i really like how you explain the actual chemical reactions when you combine chemicals to make an indicator. It is good to know the mechanisms and not just, oh that is so cool it changed the color. You answer the question, "Why did it change the color!?" Please, keep it up.
All true! I think from the comments I'm getting so far this little video was a bit too simple for you guys ;) I'll try and put out something a little more cerebral next week
Your mixture for the biuret reaction is actually Fehling's solution - a reagent for detecting organic reducing agents, for example aldehyde groups of monosaccharides. Tartrate is unnecessary for the biuret test: it is usually sufficient to make the protein solution slightly alkaline and add copper sulfate solution dropwise. The proteins themselves provide sufficient complexation to prevent the precipitation of copper hydroxide. For the detection of reducing sugars, Benedict's reagent has two clear advantages over Fehling's solution: it is also longterm-stable when mixed, while Fehling has to be stored separately as solution I and II. In addition, Benedict's reagent is less alkaline and does not tend to splash out that soon when heated as Fehling's solution. In order to be able to detect sucrose with Fehling or Benedict, it must first be broken down into monosaccharides using heat and acid. If starch is present at the same time, the result can be distorted: as a polysaccharide, it is also split into monosaccharides. The iodine starch test works well in neutral or acidic solutions, but in alkaline it becomes difficult because of the formation of hypoiodide. Heat destroys the iodine-starch complex, too - but it returns when it cools down. Concentrated nitric acid is also suitable for detecting protein using the xanthoprotein test - if someone is allowed to use it. But the most sensitive reagent for proteins or the underlying amino acids is ninhydrin: the amounts of a fingerprint are enough - food suspensions are certainly a overkill for it. Btw: Aren't your flat bottom threaded cap tubes rather impractical as test tubes? Real borosilicate glasses with a round bottom and beaded rim are imho safer to heat, simple to close with stoppers and, above all, easier to clean. Yours, on the other hand, are well suited for space-saving storage of small solid supplies. For this purpose I have some tubes of a similar kind but with rolled rims and snap-on lids from old experiment kits which I still like much today. 🙂
ooh I hadn't even thought of that! That seems like an intense reaction though.. Either they used a lot or ketchup is loaded in sugar (I wouldn't know, I don't eat ketchup lol)
When seasoning processed/industrialized meat in the manufacture of hamburgers, we use sugar or glucose syrup for flavor and better formation of the Maillard reaction.
I enjoyed your video. As retired bench chemist I like how you keep it simple for the layman to follow along, as well as providing some stimulation for my ageing neural network. Have you considered doing a similar qualitative project for testing the "Organic" claim of foods? While grocery shopping I often look at the significant price difference between regular and Organic grown foods and ponder "How would I begin to check for certain compounds using OTC reagents?" As with many products, the claim of being "Organic" seems too easily counterfeited by determined actors. I would happily spend a few hours in my kitchen lab performing some simple tests to either put my mind at ease - or to validate my suspicious nature. And I am probably not alone. Thanks again, and keep up the good work!
sadly there is no simple inexpensive procedure for this. the pesticide residues being looked for are very very small and there are a huge number of possible pesticides (the USDA tested for 195 different residues in a 2011 study). Any kind of simple reagent would have an unacceptable rate of false positives or false negatives, with the residue being either of a pesticide you didn't test for, or some substance that is not a pesticide residue activating the reagent. The current state of the art for this sort of testing is GC/MS, which uses a machine approximately the price of a new car. I found this article: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10584040/ which discusses the state of the art in quicker cheaper methods, however they still use fairly exotic materials and apparatus. However, you can take heart in knowing that this sort of testing is required of organic certifiers. they must test from at least 5% of the operations they certify every year. prior to instituting this requirement, a USDA pilot study in 2011 found pesticide residues exceeding tolerances on 5% of the organic produce they tested (still well below safe limits though). You can also look at the pesticide data program, the usda has been sampling crops to test for pesticide residues and publishing the results in a database for 30 years. There was a recent change to organic regulations to make them much stricter that came into effect this january which should help cut down on fraud.
nice question nice answer guys. edit: you can disappear down the rabbit hole pretty quick from that paper, eg: geographical determination of moroccan butter samples via partial least square determinant analysis of fourier transform infrared spectroscopy data.
This was really cool to watch. I think the iodine reagent is my favorite. That complex it forms with the samples is oddly pretty lol. Keep up great content friend!
That was interesting to watch, because that is - in a way - what I do on the daily for a living. Altough we use Chromatography and do quantitative analysis for plant poisons, carcinogens and other stuff in food. It hurts a bit every time you gotta completely grind up a full bag of potato chips because the sample needs to be representative 😢😂
I'm glad you liked it! That was essentially what I did for my first real chem job, except we did environmental fate and ecotoxicology of pharmaceuticals. Food science is much more out of my comfort zone, and it's projects like this that I wish I had an HPLC 🤣 best analytical instrument I could hope for in my budget is a UV-Vis.. and even those are a few thousand
@@integral_chemistry I've seen older, used GCs HPLCs on a platform for used stuff for like 6k, UV Vis in that range as well. Condition is a huge unknown there sadly. One day when I have money, one day...
Beyond the scope of traditional to my knowledge unfortunately. That's something you'd need to run through HPLC, which is actually very easy, buy very cost prohibitive.
I find it funny that most of chemistry’s need of finding chemical composition of stuff is just additive and subtractive processes. Convert a substance into its basic composition and measure it.
What would the easiest ( most "portable"?) Qualitative test for sugars. I have a diabetic kid and want something simple to test drinks at restaurants and such. Lol
My footage ended up being somewhat rushed, mostly because the smell of blended McDonalds was far more putrid than I could have ever imagined. I wanted it gone 😅 now I don't think I'll ever eat it again
soo, nuggies have more protein than actual burger? not that I'd consider any of those to be valid food. would be interesting if other ChemTubers would be willing to test their local samples with the same reagents. maccas around the world. im sure extractions&ire would be up for the game.
I can obviously understand why one might try to avoid eating McDeez (or any other fast food) with too much regularity, but surely even the most ardent opponent to the consumption of such food still finds Mcdonald’s burgers and fries to be a tasty and enjoyable treat on those rare occasions of consumption, right? I mean, I’m someone who most would likely consider to be a “food person” - that is, I greatly enjoy cooking, and did so professionally throughout my 20s, including at higher end fine dining establishments. And while I try to avoid being snobbish or pretentious, there are admittedly a lot of things that “normal” people eat which I find almost inedibly repulsive; yet, I still find Mcdonalds to be delightfully tasty and satisfying. The same is true of virtually every other “food person” I’ve known, including all of the professional chefs at the fine dining establishments at which I’ve worked. The point being, then, that I think it’s fair to say that Mcdonalds food is as objectively good (i.e. tasty; flavorful) as any food can “objectively” be anything (not that true objectivity is a thing that actually exists). The statements in this video indicating your vitriolic distaste for such food must then necessarily be falsehoods, and I simply want to know why you felt it necessary (and acceptable) to lie to us. So? What do you have to say for yourself?
Lol that was actually a good little read, got a laugh out of me. To be genuinely honest though I truly don't like McDonald's.. sad I know.. I know there was a point as a child when I really liked the nuggets, but these days I just can't get over being able to almost taste how overly processed everything there is. You'd think working with chemicals all the time I'd go nose-blind to them, but in reality I just end up being able to taste or smell them in places I didn't notice them before. HOWEVER I will admit I do on occasion enjoy their breakfast sandwiches, those are genuinely good even if they still make me a bit queasy
The burger party is highly processed by being found and watered down so it can be pumped as a slurry, and extruded to consistently self form as a patty. Several food and non food ingredients are responsible for many of its properties, but most are for its consistency and ease of processing. Anyway, yes it contains starch because it acts as a thickener and binder. Some how they still get away with a grade A rating, despite being being constituted from various natural and unnatural ingredients.
@@GigsTaggart I keep hearing that but I'm not ready to believe it since the foam controversy with the nuggets. The reason why is that there are legal ways to classify something as being 100% without it being completely true. For instance the beef they use is 100% beef, but they don't have to include some additives and preservatives in that description if they don't meet another requirement. Like organic water (yes it's a thing). It has salts in it for flavoring and so that it's not deminetalising your flesh and teeth, but many are allowed to believe that means pure, like distilled.
The title had me excited to see if you were testing for so-called "toxic" chemicals. This was more of a lazy half-effort, with no pursuit of the stated goal after a cursory result showed that more experimentation was needed. There were a lot of criticisms of the food without testing those assumptions though, which is the kind of science that one doesn't need any effort, nor knowledge to perform though, so thanks. Fast food is of generally low quality. Now I know.
I'm not sure why you thought that. The title says "composition", and I state the specific chemicals I'm testing for within the first 10 seconds of the video. It's also not exactly relevant that it is fast food, as high-quality food would have likely showed the same result. Also, there are obviously no toxic chemicals in fast food, otherwise it would not be able to be legally sold.. not sure why a long video of negative tests would be entertaining to anyone. As a final note, this method of analysis is far higher effort than testing for so-called toxic chemicals would be. Anything remotely toxic would only be detectable by HPLC/UPLC which can be set up, operated, and interpreted by any unremarkable undergraduate, and is spectacularly boring to watch. Then again, the procedure I show in this video could also be performed by anyone. Analysis just isn't a particularly complex procedure, and the stated goal was to demo the science behind some common analytical tests. I'm just not sure I understand the criticism, but I'm open to it I suppose.
sorry, I dont want a chemistry lesson. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS IN THE FOOD. If you are going to make a chemistry video, dont title it as whats in my food
Sir, this is a chemistry channel.. Also I did show what was in your food :) Also: how would it be possible to know what's in your food and not have it be a chemistry video?
i really like how you explain the actual chemical reactions when you combine chemicals to make an indicator. It is good to know the mechanisms and not just, oh that is so cool it changed the color. You answer the question, "Why did it change the color!?" Please, keep it up.
The fries are treated with dextrose to enhance the color when fried.
Hm.. and I'm guessing the reason it didn't show up in the test is because it's caramelized in the process?
Wheat has plenty of starch and you put the bun in there with the burger.
It’s what make Roux a thickening agent..
Also, yes, there’s going to be a significant amount of sugar in a McDonald’s bun
All true! I think from the comments I'm getting so far this little video was a bit too simple for you guys ;) I'll try and put out something a little more cerebral next week
@@integral_chemistry Can you make a nutritionally complete meal with like hexane as a starting point? That would be a nice video.
@@integral_chemistry Don't beat yourself up, there'll always be somebody nerdier in the comments. Pretty nice video!
Your mixture for the biuret reaction is actually Fehling's solution - a reagent for detecting organic reducing agents, for example aldehyde groups of monosaccharides.
Tartrate is unnecessary for the biuret test: it is usually sufficient to make the protein solution slightly alkaline and add copper sulfate solution dropwise. The proteins themselves provide sufficient complexation to prevent the precipitation of copper hydroxide.
For the detection of reducing sugars, Benedict's reagent has two clear advantages over Fehling's solution: it is also longterm-stable when mixed, while Fehling has to be stored separately as solution I and II. In addition, Benedict's reagent is less alkaline and does not tend to splash out that soon when heated as Fehling's solution.
In order to be able to detect sucrose with Fehling or Benedict, it must first be broken down into monosaccharides using heat and acid.
If starch is present at the same time, the result can be distorted: as a polysaccharide, it is also split into monosaccharides.
The iodine starch test works well in neutral or acidic solutions, but in alkaline it becomes difficult because of the formation of hypoiodide. Heat destroys the iodine-starch complex, too - but it returns when it cools down.
Concentrated nitric acid is also suitable for detecting protein using the xanthoprotein test - if someone is allowed to use it.
But the most sensitive reagent for proteins or the underlying amino acids is ninhydrin: the amounts of a fingerprint are enough - food suspensions are certainly a overkill for it.
Btw: Aren't your flat bottom threaded cap tubes rather impractical as test tubes? Real borosilicate glasses with a round bottom and beaded rim are imho safer to heat, simple to close with stoppers and, above all, easier to clean. Yours, on the other hand, are well suited for space-saving storage of small solid supplies. For this purpose I have some tubes of a similar kind but with rolled rims and snap-on lids from old experiment kits which I still like much today. 🙂
The sugar in the burger may have been the ketchup.
ooh I hadn't even thought of that! That seems like an intense reaction though.. Either they used a lot or ketchup is loaded in sugar (I wouldn't know, I don't eat ketchup lol)
@@integral_chemistry The vinegar aside it's pretty much a fruit smoothie.
When seasoning processed/industrialized meat in the manufacture of hamburgers, we use sugar or glucose syrup for flavor and better formation of the Maillard reaction.
The buns are loaded with sugar, as that is what makes you want more.
@@jimsvideos7201if you know how to make home made wine the. Making vinegar is easy that’s how I learned
I enjoyed your video. As retired bench chemist I like how you keep it simple for the layman to follow along, as well as providing some stimulation for my ageing neural network.
Have you considered doing a similar qualitative project for testing the "Organic" claim of foods? While grocery shopping I often look at the significant price difference between regular and Organic grown foods and ponder "How would I begin to check for certain compounds using OTC reagents?"
As with many products, the claim of being "Organic" seems too easily counterfeited by determined actors. I would happily spend a few hours in my kitchen lab performing some simple tests to either put my mind at ease - or to validate my suspicious nature. And I am probably not alone.
Thanks again, and keep up the good work!
sadly there is no simple inexpensive procedure for this. the pesticide residues being looked for are very very small and there are a huge number of possible pesticides (the USDA tested for 195 different residues in a 2011 study). Any kind of simple reagent would have an unacceptable rate of false positives or false negatives, with the residue being either of a pesticide you didn't test for, or some substance that is not a pesticide residue activating the reagent. The current state of the art for this sort of testing is GC/MS, which uses a machine approximately the price of a new car. I found this article: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10584040/ which discusses the state of the art in quicker cheaper methods, however they still use fairly exotic materials and apparatus.
However, you can take heart in knowing that this sort of testing is required of organic certifiers. they must test from at least 5% of the operations they certify every year. prior to instituting this requirement, a USDA pilot study in 2011 found pesticide residues exceeding tolerances on 5% of the organic produce they tested (still well below safe limits though). You can also look at the pesticide data program, the usda has been sampling crops to test for pesticide residues and publishing the results in a database for 30 years. There was a recent change to organic regulations to make them much stricter that came into effect this january which should help cut down on fraud.
Imagine how much you guys would spend testing for a the quantitative values of poo
nice question nice answer guys.
edit: you can disappear down the rabbit hole pretty quick from that paper, eg: geographical determination of moroccan butter samples via partial least square determinant analysis of fourier transform infrared spectroscopy data.
"And the "food" i decided to test was McDonalds" lol i laughed at how you said that.
This was really cool to watch. I think the iodine reagent is my favorite. That complex it forms with the samples is oddly pretty lol. Keep up great content friend!
I liked this vid,would be nice to see more kinds of test for food chemicals
Well I was going to go make supper, but it can wait.
That was interesting to watch, because that is - in a way - what I do on the daily for a living. Altough we use Chromatography and do quantitative analysis for plant poisons, carcinogens and other stuff in food. It hurts a bit every time you gotta completely grind up a full bag of potato chips because the sample needs to be representative 😢😂
I'm glad you liked it! That was essentially what I did for my first real chem job, except we did environmental fate and ecotoxicology of pharmaceuticals. Food science is much more out of my comfort zone, and it's projects like this that I wish I had an HPLC 🤣 best analytical instrument I could hope for in my budget is a UV-Vis.. and even those are a few thousand
@@integral_chemistry I've seen older, used GCs HPLCs on a platform for used stuff for like 6k, UV Vis in that range as well. Condition is a huge unknown there sadly. One day when I have money, one day...
The forbidden smoothie
How hard would it be to test for PFAS
Beyond the scope of traditional to my knowledge unfortunately. That's something you'd need to run through HPLC, which is actually very easy, buy very cost prohibitive.
I thought McDonald's used sugar on their fries. You did mention sucrose though, that might be what's going on.
Could be, or could be the sugar got carmalized by the hot oil (but yeah I've heard that too)
I find it funny that most of chemistry’s need of finding chemical composition of stuff is just additive and subtractive processes.
Convert a substance into its basic composition and measure it.
Great video
The ammonium molybdate could also be used to test for phosphates. Still gives the same dark blue colour.
What would the easiest ( most "portable"?) Qualitative test for sugars. I have a diabetic kid and want something simple to test drinks at restaurants and such. Lol
i didnt think mcdonalds could get worse until you blended it up...oof.
My footage ended up being somewhat rushed, mostly because the smell of blended McDonalds was far more putrid than I could have ever imagined. I wanted it gone 😅 now I don't think I'll ever eat it again
this is insane
Damn i love ur content also helps me for jee exam
is it bad that I'm craving McDonald's now?
Wooooo! Analytical Chemistry woooo yeah!
soo, nuggies have more protein than actual burger? not that I'd consider any of those to be valid food. would be interesting if other ChemTubers would be willing to test their local samples with the same reagents. maccas around the world. im sure extractions&ire would be up for the game.
Can be test the sodium monoglutamate ?
tasty
Should have tested them all for E. Coli 🤣
No more McDonald's for me.
I can obviously understand why one might try to avoid eating McDeez (or any other fast food) with too much regularity, but surely even the most ardent opponent to the consumption of such food still finds Mcdonald’s burgers and fries to be a tasty and enjoyable treat on those rare occasions of consumption, right? I mean, I’m someone who most would likely consider to be a “food person” - that is, I greatly enjoy cooking, and did so professionally throughout my 20s, including at higher end fine dining establishments. And while I try to avoid being snobbish or pretentious, there are admittedly a lot of things that “normal” people eat which I find almost inedibly repulsive; yet, I still find Mcdonalds to be delightfully tasty and satisfying. The same is true of virtually every other “food person” I’ve known, including all of the professional chefs at the fine dining establishments at which I’ve worked.
The point being, then, that I think it’s fair to say that Mcdonalds food is as objectively good (i.e. tasty; flavorful) as any food can “objectively” be anything (not that true objectivity is a thing that actually exists). The statements in this video indicating your vitriolic distaste for such food must then necessarily be falsehoods, and I simply want to know why you felt it necessary (and acceptable) to lie to us. So? What do you have to say for yourself?
Lol that was actually a good little read, got a laugh out of me. To be genuinely honest though I truly don't like McDonald's.. sad I know.. I know there was a point as a child when I really liked the nuggets, but these days I just can't get over being able to almost taste how overly processed everything there is. You'd think working with chemicals all the time I'd go nose-blind to them, but in reality I just end up being able to taste or smell them in places I didn't notice them before.
HOWEVER I will admit I do on occasion enjoy their breakfast sandwiches, those are genuinely good even if they still make me a bit queasy
The burger party is highly processed by being found and watered down so it can be pumped as a slurry, and extruded to consistently self form as a patty. Several food and non food ingredients are responsible for many of its properties, but most are for its consistency and ease of processing. Anyway, yes it contains starch because it acts as a thickener and binder.
Some how they still get away with a grade A rating, despite being being constituted from various natural and unnatural ingredients.
He ground up the bun with the burger. Does no one realize that bread is mostly starch?
And McDonald's uses 100% beef patties.
@@GigsTaggart I keep hearing that but I'm not ready to believe it since the foam controversy with the nuggets. The reason why is that there are legal ways to classify something as being 100% without it being completely true. For instance the beef they use is 100% beef, but they don't have to include some additives and preservatives in that description if they don't meet another requirement. Like organic water (yes it's a thing). It has salts in it for flavoring and so that it's not deminetalising your flesh and teeth, but many are allowed to believe that means pure, like distilled.
this once again shows me how mentally ill you'll have to be if you buy this voluntarily
The title had me excited to see if you were testing for so-called "toxic" chemicals. This was more of a lazy half-effort, with no pursuit of the stated goal after a cursory result showed that more experimentation was needed. There were a lot of criticisms of the food without testing those assumptions though, which is the kind of science that one doesn't need any effort, nor knowledge to perform though, so thanks. Fast food is of generally low quality. Now I know.
I'm not sure why you thought that. The title says "composition", and I state the specific chemicals I'm testing for within the first 10 seconds of the video. It's also not exactly relevant that it is fast food, as high-quality food would have likely showed the same result.
Also, there are obviously no toxic chemicals in fast food, otherwise it would not be able to be legally sold.. not sure why a long video of negative tests would be entertaining to anyone.
As a final note, this method of analysis is far higher effort than testing for so-called toxic chemicals would be. Anything remotely toxic would only be detectable by HPLC/UPLC which can be set up, operated, and interpreted by any unremarkable undergraduate, and is spectacularly boring to watch.
Then again, the procedure I show in this video could also be performed by anyone. Analysis just isn't a particularly complex procedure, and the stated goal was to demo the science behind some common analytical tests.
I'm just not sure I understand the criticism, but I'm open to it I suppose.
Mad
As
Fuck
sorry, I dont want a chemistry lesson. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS IN THE FOOD. If you are going to make a chemistry video, dont title it as whats in my food
This comment tests positive for excessive sodium chloride.
Sir, this is a chemistry channel.. Also I did show what was in your food :)
Also: how would it be possible to know what's in your food and not have it be a chemistry video?
Lol