Question

Experiment from the RMSC-What'S In Your Breakfast Cereal? Objective: to extract minerals from the cereal you eat. Mus Materials: 1 Cup iron-fortified cereal 2 Cups hot water Deep mixing bowl or glass Spoon White Magnet (or painted white) What to do: Place the magnet in the bowl. Pour 1 cup iron-fortified cereal, such as "Total," into the mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of hot water. Stir the water and cereal for at least ten minutes. (Thirty minutes will give the maximum iron recovery.) Carefully take the magnet out of the bowl. Experiment: What do you observe? Why do you think this works, and why is stirring necessary? Did you expect to find metallic shavings in the food you eat? Why: Cold cereals are fortified with vitamins and minerals for health. Metallic iron is added to fortified cereal, and this form of iron is magnetic. In this experiment, the magnet collects the iron. Different metals are processed and "recovered" with other methods, such as acidic or caustic water, gravity separation, or flotation. An example of gravity separation is gold-panning. When a gold pan is agitated, the heavier mineral (gold) drops to the bottom of the pan and the lighter rocks wash away. Other Things to Try: What other fortified food product could be used instead of cereal? You may want to try an iron-rich drink or cooked hot cereal. Try crushing the cold cereal before adding the water. Does this improve the recovery time? Does it make a difference if the cereal is crushed in a separate container and then transferred to the bowl? Try weighing the recovered iron!

Answer 1

Answers of experiment questions :-

a) We observe that metallic iron is attracted, collected, and thus removed by the magnet. we can observe that how metallic iron and other metals can be removed from the fortified cereal mixture.

b) This works because magnet attracts the elemental iron present in the fortified cereal mixture.

Stirring is necessary so that a homogenous mixture of iron fortified cereal and water can be produced. stirring    ensures the effective separation of iron from the cereal and making it easy for the magnet to attract iron.

c) Yes, we do expect to find metallic shavings in the food we eat in our daily life. some of the cereals like wheat, maize, rice , etc are fortified with the metals. sometimes the metallic shavings could be accidentally added to our food due to mishandling of foods.

Answers of other things to try :-

a) The other fortified food products that can be used instead of cereal are meat juices, vegetables, iron rich drink, nuts, etc.

b) Yes, it does improves the recovery time by crushing the cold cereal before adding the water. it is because finer cereal powder helps in the easy removal of iron.

c) Yes, it does make a difference if the cereal is crushed in a separate container and then transferred to the bowl. It would help to remove some iron from the cereal before transferring to the bowl.