How do you find the food content of something that is NOT food?

Question

Ok, to clear up confusion ... I want to do a science experiment to see if cereal is healthier than the box it comes in or not. A girl at a different school a couple of years ago did this experiment and ground up the box to find it's food content. But I don't remember how she found the actual content. I just remember that she ground it up ...

Answer 1

You need to find the caloric content of the box versus the cereal itself. Mythbusters did this on one of their shows, and they proved the cereal is healthier than the box (obviously).

You can probably find the video on YouTube somewhere.

Answer 2

I suspect that would require complex analytical equipment only available at a professional laboratory. I doubt that a schoolgirl could have achieved this, unless she sent away the box for analysis.You don't just want the calorific value(the energy contained in the box), you also need protein, fat and carbohydrate content and the amount of vitamins and minerals to do a proper comparison..
Make it easy on yourself and choose a simpler project.

Answer 3

Live on a diet of nothing but cereal boxes for a month and then come back on here and tell us how you are feeling.

Answer 4

hey that sounds like an experiment...why not get worms to eat the cereal and the box and see which one the worms like better....Trix or the Box it came in? I've always wanted to know.

Answer 5

I saw this on a kids show once. They do grind it up, then they add a substance to break down the molecules (or something) and that in turn produces protein synthesis.

THATS OFF MEMORY... Probably wrong

Answer 6

Well, you could pure it with water and take it to a lab and test the components. I don't know exactly how its done, but I've heard of people doing this with school lunches and such.

Answer 7

try using google, enter "nutritional value of cardboard"

Answer 8

Wow.

thats a great question.

Star for you.