Virginia Tech

CHEM 1045

Abstract. The principle objectives of this experiment are to develop an understanding
between food products and chemistry. Students learn how to make precise measurements, apply
dilution concepts, and manipulate a calibration curve to determine unknown concentrations. In
this experiment, the amount of iron is calculated in a Total cereal sample to determine if the
sample included the correct amount of iron per serving. After completing the experiment, 48 mg
of iron were found in one serving, which is above the RDA for both men and women. Therefore,
the amount of iron in Total cereal is not appropriate and misleading.
I. Introduction. The contents of the food people eat is becoming more and more
important for consumers to know. Consumers want to know what exactly is going into their
bodies from the vitamin and mineral content, the preservatives, the dietary benefits, etc.1 In order
to find this information, consumers look to the Nutrition Facts on the food labels to determine
exactly what they are eating. The question is, are the Nutrition Facts consumers read everyday a
true representation of what is in the food people eat?
Iron is significant in the human body specifically in hemoglobin in the blood. Because of
this, iron is added to certain foods to ensure that the population is getting enough of the vitamin.3
Total cereal claims to have 100% of the iron needed for a human being per day in one serving.1
This is important to verify because the amount of iron people are getting can play a large role on
overall health. The goal of this experiment is to determine if Total cereal is true in its claim that it
contains enough iron in one serving of cereal.
In order to determine a clear answer to this question, the amount of iron in Total cereal
can be calculated. The iron in Total cereal is added in the form of iron filings.1 These iron filings
are elemental iron metal, which is present in Total cereal in its pure elemental form and is

therefore ferromagnetic. Ferromagnetic implies that the iron is attracted to a magnet; by using a
magnet in Total cereal to attract the iron filings, the iron can be removed from the cereal.1 Once
this iron has been extracted from the Total cereal, it can be further manipulated to determine its
exact measurement in the Total cereal sample tested in this experiment.
Iron extracted from Total cereal must be combined with HCl to change it to its ionic
form. After this is done it can be analyzed using an Atomic Absorption (AA) instrument, which
measures the concentration of vaporized atoms in the iron by measuring the absorption of light.1
This instrument allows for the concentration of iron in the sample to be measured