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Dr. Kiki irons out the important ingredients found in cereal.. Food Science Episode “Breakfast” Dr. Kiki: Hi, I am Dr. Kiki Sanford and today on Food Science we are going to play with our cereal. Breakfast cereal is a staple of many American households, from sugar bombs to super nutritious it comes in all shapes and flavors. However so that people can make educated choices about their diet and of their children cereals must state how much of certain required vitamins and minerals that they contain. One to the cereals claims to contain 100% of all of the ire that you need for one entire day it a single serving, nice. Iron is found in nails and is a component of steel so what is it doing in your breakfast cereal? Iron in addition to helping make skyscrapers possible is actually something that we need to eat in our food. Now you can play with magnets and nails and you can even play with a magnet and iron supplements, but have you ever tried playing with a magnet and your breakfast cereal. It takes a little practice but it is fairly easy to move around cereal flakes instead of nails, watch. How much iron do you really need every day? The U.S. RDA is at between ten and 18 mg depending on age and sex. Women are recommended to get 15 mg per day and up to 30 mg if they are pregnant or breastfeeding. Men are recommended to get 10 mg per day. Iron is essential to the proper functioning of your cells and various enzymes; it also makes up a large part of the oxygen caring molecules in our blood, hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a metalo protein with four globular protein subunits in closing for hem subgroups. The hem groups each contain one iron atom embedded with ring like molecule called porphyrin. The iron is the active bonding portion of hemoglobin. Four iron atoms means that each hemoglobin cell can combine four oxygen’s. Obviously it is important so if you do not get enough iron in your diet it could lead to trouble. Iron deficiency can lead to weakness, fatigue, irritability, and dirty eating, back to the cereal. Did you now that is actually possible to see the iron in your cereal? Well it is and I’m going to show you how. First you take your breakfast cereal and stick it in a blender, a cup or two will work very well, add water just a cover the flakes. Put the lid back on and mix it up really well, you do not want any big flakes remaining. That looks pretty good, take the slurry and put it into a bowl, aah there is the cereal. Then take a magnet and just stir the slurry for about a minute or so. I will be back in a minute. Iron is lost during the processing of most foods though in some foods like flour manufacturers have take to enriching their products with an elemental Iron. Elemental iron is not absorbed by the body as easily as Iron found naturally in foods. You’re likely to eat foods other than cereal that contain Iron so the question is can you get too much? Will the answer is both yes and no. The body has no way to excrete extra higher and its absorption is very tightly regulated so if you can manage to get your body to absorb it you can end up with too much iron in your blood and tissues which can lead to iron toxicity. Ingestion of 60 mg per 1 kg of body weight is lethal, but considering that most people do not even make the RDA of 18 mg per day death from iron poison and for most Americans is unlikely. So now you’re going to want to Ritz your magnet lightly in water and make sure you get all of the cereal off of it. Can you see the iron on the magnet? All of the black stuff that you see are the iron filings from your cereal, but remember is not just food, it is science.