How do I measure the grease in fast food french fries?
Moderators: AmyCowen, kgudger, bfinio, MadelineB, Moderators
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trhodes72
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2014 9:05 am
- Occupation: Teacher
- Project Question: What fast food chain has the greasiest fries and how does that compare to the saturated fat content?
- Project Due Date: Jan 15
- Project Status: I am conducting my experiment
How do I measure the grease in fast food french fries?
My Science Project is "What fast food chain has the greasiest French fries and how does that compare to the fat content?" I bought 4 small fries from local fast food restaurants. I used brown lunch bags and drew a circle on each of the bags. I placed the fries inside the circle. Each one left a oil/grease mark on the bag. However, I cannot figure out a way to measure the spots. I've considered trying to find the area of each spot, but the grease spots are so random, it seems impossible to use that idea. I've also considered weighing each bag to see if the larger the spot, the heavier the bag, but I don't have a scale that will measure weights that small... Any suggestions?
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kgudger
- Moderator
- Posts: 421
- Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:20 pm
- Occupation: electronic engineer
- Project Question: n/a
- Project Due Date: n/a
- Project Status: Not applicable
Re: How do I measure the grease in fast food french fries?
Hello and welcome to the forums:
Have you seen this Science Buddies experiment? https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#summary It suggests using graph paper and counting squares as a way to measure the fat in potato chips. You should be able to adapt the experiment to french fries. As the experiment says, divide your french fries into at least 3 different groups so that you can repeat the experiment. One sample from each type of french fries is not enough. You should be able to get some idea about the fat content of the fries from the fast food restaurant's web site.
Best of luck!
Keith
Have you seen this Science Buddies experiment? https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#summary It suggests using graph paper and counting squares as a way to measure the fat in potato chips. You should be able to adapt the experiment to french fries. As the experiment says, divide your french fries into at least 3 different groups so that you can repeat the experiment. One sample from each type of french fries is not enough. You should be able to get some idea about the fat content of the fries from the fast food restaurant's web site.
Best of luck!
Keith
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deleted-184876
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2014 9:15 pm
- Occupation: Student: 6th grade
- Project Question: Energy in Types of Food:I am doing a proj similar to this one,calc the dif from cal amt of 1 food item to the amt released from the calmeter.I used the formula from sci bud,but got high amts of cals,peanut,11pkg,n 400 from the calmeter, same as other food.I did the expt 4+ times,& the results were about the same.Formula was right.How can 1 peanut create 400 cals?I have to get this done by MonJan6 & it doesnt make sense I need a expln for why the calories are high. Is this right? HELPPLZ!
- Project Due Date: Monday, January 6
- Project Status: I am finished with my experiment and analyzing the data
Re: How do I measure the grease in fast food french fries?
That seems like a cool project. Good luck with it!

