Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello I am having trouble locating the consentration of sugar substitutes in the brands like Sweet`nlow, Equal, splenda,and Nutrasweet. please help.
vonadara

Hi Vonadara,

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for, but typically you can find the relative amounts of ingredients on the back of the box or packet. For example, a 1g packet of Splenda claims to contain less than 1g of sugar, and lists its ingredients as dextrose, maltodextrin, and sucralose. Dextrose is just D-glucose, or sugar (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose). Maltodextrin is another polysaccharide (sugar), just a different form (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextrin). Sucralose is the artificial sweetener (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose). You can also check out the Splenda website (http://www.splenda.com/page.jhtml?id=sp ... rie.inc#q0) to get more information.

From the amounts of different ingredients, you can calculate the relative amounts of each ingredient (sugar vs. artificial sweetener). It may take some looking at the products in the grocery store or on websites, but you should be able to get this information.

I hope this helps. Post again if you're still having trouble.

Cheers,
Heather

I need help setting up my data table. Im testing How sugar substitues affect Yeast reproduction with splenda, sweet n low, and sugar. i have no clue how i should set it up

Hi Lopezjosh51,

What did you measure? Did you count the amount of yeast (% coverage) over a certain amount of time or the number of colonies? Did you measure the amount of CO2 produced by the yeast?

The way you present your data will depend on what you measured. If you want to organize your data into a table, you could have columns for the different treatments (Splenda, Sweet N Low, Sugar) and put the variables you measured as headings to each row. Your data might also lend themselves to a bar graph.

If you let us know exactly what you measured, we can give you more details about the best way to present your data.

Heather