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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1999  > March  >
In the Laboratory
Bridging Native American Culture and Chemistry: Gas Chromatography Experiments That Examine Native Foods
Andrew G. Sykes
Department of Chemistry, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD 57069

Gerald Caple
Department of Chemistry, Pittsburgh State University, Pittsburgh, KS 66762

Cover
March 1999
Vol. 76 No. 3
p. 392
Abstract
This article describes three chemistry experiments that link common foodstuffs traditionally and currently harvested by Native Americans in different parts of North America to modern chemical instrumentation and discovery methods. Specifically, gas chromatography (GC), one of the simplest and least expensive separation and identification techniques, has been used to characterize constituents of pine nuts (harvested in the southwestern United States and Mexico), the prairie turnip (found in the north-central United States), and maize (cultivated universally). Methods of isolation and identification of fatty acids in piñon pine seeds, furocoumarins in Psoralea species, and epicuticular waxes in maize are described in detail.
More Information
*  Citation
 Sykes, Andrew G.; Caple, Gerald. J. Chem. Educ. 1999 76 392.
*  Keywords
 Organic Chemistry; Chromatography; Minorities in Chemistry; Undergraduate Research; Plant Chemistry; Food Science
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 June 15, 1999
June 22, 2005
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