Science Communication, Group R

Food labels: What is in it for me?

Activity 3

What am I eating?

A spreadsheet is like a table; it has rows and columns and is used to arrange or sort data and to do calculations with numerical data. In a spreadsheet each row has its own number and each column its own letter. This labelling of rows and columns gives each cell a 'cell address' or 'cell reference', e.g. C5 means column C, row 5.

Typically spreadsheets are used for something that contains numbers, but they have endless other applications. They are great to work with financial data, useful to handle inventories, do time sheets and evaluate surveys. Educators use spreadsheets to calculate marks and they are useful for any lists you want to manage, e.g. telephone numbers, shopping or to-do lists.

Aim
The aim of this exercise is to introduce you to many different, practical functions of spreadsheets and in the process make you aware of of the ingredients used in processed foods and give you the opportunity to develop Internet research skills.

Capture and compare the nutritional values and ingredients of different brands of processed foods.

Let's Start

1. Open a new Excel 'Blank workbook', name this document yourSurname_Fooditem.xlsx and save it in your folder on the network drive.
   Your folder should be named YourSurname.
    
2. Rename the first worksheet to Nutritional_info.
   1. Create a header row and name column A ”Product”, B "Energy", C "Protein" and then Carbohydrates, Fat, Cholesterol, Dietary fibre, Sodium, (NRV - optional), Allergens, Size, Serving size, Number servings, Price, Price/serving
   2. List the nutritional information per 100 g or 100 ml of your product. Capture this information from your 2 products - use the total fat and total sugar values.
   3. Now copy/paste the information form at least 2 products of a group member that are similar to yours.
   4. Calculate the averages under columns B to I using the Average formula, [=AVERAGE(B3:B6)]
   5. Calculate the price/100 units (ml or g)
   6. Calculate the price/serving for each product
   7. Finally format your document by adding lines, shading cells and emphasising text.
       
3. Name the second worksheet "Ingredients"
   1. Create a header row and name column A ”Ingredients”, B "Category",
      C "Product A", D "Product B", E "Product C, etc
   2. List all the ingredients of your products - as given on the label -
      under column A.
   3. Under columns C, D, E, etc rank the ingredients for each product, eg. if sugar is the first, and flour the second ingredient of your product A, write a 1 in column B in line with sugar and a 2 in line with flour.
   4. In column B classify all the ingredients into one of the following:
      Protein, Carbohydrate, Sugar, Fat, Colourant, Flavourant, Preservative, Fibre, Salt (Sodium)
   5. Find the weight relation between Salt and Sodium and calculate the the salt equivalent of the amount of sodium given in your product.
   6. Count the number of ingredients for each product using the CountA formula.
   7. Compare the number of ingredients of your products with those of your group members.
       
4. For clarity have a look at the example on the network drive.

Assignment - Food labels: What is ... ... ...?

Purpose of this task:
To learn to find information on the Internet, to evaluate the information critically and at the same time learn more about what goes into the food we eat.

Improve your searching skills - here are a few hints from Google to get better search results:

• Quotation marks (to find an expression)
• Dashes (a dash in front of a word excludes that word)
• Tilde ~ (a tilde in front of a word includes its synonyms)
• site:query (searches within that site only)
• link:query (searches sites that link to that site)
• related:query (searches sites that are related to that site)
• two periods Tow periods between numbers indicates the range between those number.
  

More at http://cdn-media-1.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2013/10/Google-like-a-boss.png

Google has become a noun and few people use other search engines - for this assignment repeat every search you do on Google on another search engine and compare the results. If you find the information you need on Wikipedia, find another website to confirm the information.
Some alternative search engines are listed on a separate page.

The task
Select one ingredient from your product that you found strange, weird or were unfamiliar with. Each member in the group should select a different ingredient. Now ... ... ...
Find out what it is, why it is used in food products and if there are any possible side effects associated with it. Capture this information in a Word document named 'yourname_ingredient.docx'. In your document you should have

1. The name of the ingredient
2. The chemical formula - if applicable
3. Why it is used in food products
4. Why the human body needs it
5. List any allergies of side effects associate with its consumption
6. A photo of the ingredient if possible - please give the complete URL of the image
7. If your product contains sugar - how much? After how many servings of your product will you have reached the recommended daily maximum sugar intake of 25g?

Note: At the bottom of your document under the heading 'References' list the URL's of the web sites where you found the image(s) and the information.

Graphs
It is very easy to create graphs in Excel. If there is time create the following graphs:

• Draw 1 bar charts showing the distribution of the nutritional values of your 2 products.
• Create a pie chart showing the distribution of the averages of the nutritional values of at least 4 products

Make sure your cells have the right format (right-click, select "Format Cells ..." and choose General or Number of Text, or... ... ...)

Examples of formulas you should know:

• To add the numbers in cells A1 to A10 you can either type
  • =A1+A2+A3+A4+A5+A6+A7+A8+A9+A10
    or
  • =SUM(A1:A10)
• =COUNTBLANK(L3:L15)
  count how many cells in the column L from cell L3 to L15 are blank
• =COUNTA(B3:B10)
  counts how many cells in the column B from cell B3 to B10 are not blank
• =AVERAGE(G3:G13)
  calculates the average value of the numbers in cells G3 to G13; blank cells are not taken into account. A zero does not count as a blank cell.
• =COUNTIF(C1:C20,"1")
  counts the number of cells that have the value 1
• =COUNTIF(K2:K21,"BioChem")
  counts the number of cells that have the word BioChem.

References & Resources

• Lee Bob Black. 2014. The Career Value of Microsoft Excel [Infographic].
  http://cdn.skilledup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Value-Of-Learning-Excel-Infographic-secondary2.png
  Viewed online on 10 March 2016 at : www.skilledup.com/articles/career-value-microsoft-excel-infographic
• Don Lee 2013. Why you need to learn MS Excel. Viewed online on 10 March 2016 at: http://edonn.com/2013/01/13/why-you-need-to-learn-ms-excel-now/
• Five Minute Lessons. 2014. 10 essential things you should learn about Microsoft Excel. Viewed online on 10 March 2016 at:
  fiveminutelessons.com/learn-microsoft-excel/10-essential-things-you-should-learn-about-microsoft-excel#sthash.UoausCmL.dpbs