The Effect of Peanut Coating on Calorie Content

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine the difference in calorie content for peanuts with different coatings. Methods/Materials 45 plain peanuts were used as a control and compared to 45 sugar coated and 45 salted peanuts. A calorimeter was used for measuring the temperature change of the water and the peanuts mass change was recorded after burning was completed. Peanut energy in kcal was calculated by multiplying the change in water temperature by .2 L. Lastly, kcal per gram of nut burned was calculated by dividing the peanut energy by the mass change of the nut. Results The plain peanuts (control) had an average of 1.78 kcal/gram while the sugar coated peanuts had an average of 4.13 kcal/gram. The salted peanuts had an average of 2 kcal/gram. Conclusions/Discussion Using 10% confidence intervals, a significant difference can be found between the calories of sugar coated peanuts and that of plain or salted peanuts. However, there is no significant difference in the number of calories between plain or salted peanuts. This data suggests that those persons concerned about calories should avoid sugar coated peanuts in favor of salted or plain peanuts.

Competition history

• CSEF 2009 Chemistry · Entry J0502

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Chemistry projects
• CSEF Chemistry projects
• Every CSEF 2009 project