Santiago Ferrer plans to research whether chips with higher fat content are more flammable by lighting Cheeto Puffs and healthier Sea Salt Cracker Chips and observing the flames. His background research found that fat is flammable and acts as a fire starter. Certain food ingredients like garlic and sugar can also be flammable. He will compare the ingredients and nutrition of the two chip types, noting Cheetos have more fat, sodium, and unpronounceable ingredients. Observing flame color could indicate temperature or presence of chemicals that burn at certain colors. His experiment will light the chips separately to see if higher fat Cheetos burn more brightly.

1. RESEARCH PAPER Santiago Ferrer
Are chips with higher fat content more flammable? You might ask yourself how I came
across the idea that certain chips are flammable and why chips and not something else? Well, I
have an uncle who out of the blue told me that Cheeto Puffs are extremely flammable and that
they burn in a way similar to plastic. He came up to me, excited and surprised, telling me that he
had seen a video of Cheeto Puffs lighting up and creating a great flame. I knew right then that I
had to put that to the test and while I am at it, put a much healthier kind of chip to the test in
comparison. I wonder if any kind of chip will light up, especially one with a lower fat content, or
is this something that only happens with Cheeto Puffs because of the high fat levels in it. I don’t
know if fat content has anything to do with food becoming flammable but I plan to find out with
my research and if not, I plan to find out what ingredient makes Cheeto Puffs flammable. For my
background research I decided to explore the ingredients in Cheeto Puffs and compare them to
the ingredients in Sea Salt Cracker Chips by Kellogs which are supposed to be much healthier.
Are certain ingredients more flammable than others? What ingredients do Cheeto Puffs have?
What ingredients do Cracker Chips have? Does the color of the flame indicate the presence of
any particular ingredient or metal? Is flammable food a good thing or a bad thing?

2. Are certain ingredients more flammable than others? I discovered that certain food
ingredients are indeed more flammable than others. In doing my research I read that fat is a fire
starter. It works like fuel when trying to start a fire. I never knew that fat makes food flammable
but then I realized I had already witnessed fat lighting up. I think we have all witnessed fat being
flammable while barbequing. When we have meat on a grill and grease starts to drip down, the
flames become more pronounced and seem to get higher. This is because of the fat that is
dripping down into the grill; it is working as a fire starter. I saw videos of food with high
contents of fat lighting up and the fat leaks out as if it were lighter fluid. According to my
internet research the brighter the burn the higher the fat content. Lighting Cheeto Puffs up should
be fun and it will be interesting to see just how bright the flame will get. Is all fat flammable or
just the fat in Cheetos? All fat is flammable. Every type of fat molecule has a chemical
composition that allows it to combust given the right levels of heat and oxygen. It will be
interesting to put this to the test when I compare Cheetos with Cracker Chips and take note of
how long they burn for and how pronounced the flames are. Other flammable food ingredients
are food flavorings, garlic, flour, alcohol based sauces as well as peanut and sugar. When sugar
gets hot it can create flames in a flash.

3. What ingredients do Cheeto Puffs have? Enriched corn meal, vegetable oil, salt, maltodextrin,
sugar, monosodium glutamate, autolyzed yeast extract, glutamic acids, citric acid, artificial color,
partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, hydrolyzed soy protein, whey, onion powder,
whey protein concentrate, corn syrup solids, natural flavor, buttermilk solids, garlic powder,
disodium phosphate, sodium diacetate, sodium caseinate, lactic acid, disodium inosinate,
disodium guanylate, nonfat milk solids, sodium citrate, carrageenan. Cheetos also contain
preservatives and stabilizers, all chemicals with natural derivations, but chemicals nonetheless.
The majority of these ingredients, I’ve never even heard of and many are even hard to
pronounce! It’s astonishing that we just pop anything in our mouths without knowing what we
are ingesting. As for nutritional facts for 27 pieces, they go as follow: Calories-280, Fat 28%,
Saturated Fat 15%, Trans fat .2g, Cholesterol 1%, Sodium 20%, Carbohydrates 9%, Sugars 2g,
Protein 2g, Vitamin A 0%, Vitamin C 0%, Calcium 2%, Iron 4%, Thiamine 8%, Riboflavin 10%,
Niacin 8%, Folate 20%. A bag of Cheetos is not likely to kill us however I don’t think we
should make a habit of eating them.
What ingredients do Sea Salt Cracker Chips by Kellogs have? Potatoes, potato starch, brown
rice flour, canola oil with tbhq for freshness, whole grain yellow corn meal, oat fiber, contains

4. less than 2% or less of sea salt, monoglycerides, salt, whole wheat flour, soy flour and whey. As
for the nutrional facts for 27 pieces they go as follow: Calories 110, Calories from fat 20,
Saturated Fat 0, Trans Fat 0, Cholesterol 0, Sodium 230mg (10%), Total Fat 2.5g (4%),
Potassium 260mg (7%), Total Carbohydrate 23g (8%), Dietary Fiber 3g (13%), Sugars 0, Protein
2g, Vitamin A 0, Vitamin C 0, Calcium 0, Iron 2%. Right away I noticed that Cheeto Puffs have
a larger amount of ingredients. And although Cracker Chips don’t seem to be very healthy either,
they do have a lot less fat and half the amount of sodium than Cheeto Puffs. Cheeto Puffs also
have 2% sugar where as Cracker Chips have no sugars. The majority of the ingredients in
Cracker Chips are easier to recognize where as Cheeto Puffs have ingredients I can hardly
pronounce and have never heard of nor do I know what they are. Just by reading the ingredients
and the nutritional facts I see that Cracker Chips are a much healthier option for snacking. I think
Cracker Chips will be a good product to compare with Cheeto Puffs because it does have a
substantially less amount of fat and no sugar in it. If indeed fat content determines a product’s
flammable quality, there should be a big difference between these two products when I light
them up. But what about the flames themselves, will they tell me something about what I am
lighting up? It has always caught my attention that fire doesn’t always look the same. Flames

5. can take on many different colors and I’ve never understood why.
As long as I’m lighting things up, I thought it would be interesting to look into and research a
bit about flames and what causes the different colors in them. Maybe the color of a flame
indicates the presence of any particular ingredient or metal. First of all what is fire? Fire is the
rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat,
light and various reaction products. It is the result of a chemical reaction called combustion. At a
certain point in the combustion reaction, caleed the ignition point, flames are produced. Flames
consist primarily of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen. Fire emits heat and light.
In order for combustion to occur, three things must be present: fuel, oxygen and energy (usually
in the form of heat). The flame is the visible portion of the fire. Fires start when a flammable or
combustible material and an oxidizer are exposed to a source of heat and is able to sustain a rate
of rapid oxidation that produces a chain reaction. Fire cannot exist without all of these elements
in place and in the right proportions. Once ignited, a chain reaction must take place where fires
sustain their own heat by the further release of heat energy in the process of combustion and may
spread, provided there is a continuous supply of an oxidizer and fuel. So when I light up Cheeto
Puffs and Cracker Chips the fuel will most likely be the fat content and the oxidizer will be

6. oxygen from the surrounding air. Flames can take on many colors from blue and red to orange
and white or yellow. What do these colors indicate and can I identify certain ingredients just by
observing the color of a flame? One answer is that flames can take on different colors depending
on how hot they are. A flame that is dark red (first visible glow) is a flame that has a temperature
of 500-600C. A dull red flame is 600-800C, bright cherry red is 800-1000C, Orange is 100-
1200C, bright yellow is 1200-1400C and white is the hottest flame at 1400-1600C. These
temperatures are in degrees Celsius. When I light up Cheeto Puffs and Cracker Chips I will be
able to identify just how hot the flame is just by observing what color it takes on. Another
explanation for the different colors flame take is certain chemicals burn certain colors. Flames
will appear different colors depending on chemical additives. The following are flame colorants I
came across during my internet research on on “colored fire.” Lithium Chloride burns a dark red
color, Strontium Chloride burns red, Calcium Chloride burns orange, Sodium Chloride (table
salt) or Sodium Carbonate burns yellow, Borax (Sodium Borate) burns apple green color, Copper
(II) Sulfate and Boric Acid burn green, Copper (I) Chloride and Butane burn blue, 3 parts
Potassium sulfate and 1 part Potassium nitrate (saltpeter) burn violet and Potassium Chloride
burns purple. So, I can’t identify certain food ingredients just by observing flame colors

7. however, I can identify how hot a flame is and if it contains certain chemicals. Pyrotechnicians
play around with colored fire all the time. A pyrotechnician is a person whio is responsible for
the safe storage, handling and functioning of pyrotechnics and pyrotechnic devices. They
generally use metal salts to color flames and a common place to view these effects is in stage
productions. Emitted colors depend on the configuration of elements involved. Heat energy
excites electrons and atoms emit characteristic colors.
All this talk and research about flammable food and reasons for certain colors to appear in fire
but is flammable food good or bad for you? Well throughout my research I found that I can’t
answer that question with a simple yes or no answer. There are many different things that are in
our food that can be flammable, that doesn’t necessarily mean what we’re eating is bad for us.
For example garlic is flammable because it is packed with a lot of natural oil. It burns quickly
and jumps when heated in oil. Obviously we all know garlic is not bad for us at all in fact it is
quite healthy and even considered to have antibiotic properties. Now let’s take Cheeto Puffs as
an example, obviously from what I have researched eating Cheeto Puffs are far from being good
for us. Cracker Chips are not really “good” for us either however they are a more healthful
choice when it comes to snacking on a salty snack. What I am getting at is that healthy eating

8. really depends on what you’re eating and flammable or not has nothing to do with it. Its fun to
find these things out and put them to the test. It’s also great to get informed about what we
ingest on a regular basis and if we are meeting nutritional requirements our bodies have to grow
and function best.
My project will consist of me lighting up a few pieces of Cheeto Puffs and Cracker Chips
(separately) to see if chips with higher fat content are more flammable. I will also be observing
colors in the flames to determine if there are any chemicals and to determine how hot the flames
get.
WORKS CITED
http://www.chacha.com/question/what-makes-cheetos-flammable
http://greenanswers.com/question/all- fat- flammable/ http://www.scilogs.com/lab_life/things-you-
can-learn- from-cheetos/ http://imgarcade.com/1/cheetos-puffs-nutrition- facts/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_test http://www.eriesense.com/six-flammable- foods/
http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=Nf7WVNoLPw0C&pg=PA659&lpg=PA659&dq=flamm
able+food+ingredients&source=bl&ots=HjbiQnW_kw&sig=LFJsiFHn2F78U4Fi9sVYdOz-
8FY&hl=es-
419&sa=X&ei=BxVdVLOOEMLvigLFqIAg&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=flammable
%20food%20ingredients&f=false http://www.pslc.ws/fire/howwhy/flameco.htm

9. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/flame.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire
http://chemistry.about.com/od/firecombustionchemistry/f/What-Is-Fire-Made-Of.htm