Introduction

In order to carry our investigation, we bought three different types of Ice creams varying from price range; the first one being a cheap one from Sainsbury's (below)

An average priced one branded "carte d'or"

And an expensive one from the American house of production Häagen-Dazs

Practical 1 - Investigating how quickly each ice cream melts

Practical 1 - Investigating how quickly each ice cream melts

21.0g of each ice cream was placed on top of a sieve and was allowed to melt for 30 minutes. The melted ice cream was collected in a large beaker underneath the sieve and was weighed after the experiment was completed.

Cheap ice cream at 10 minutes

Average ice cream at 10 minutes

Expensive ice cream at 10 minutes

Nadia and Antonia taking the temperature of the ice cream

By the end of the experiment we found that the most expensive had melted the quickest and the medium priced ice cream had melted the slowest. In addition the medium priced ice cream had barley melted even though its temperature had gone above freezing. If we consider the physics of freezing, temperature is a measure of how fast atoms or molecules move around. in order for freezing to occur the movement must slow down in order for strong bonds to form between them. Therefore there must have been others factors stopping the ice cream from melting. 

Amount of expensive ice cream collected 

Amount of medium priced ice cream collected

Amount of cheap ice cream collected

Practical 2 - Investigating volume of air in the ice creams

Practical 2 - Investigating volume of air in the ice creams

We started out with 29 cm³ of each ice cream.

Each ice cream was allowed to melt for a duration of 3 hours.

After the 3 hours were up, the volume of the melted ice cream was measured in order to estimate the amount of air present in each ice cream.

The results were as follows;

Cheap - 24cm³ 
Medium - 25 cm³
Expensive - 26 cm³

These were the amounts of ice cream left after they melted. This means that the cheap ice cream had the highest amount of air and the expensive ice cream had the least amount of air

Practical 3 - Fat test

Practical 3 - Fat test

A fat test was carried out on the ice creams to determine which of the three ice cream had the highest fat content.

The experiment involved mixing 3cm³ of ehtanol with 0.15g of each different ice cream. Then mixing in 4cm³ of distilled water into the previous mixture. Then if fat is present the solution should turn cloudy. Moreover the cloudier the solution the higher the fat content of the ice cream.

The following pictures of the ice creams are in increasing order of fat content;

Medium priced ice cream

Expensive ice cream

Cheap ice cream

From the experiment we found that the cheap ice cream was the cloudiest which suggests that it has the highest fat content in comparison with the other two ice cream. In addition the medium priced ice cream was the least cloudiest which suggests it had the least fat content

Practical 4 - Investigating the fat and air content of the ice cream under a microscope

Practical 4 - Investigating the fat and air content of the ice cream under a microscope

We looked at each ice cream under a microscope to look at the structure and size of the fat globules and the air bubbles.

Microscopes slides with ice cream

Microscope used to view the ice cream

When we looked at each ice cream under the microscope we found that the size of air bubbles and fat globules differed dramatically for each ice cream. In order to do so i used the diagram below to differ between each substance within the ice cream.

Expensive ice cream

Under the microscope the expensive ice cream appeared to have relatively small bubbles of air. Although did have a significant amount of fat.

Medium priced ice cream

Under the microscope the medium priced ice cream had much larger bubbles of air. This is supported by the previous experiment where in the volume of air in ice cream was estimated. Although the globules of fat appear to be smaller than the expensive ice cream.

Cheap ice cream

Under the microscope the cheap ice cream had very large bubbles of air in comparison with the medium priced ice cream. It also appeared to have the most globules of fat as well.

Conclusion

Conclusion 

Based on the results from all the practicals that were carried out we came to a conclusion for each different ice cream

The cheap ice cream contained the highest overall fat content and highest overall air content out of the three ice creams. Due to the high air content it makes the ice cream bad value for money. Furthermore in the melt test it came second which suggests that it contain preservatives rather than natural ingredient which slows down the rate at which the ice creams melts. On one hand the idea of ice cream containing a high amount of air can be seen as bad however from a physical chemistry perspective, ice cream has a colloidal structure. tiny air bubbles and ice crystals are dispersed among liquid water and a network of destabilized fat globules.

The medium ice cream came in the middle in both the fat and air tests. However it was the slowest to melt in the melt test. This could be due to the stabilisers (carrageenan, locust bean gum and gua gum) which holds the fat globules together which slows down the rate of melting. Moreover the choice of stabilisers greatly influences the formation and growth of ice crystals and the rate of the melting. In addition the medium ice cream contains emulsifiers; monoglycerides and diglycerides. These are compounds that are composed of glycerol combined on or two fatty acids. As food additives they interact with other lipids because of their hydrocarbon tail and the remain soluble by virtue of the exposed hydroxyl groups on the glycerol residue

The expensive ice cream had the lowest fat and air content out of all the ice creams. Although the expensive ice cream melted the quickest. This could be because this ice cream had just five ingredients and no preservatives or stabilisers. Therefore the ice cream melts quickly due to lack of preservatives.

Also the lower priced ice creams contain glucose- and fructose syrup and galactose as a substitute for lactose a natural bi-product of milk. One hand this allows people who are lactose intolerant to consume the product but on the the other hand it requires the manufacture to add more additives instead of using natural ingredients.

Therefore we can further conclude that the price does have an affect on the quality of the ice cream. Moreover the expensive ice cream is the best of the three because of the use of all natural ingredients and having the the least amount of air bubbles

The damaging consequences of the production of ice cream for the environment

All manifactured products which have to be packaged, have a damaging impact on the environment. The three ice creams, used in our experiment were packaged. The expensive ice cream package consists of cardboard and the lower priced ones are made out of plastic. The disposal of the packaging contributes to greenhouse gases (CO2) and the release of toxins (vinyl chloride monome).

The packaging also needs a lot of energy, for example oil is used for the plastics, and trees are cut down for the use of paper. For the processing of these raw and scarce materials a great amount of water is needed.
Another example of the energy being used is the essential cooling of the ice cream, which requires a significant amount of energy and so releases high emissions of CO2, again contributing to greenhouse gases. Finally the transport of the ice cream to stores and customers, which also increases the amount of pollution.

Another environmental impact are the cows which produce the milk used for the ice cream, as they require food and water, sources of energy and also they produce methanol gas, which is is extremely damaging towards the environment.
Also many of the products require certain ingredients which as vanilla flavouring from Madagascar in this case- connected to high CO2 emissions as a by-product of the long transport which results in further damage towards the environment.