4 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2025
    1. are you refining your perspective on foods and diets? What have you learned so far? Do you think there is anything missing in your understanding? Are you able to better understand and evaluate certain diets, such as the aforementioned?

      I think in general, a balanced combination of all macromolecules is important to sustain a healthy diet; however, I can see where certain macromolecules need to be prioritized more in diets. In a keto diet, fats are prioritized while carbs are demphasized, so the body's metabolism will shift from carbs to fats. I think its interesting how many choices we can make to fuel our bodies in certain ways to produce different outcomes/benefits.

    2. ecause of this small difference, they differ structurally and chemically and are known as chemical isomers because of the different arrangement of functional groups around the asymmetric carbon; both of these monosaccharides have more than one asymmetric carbon

      I think this is a good example of how structure affects function; even the slightest difference in their composition can change the identity of the sugar, although they both belong to the hexose group.

    3. explain why butter is solid at room temperature while vegetable oil is liquid.

      The saturated fatty acid character at room temp. consists of straight carbon chains that are packed tightly together, thus forming a more rigid and compact structure. Vegetable oil likely contains more desaturated fatty acid character, with more double bond "kinks" in the hydrocarbon thus forming a less compact and more viscous structure.

    4. The abundance of nonpolar functional groups give lipids a degree of hydrophobic (“water fearing”) character and most lipids have low solubility in water.

      Due to the hydrophobic nature of lipids/nonpolar compounds, this made me wonder about the composition of soap. I wonder how the nonpolar + polar properties interact in soap so that it still interacts with water, but not the extent of complete repulsion or dissociation in water.