Karnolab

Sadie Slices Sandwiches for Science

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While we were processing data in our lab, both Augie and I were study subjects for Sadie Barr (’09), who is working on a independent project on metabolism, funded by a HHMI grant. Here’s a shout-out to her (because she visits us in our lab a lot. She gets lonely in the basement, I think)
She’s looking at how much energy is spent in the digestion of processed verses whole foods. One day, Augie and I both ate two delcious grilled cheese sandwiches on whole bread with sharp cheddar. We ate this meal at 10am, and didn’t eat again until 4! The next day, the meal of the day was kraft singles on WONDERBREAD! Not Delicious! To make sure we had the same number of calories, this sandwich was a double-decker. Each day, Sadie did hourly measurements of our oxygen consumption rate. It was hard to survive 6 HOURS without eating =) Augie almost cheated, because the 2nd day was Free Donut Day at Krispy Kreme.
Good luck to Sadie!

Sadie and Augie show off the food that we snack on all day long. But we couldn't snack while Sadie was measuring our metabolism. Alas!
Sadie and Augie show off the food that we snack on all day long. But we couldn't snack while Sadie was measuring our metabolism. Alas!

Comments

5 responses to “Sadie Slices Sandwiches for Science”

  1. eleanor-cave

    Haha cute picture with the snacks. I’m glad to hear you snack, it is a great thing!! We snack a lot here too 🙂
    I hope you enjoyed your visit to PRBO, and that things back at school are going well!!

  2. Maria James

    I’m dying to hear the results! Does it take more energy to digest whole foods or processed foods?

  3. Luci Lagemann

    I am interested too. As an aging woman with a slowing metabolism, this is very relevant. When will you publish your results? I’m also curious if Augie’s metabolism is faster or slower than Kristgen’s.

  4. Sadie

    Augie’s metabolism is the fastest I’ve encountered yet… most likely due to all the muscle he needs to maintain. BUT, Kristen’s is up there as well, especially for a female (it seems that all the males I’ve tested have higher metabolisms than the girls, sad). Both their experimental outcomes suggest that it does take more energy to digest whole foods, which means there is more energy stored within the body (which leads to weight gain) when processed foods are eaten.

    Exactly how much more energy is expended is what I’m trying to figure out. For example, Kristen burned about 8% more meal Calories when the meal was whole.

    I’ll be testing at least 15 subjects and will hopefully have results finalized by the end of July!

  5. charlotte-chang

    This project sounds great Sadie! Man, I do love processed foods though…and yes, those super processed cheese sandwiches you made for Animal Phys were definitely the best food I’d eaten all week!

    If you ever find yourself randomly up in Montana with all of your metabolic-measuring equipment, please feel free to hit me up! That would be great!

    I hope that your summer is going well! Best of luck!

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