Download Questions to go with the Fats, Carbohydrates, and Proteins packet

Questions to go with the Fats, Carbohydrates, and Proteins packet. KEY:
CLASS SET
1. What are proteins a polymer of? Amino Acids
2. What are fats most chemically similar to that we've already studied? Hydrocarbons
3. There are approximately 28 grams in an ounce. If you had an ounce of fat on your meat how many
dietary calories would that be? 28g x 9 Cal/gram = 252 Calories
4. It takes about 3500 dietary calories to gain or lose a pound. How many grams of fat should you have to
eliminate from your diet to lose a pound? 3500 Cal/9 Cal per gram of fat = 388.8 grams of fat = 13.8
ounces of fat
5. A typical can of Coke has 150 calories in it from sugar. Since most of the calories in a pop come from
sugar, how many grams of sugar would that mean there should be in that entire pop? 150 Cal per can /4
Cal per gram of sugar = 37.5 grams of sugar or 37.5 grams/28grams per ounce = 1.34 ounces. (Note:
The AHA says that adult women's recommended sugar intake is 5 teaspoons (20 grams) per day, adult
men's recommended sugar intake is 9 teaspoons (36 grams), and children's recommended sugar intake is
3 teaspoons (12 grams). The WHO cut that level in half in 2015 due to health-related issues. Here’s an
article on that: http://goo.gl/U5UW0a
6. If the pop is 12 ounces, what percent of the mass of the can of pop is actually made of sugar? 1.34
ounces/12 ounces x 100 = Sugar is 11.16 % of the mass of a can of pop.
7. Sugars are an example of a carb or carbohydrate. Why do we call them a carbohydrate? They tend to
have a formula that could be mathematically reduced to CH2O, which is essentially carbon and water.
Thinking of water being referred to as hydro – like in a hydroelectric dam, or hydrating with water after
exercise, you can see Carbo + Hydrate, or carbohydrate.
8. What are starch and cellulose are polymers of? Glucose
9. If I eat a big juicy and consider it to be made of pure protein after all the fat is trimmed off, how many
calories am I getting per ounce of steak if there are 28 grams in an ounce? 28 grams of protein x 4
Cal/gram of protein = 112 calories per ounce of steak
10. When I digest a steak how far down chemically does it get digested? In other words, does it get digested
so that you absorb its monomers or do the monomers get broken down as well? You break it down to the
monomer level – which means you absorb amino acids into your bloodstream after digesting the proteins
in the steak.
11. Which monomers are proteins made of? The monomers are amino acids that are made of an amino
group, a carboxylic acid, and a few other elements.
12. Where does meat digestion and all other mechanical food digestion begin? In your mouth with chewing.
13. Where does the chemical digestion of each of the fats, proteins and carbohydrates that we eat begin? Fat
and protein start to digest with hydrochloric acid and enzymes in your stomach. Carbs start to digest
with saliva that has the right enzymes in your mouth (amylase). (more info http://goo.gl/aVGkNz )
14. When we say that fat or hydrocarbons are saturated what does that mean? Every carbon has as many
hydrogens as possible attached to it (no double or triple bonds in the carbon chain)
15. Why are unsaturated fats referred to as being unsaturated? The presence of double bonds makes it so that
they have less than the maximum number (2n+1) of hydrogens attached to their carbon chain. (due to
having 1 or more double bonds)
16. Why are unsaturated fats better for you than saturated fats and where do each of them come from?
Animals make saturated fats, plants make unsaturated fats with at least one c=c bond, or even
polyunsaturated fats with multiple carbons involved in double bonds. The following Harvard Med
School article gives more info about why there are good and bad fats: http://goo.gl/H9xchP
Here’s an important quote: “A diet rich in saturated fats can drive up total cholesterol, and tip the
balance toward more harmful LDL cholesterol, which prompts blockages to form in arteries in the heart
and elsewhere in the body. For that reason, most nutrition experts recommend limiting saturated fat to
under 10% of calories a day.
A handful of recent reports have muddied the link between saturated fat and heart disease. One metaanalysis of 21 studies said that there was not enough evidence to conclude that saturated fat increases the
risk of heart disease, but that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat may indeed reduce risk of
heart disease.
Two other major studies narrowed the prescription slightly, concluding that replacing saturated fat
with polyunsaturated fats like vegetable oils or high-fiber carbohydrates is the best bet for reducing the
risk of heart disease, but replacing saturated fat with highly processed carbohydrates could do the
opposite.”
17. Why did we hydrogenate unsaturated fats? It makes these liquid fats become solids at room temperature,
like animal fats. Hydrogenation also keeps plant fats from getting rancid (spoiling) as quickly.
18. What was another name for partially hydrogenated fats? Trans fats
19. Why is it important that animal fats are solids and plant fats are liquids at room temperature and body
temperature? If you had liquid fat in your body, it would flow when you jumped up and down, and there
would be all sorts of issues. If plant fats were solids, they wouldn’t flow from place-to-place in the plant
and allow it to survive. Also, plant fats do freeze as it gets cold outside, which is part of the reason
deciduous plants shed their leaves and stop many of their life processes in the winter.
20. Where is the energy stored in any compound? In all of the chemical bonds.
21. What type of energy is stored in the bonds in compounds? Chemical energy
22. Can humans access the energy stored in all compounds? Humans can’t access all of this energy. For
example, we don’t make enzymes to break down hair’s protein into amino acids or lumber’s cellulose
into glucose molecules.
23. We can’t digest cellulose, even though it’s a polymer of the same glucose molecules that make up starch,
which we can digest.
24. What type of molecule do we make to digest (break the bonds between the monomers in) starch? (fat,
protein, or carbohydrate) A protein that we have named the enzyme “amylase”.
25. How does our body know how to make the molecule in the previous question? DNA – our genetic code
tells the cells how to assemble the amino acids in the correct order.
26. What is another name for these molecules that speed up our protein, carb, and fat digestion? Enzymes
(tend to end in “ase” – like amylase for starch digestion into glucose, lipase for lipid digestion (fat
digestion), tryptase for protein digestion, and lactase to digest lactose, which is milk sugar, into glucose
and galactose).
27. What is the name for the entire group of atoms or molecules that speed up chemical reactions without
being damaged or being an actual reactant or product of those reactions? Catalysts. Enzymes are
biological catalysts. The exhaust system on your car employs the element platinum as an elemental
catalyst to speed up the breakdown of some of the nasty components in car exhaust.