Figuring Out Food Part 2

Smartfood White Cheddar Popcorn

Protein:

Protein is thousands of amino acids linked in long chains. The sequence of the amino acids determines the protein’s structure and function. Protein can be found in foods from both plants and animals. Protein provides calories and energy for the body and is in almost all body fluids. Protein is also a major part of your skin, hair, nails, muscle, bone, and internal organs.

Protein generally has no Percent Daily Value (%DV), so we can use the amount of grams as a guide. It is recommended that we have 50 g of protein per day. Smartfood White Cheddar Popcorn contributes 3 g of protein to the “Percent Daily Value” of protein. The Percent Daily Value of protein is how much protein it is recommended the consumer eats in a day. Food manufacturers must include on the label how much of the Percent Daily Value of fats are in our products, as fats raise our chances of getting heart disease and other cardiovascular issues. They do not include protein, however, because there is no Percent Daily Value that is recommended and eating a lot of protein does not have the same negative consequences as eating too much fat.

I believe that the ingredients that contain protein are:  popcorn, cheddar cheese, whey, and buttermilk.

There are 12 calories due to the protein in the popcorn. I figured this out because there are 3 grams of protein in it and I multiplied that by the 4 calories that are contributed per gram of protein (for every gram of protein, you get 4 calories) which equals 12 calories from protein.

Fat:

Fat is saturated fats and unsaturated fats. The difference is, saturated fat is found more often in animal products and is solid at room temperature. Unsaturated fats can be monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, they can also be trans fats. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are found more in plants and are usually liquid at room temperature. Trans fates found primarily in partially hydrogenated oils and in small amounts in some animal products. Trans fat is different from unsaturated fat that occurs naturally in plant foods and has a negative effect on your cardiovascular health, such as heart disease. Fat provides calories and energy for the body and stores excess energy to use as a secondary source of energy when the energy form carbohydrates is used up.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends consuming less than 10% of calories per day from saturated fat by replacing it with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. The Percent Daily Value is the amount of fat it is recommended to consume each day. The food manufacturer must include this on the label, as saturated fats and trans fats are  harmful for your health. This product 15% of your daily value of total fat and 10% of your daily value of saturated fats. This popcorn contains 2 g of saturated fat in it and this is a fat that is derived from animals, and we should limit the intake of this fat. There are no trans fats in this popcorn. Even though the label does not say it, I believe there is monounsaturated fat in this popcorn, as vegetable oil is one of the ingredients and vegetable oil is high in monounsaturated fat. I believe this fat is adding to the 2 g of saturated fats that equal the 10 g of total fat in this popcorn.

I believe the ingredients contributing fat are: popcorn, cheddar cheese, whey, and buttermilk.

There are 90 calories from fat in this product, I can tell because next to the calories on the nutrition label it says calories from fat. You can also figure this out by taking the grams of total fat in the product and multiplying this number by 9 because there are 9 calories in one gram of fat. So, for this product you take 10 and multiply it by 9 which equals 90 calories from fat.