Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,
My son was going to use the glucose level kit to test glucose in chocolate. His idea was to figure out how to calculate the amount of carbohydrate content in dark chocolate to satisfy the dietary requirement for diabetics of 15-30 grams of carbohydrates for snacks, and then determine if any of the dark chocolates would allow him to meet that requiement, testing different cacao contents.
Question 1: is it possible to determine the carbohydrate content based on the glucose strips?
Question 2: how would you test solid chocolate with the strips?
Thank you.

That's a great idea! Answer 1: You can use the strips to test the glucose level but not the carbohydrate content. This is because there are other carbohydrates in the chocolate that the strip will not be able to detect as it is only made for glucose. Answer 2: Personally, first I would try melting the chocolate and then test the strips. However, it may still be too thick. If the glucose strip does not work with melted chocolate, then I would dilute the melted chocolate using distilled water in order to have a more liquid solution.