Practical work

Food tests 4 Test for fat

1 Test for starch (Potato)
■ Shake a little starch powder in a test-tube with some warm
water to make a suspension.
■ Add 3 or 4 drops of iodine solution. A dark blue colour
should be produced.
Note: it is also possible to use iodine solution to test for starch
in leaves, but a different procedure is used (see Chapter 6).
2 Test for reducing sugar
■ Heat a little glucose solution with an equal volume of
Benedict’s solution in a test-tube. The heating is done
by placing the test-tube in a beaker of boiling water (see
Figure 4.15), or warming it gently over a blue Bunsen flame.
However, if this second technique is used, the test-tube
should be moved constantly in and out of the Bunsen flame
to prevent the liquid boiling and shooting out of the tube.
The solution will change from clear blue to cloudy green,
then yellow and finally to a red precipitate (deposit) of
copper(I) oxide.
3 Test for protein (Biuret test)
■ To a 1% solution of albumen (the protein of egg-white) add
5 cm3 dilute sodium hydroxide (CARE: this solution is caustic),
followed by 5 cm3 1% copper sulfate solution. A purple colour
indicates protein. If the copper sulfate is run into the food
solution without mixing, a violet halo appears where the two
liquids come into contact.
1
—
4
food sample
extract
with
alcohol
■ Shake two drops of cooking oil with about 5 cm3 ethanol in a
dry test-tube until the fat dissolves.
■ Pour this solution into a test-tube containing a few cm3 water.
A milky white emulsion will form. This shows that the solution
contained some fat or oil.
5 Test for vitamin C
■ Draw up 2 cm3 fresh lemon juice into a plastic syringe.
■ Add this juice drop by drop to 2 cm3 of a 0.1% solution of
DCPIP (a blue dye) in a test-tube. The DCPIP will become
colourless quite suddenly as the juice is added. The amount of
juice added from the syringe should be noted down.
■ Repeat the experiment but with orange juice in the syringe. If
it takes more orange juice than lemon juice to decolourise the
DCPIP, the orange juice must contain less vitamin C.
Application of the food tests
The tests can be used on samples of food such as milk, potato,
raisins, onion, beans, egg-yolk or peanuts to find out what food
materials are present. The solid samples are crushed in a mortar
and shaken with warm water to extract the soluble products.
Separate samples of the watery mixture of crushed food are
tested for starch, glucose or protein as described above. To test
for fats, the food must first be crushed in ethanol, not water, and
then filtered. The clear filtrate is poured into water to see if it
goes cloudy, indicating the presence of fats.
3 extract
—
4 with
water

filter

20 drops (5 mm)
sodium
hydroxide
20 drops (5 mm)
dilute
copper
sulfate
add
iodine

pour heat
filtrate with Biuret
into Benedict’s test
water solution

FAT SUGAR PROTEIN STARCH

Figure 4.15 Experiment to test foods for different nutrients
Chandren A