Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My son chose the fat extraction project for his science project; however, his results were not consistent with the nutrition labels for the chocolate chips or the almonds. For example, the nutrition label indicated that almonds have a very low percentage of saturated fats which would mean they have more unsaturated fats; however, the fat that he extracted from the almonds was mostly solid at room temperature, which is not a characteristic of unsaturated fat. This was the same for the chocolate chips. We expected about half to be unsaturated but the extracted fat was also mostly solid at room temperature. Due to the weather we left the jars in the garage as opposed to outside but the acetone did evaporate. Can anyone advise as to what may have gone wrong.

Thank you,

Hi Karen,
I'm assuming you're doing the project described here, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... od#summary. First off, make sure the temperature in your garage isn't fluctuating above or below room temperature. Also, you said there was some unevaporated acetone? Leftover acetone can interfere with your measurements. If you are repeating your experiment again, make sure you are definitely proceeding and recording at room temperature, and also making sure all acetone is gone.

I hope this helps!

Alyssa