Sodium Bicarbonate, Ammonium Bicarbonate,  and Monocalcium Phosphate– Together they are leavening agents and help to promote the rising of the flour and mixture no matter how little there is to rise.
• Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup Solids, and Sugar– These additives bring sweetness to the crackers with and without adding calories
• Xanthan and Guar Gum– They both are stabilizers that help to produce a cohesive texture to the food which helps it to feel better in the mouth. They also bind the food together and are fat replacers where in reduced fat foods they give more texture and a mouth like feel.
• Natural and Artificial Flavor-This adds specific flavoring that is both natural and synthetic to the cracker.  
• Soy Lecithin– This is an emulsifier and helps to make a stable product and allows for a smooth mixture of all the ingredients. This emulsifier also prevents the separation of ingredients and controls the dispersion and dissolving of products together.

2. Two Vitamins found in large amounts in Cream Cheese and Chives Crackers

• Riboflavin- This vitamin helps with the conversion of food into energy and also aids to growth and development of the body. Another main thing this vitamin does is riboflavin helps in the formation of red blood cells. The recommended daily value of riboflavin is 1.7mg and it can commonly be found in eggs, grain products, mushrooms, meat, seafood, milk and spinach.
• Below is the chemical structure and formula of Riboflavin

C17H20N4O6

• Folic Acid– The vitamin folic acid helps to prevent birth defects and just like riboflavin aids in red blood cell formation. Also folic acid helps the body’s protein metabolism. This vitamin is extremely important for pregnant women and women who are able to become pregnant. The daily value of this vitamin is 400mcg and is found in foods such as avocado, grain products, leafy green vegetables, asparagus, orange juice, beans, and peas.
• Below is the chemical structure and formula of Folic Acid

C19H19N7O6

3. Carbohydrates

Identify the ingredients that are contributing sugars.

• Corn Syrup and Corn Syrup Solids

What types of sugar are likely to be present? From which ingredients?

• From the corn syrup and corn syrup solids there are most likely monosaccharides, which are simple sugars.

Identify the ingredients that are contributing fiber

• The enriched four, which is wheat flour, is contributing to the fiber.

What types of fiber are likely present? Soluble vs insoluble? What ingredients are contributing what?

• Cellulose and some hemicellulose are the types of fibers that are present and they can be found in the wheat flour. They also are insoluble fibers.

Starch and carbohydrates found in the ingredients.

• The wheat flour is also contributing to the starch found in the crackers and milk, cheese, cheese cultures, buttermilk and wheat flour all are carbohydrates in the food.
• A carbohydrate consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms that make up a biomolecule. Also there is usually a 2-1 ratio with a hydrogen-oxygen atom. Starch is just a polymer carbohydrate which means it is a large molecule with repeating units and is a polysaccharide.  
• One example from the ingredients that add to the carbohydrates in the food is milk, otherwise known as lactose. Lactose is a disaccharide, a double sugar where each molecule has one glucose molecule and one galactose molecule that are bonded together. The chemical formula and structure of lactose is shown below.

C12H22O11

Calculation of the calories from carbohydrate per serving and fiber per serving.

• Since carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, there are 23 grams of carbohydrates in the crackers totaling in 92 calories that are contributed from carbs to the overall food.
• It is commonly used that there are 4 calories per gram of fiber, so since there is less than one gram of fiber in the recipe there would be less than 4 calories from fiber in the crackers.

Works Cited

• International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Food Ingredients & Colors. muhlenbergcollege.instructure.com/courses/6764/files/323492/download?verifier=RJ2Xgq2kgRpjgJncv4IAGKhyx52RqjBxzOGIYBLO&wrap=1.
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Vitamins and Minerals Chart. muhlenbergcollege.instructure.com/courses/6764/files/329698/download?verifier=0XEaUwH5sZTC6860aWzoFEnJV5DUzONK4fZbihIY&wrap=1.