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Following completion of the readings below, "Are You Sure It’s Fat Free?" Gather three of your favorite packaged foods, perhaps one from each: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Use the model explained in the "Are You Sure It’s Fat Free?" example and analyze, through the mathematical formula explained, the fat content and protein content from your foods.
The assignment should be concise in your reasoning. Plan your response by organizing the data, formulas and then computations. You may attach the calculations as a scanned in hand written document, but make sure it is readable.
Your response should include a title, an introduction, body and conclusion.
Mathematics in Our World Revisited
Are You Sure It’s Fat Free?
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The reason that a 97% fat free food is too good to be true
is that the food industry bases its figures on the weight of
the product and not the calories the product contains.
For example, suppose a 10-ounce serving of a food contains
240 calories, and the label states that it contains
9 grams of fat. The food industry then converts 10 ounces
to grams by multiplying each ounce by 29 grams;
hence, the total weight of the product is 290 grams, and if
there are 9 grams of fat, the percentage of fat is
9 X 100% = 3.1%
290
The procedure used by the food industry is misleading.
The correct way to calculate the fat content is to multiply
the number of grams of fat by 9 to get the calories.
(Each gram of fat is converted to 9 calories.) In this case,
9 x 9 = 81 calories. Next, divide the fat calories by the
total calories and multiply by 100% to get the percentage
of calories derived from fat. In this case, the label stated that a
10-ounce serving contained a total of 240
calories.
81 X 100% = 33.75%
240
Hence, 33.75% of the calories come from fat, not 3%
as suggested.
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