How Much Sodium is in Our Foods?
Stephanie Weber
Sodium is a part of everyone’s diet. Sodium plays a part in maintaining the water balance in cells and in the function of nerve impulses and muscles. Sodium is a component of salt (40% sodium to 60% chloride). Ideally, the sodium intake of a person is between 1500 to 2300 milligrams (mg) per day. Too much sodium can lead to health issues including edema, water retention, osteoporosis, and hypertension. Sodium is found naturally in most foods. However, when foods are canned, processed, or commercially prepared, more sodium is added to preserve or flavor them.
Thanksgiving is a holiday that is centered around food. Every year, families gather together to share an enormous feast which leaves us full of extra calories and sodium. In this project, we will research the sodium content of several popular Thanksgiving dishes. We will measure the sodium found in 1 ounce of food. This is typically much smaller than a serving size. We will use our data to create a box and whisker plot and a normal distribution curve (bell curve) using interactive web tools.
Process of Creating the Box & Whisker Plot and Normal Distribution Curve
Research the Sodium Milligrams
Use the website http://nutritiondata.self.com/ to search for the nutritional values of each type of Thanksgiving foods.
Create a Table to Show Data
This chart gives a description of the types of food that were researched and the milligrams in a 1 ounce serving of each food.
Box & Whisker Plot
Use the website http://www.mathwarehouse.com/charts/box-and-whisker-plot-maker.php#boxwhiskergraph to enter the data from the chart. The program will generate a box and whisker plot as well as give the mean, median, and quartile values.
Calculate Standard Deviation
Use Microsoft Excel to calculate the standard deviation of the data.
Create a Normal Distribution Curve
Use the website http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/z_table.html to enter the mean and standard deviation and produce a normal distribution curve.
Summarize Findings
Students will summarize their findings in a paragraph about the data distribution and which measure of central tendency is best for the information they collected.