Delicious

Breakfast Ingredients
Traditional Burrito (150g + tortilla)

Burritos ●
●
Tortilla of your choice
Bacon
● Diced potatoes
● Jalapeno
● Eggs
● Onions
Green Traditional (125g + tortilla)
● Tortilla of your choice
● Diced bacon
● Avocado
● Eggs
● Cilantro
● Cabbage
Dessert Burrito (75g + tortilla)
● Tortilla of your choice
● Bananas
● Chocolate spread
● Cinnamon

Equipment Needed
● Stove
● Cutting board
Ready in 10-20 minutes ● Knife/Knives
● Multiple pans for maximum efficiency
Serves 3 - 7 People ● Microwave (for dessert burrito only)

Steps Involved
1. Cut up ingredients into small pieces
2. Cook ingredients in a pan until ready for
consumption (approximately 5-10
minutes)
3. Place into burrito and roll up
4. Eat!
Personal Commentary
When I moved to the US, I was introduced to
the vast world of breakfast burritos. Ever
since, I’ve been obsessed with this beautiful
creation. I purchased many breakfast
burritos from various restaurants and cafes,
in the process wasting away my hard-earned
money. I fantasized about one day making my
own burrito, to mirror the genius of my
predecessors. When the cooking with
chemistry project was introduced, I saw my
opportunity, and jumped to create this
creation of the brilliant. The only problem: I
must come up with a relationship between
chemistry and breakfast burritos. What
would it be? Long nights of restless sleep, and
hard thinking came together to form a
chemical relationship: How will different
tortillas store the heat of my breakfast
burrito?
My Experiment
I investigated how different tortillas
store/insulate the thermal energy of my
burrito, and its ingredients. In order to do
this I measured the initial temperature of my
burrito, and a final temperature after about 7
minutes of sitting. I did this multiple times
with different ingredients within the same
tortilla. I then calculated the mean and
median % rate of change in my temperature
for every tortilla. I did this with 3 different
types of tortilla, including a Guerrero (A),
Mission(B), and Mission Wrap(C) tortilla. I
unfortunately found that there is barely any
difference in these tortillas, other than the
calorie content. I ended up making 3
different types of burrito. A “traditional
burrito” with bacon, eggs, jalapeno, and
potatoes; a “green traditional” with bacon,
eggs, avocado, cabbage, and cilantro; and a
“desert burrito” with bananas, chocolate
spread, and cinnamon. I used 2 of each
tortilla on the “traditional”and “green
traditional”, and 1 of each tortilla on
the”dessert burrito”. Due to my tortillas
having pretty much no differences, I am
unable to pinpoint the varying temperature
on any specific ingredient. I plugged my
values into a spreadsheet, and found the
mean and median temperature fluctuations
in temperature for each tortilla. Avg A = experimenting, with a wider sample size,
14.3% difference between T i and T f , with though this is my conclusion. Due to the
the median being 14.4%. Avg B was 16% and waters' high heat capacity (4.18 joules), less
median was 17.8%. Avg C was 16.4% and heat was able to escape the burrito. Waters’
median = 18.6%. Therefore I can conclude high heat capacity is due to hydrogen
that the Guerrero tortilla insulates the best. bonding with water molecules. Hydrogen
But why? bonds break when heat is absorbed, which
allows water molecules to move freely. So
instead of the heat from my cooked
ingredients being released, the water
molecules pick the heat up and store it. My
next question would’ve been whether or not
a higher flour content would insulate better
to which I say: yes. Flour’s moisture content
is usually kept at 14%, which is very high in
hindsight. Again, the water within the flour
would absorb the heat and store it until it all
cools down and the hydrogen bonds are re-
The Chemistry formed. Though my tortillas had no
difference in flour content, therefore this
does not apply.
First, you’d probably look at differences in
calories, and weight of the tortilla.
Unfortunately, in my case, these are all
pretty much the same. All three tortillas had
a serving weight of 71g, with tortilla A and C
having calorie contents of 220 cal, and
tortilla B with 210 cal. So now what? For this,
we can look toward the actual content of the
tortilla – the ingredients. The ingredients are
the same for all 3 tortillas, except for tortilla
C, which has some spices and onion powder
added. Now, the question should be: does
this make any difference. I’d say no, because
the temperature fluctuated so little from Sources:
tortilla C to B (which is the same brand as C),
to where it wouldn't be a feasible claim to say
that the spices make any difference. Okay, so
what about water? The water content of North Dakota State Uni
tortilla A has approximately 18.95 g of
water, B has about 15.21 g of water , while C
has about 10.13 grams of water. This could Libre Text Biology
be it, right? It will require more thorough