CASE OF THE POT LUCK POISONING

The Lee Burneson Middle School personnel held their annual Staff Pot Luck. This event was always viewed as a culinary delight. Many staff members volunteered to make a variety of favorite foods for the event. Recipes were shared in case anyone suffered from food allergies. That aside, the teachers were looking forward to enjoying good company and good eats.

The recipes for the Staff Pot Luck were prepared the night before in the Consumer Science room. The menu had a wide range of entrées, salads, and desserts. Of all the recipes, the favorites were spaghetti with marinara sauce, tossed salad, and chocolate chip cookies.

Unfortunately, several members of the school staff suffered from food allergies, specifically MSG. To ensure that no one used this spice in their recipes, an email went out to the staff reminding them of the various food preferences and allergies. This made Mr. Sanfellipo and Mr. Bongers, who has a serious allergy to MSG, feel confident about sampling the delicious dishes prepared by the members of Lee Burneson Middle School staff.

Sadly, someone disregarded Mr. Bongers and Mr. Sanfillipo’s medical problem and used MSG in their dishes. This substance was used in both the spaghetti dish and the chocolate chip cookies. Who would have done such a thing? Here’s the ruff! More than one person made the dish of spaghetti with marinara sauce AND more than one person baked chocolate chip cookies.

Further, upon closer examination of the crime scene, one half of a rotten onion was removed from the trash. Was the other half of the rotten onion in one of the salads? If so, could this have caused Mr. Bongers and Mr. Sanfillipo to become ill?

Lastly, a can of tomato sauce, that was labeled with MSG as part of the ingredient, was found opened and empty. Was a can of this sauce used in a recipe?

Several other teachers remarked that they didn’t feel that well later in the evening. Could they have had the bad onion in their food? Or was the remark of not feeling well by one person enough to spur a psychological power of suggestion into the minds of other teachers?

Who was the culprit that ‘salted’ the menu that made Mr. Bongers and Mr. Sanfillipo so ill? What made the other people feel ill or think they felt ill?

The CSI technicians have collected and bagged the evidence for you to examine.

CAN YOU SOLVE THIS CRIME?

WHO DID IT?

HOW WAS IT DONE?

WHY DID HE/SHE DO IT?

List the clues, in the left column, that you will use in solving this mystery. Explain what you will do to find the answers in the right column.

List 5 questions that need to be addressed and answered each day of the investigation.

Day 1: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Construct a density column of the tomato sauces that were found at the crime scene and compare them to the sauce that is suspected to be the one that made Mr. Sanfellipo and Mr. Bongers ill. Label your column and compare the results.

Table of results

Can you identify the characteristics of /in MSG?

Research facts about Food Additives on the net.

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/foodaddi.html

Go to these web sites to learn more about the seasoning:

http://www.directfood.net/bluediamond/history.asp

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/monosodium-glutamate/AN01251

http://www.eufic.org/pt/food/pag/food35/food352.htm

Write the important facts that you learned about food additives and monosodium glutamate below.

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The Recipe for Spaghetti and Sauce follows…

ITALIAN SPAGHETTI MEAT SAUCE

1 c. chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 oz. tomato paste
1/4 c. sprigged parsley
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. oregano
1 lb. ground beef
2 qt. can of tomatoes, cut
1/4 tsp. thyme
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. MSG
1 bay leaf

In Dutch oven, combine onion, meat and garlic. Cook until meat is browned and onions are tender. Skim off excess fat and add all remaining ingredients along with 2 cups of water. Simmer, uncovered, 3 hours or until sauce is thick. Stir occasionally. Remove bay leaf before serving.

*Alphabetic spice index. Click along top of page for constituents, aroma

http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/spice_large.html

Tomato Based Products http://www.contadina.com/FAQ.htm

Ingredients of table salt http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/table_salt.html

Brown sugar: http://www.joyofbaking.com/sugar.html

List the characteristics for the ingredients

Ingredient	Color	Texture	Mass	Solubility
Sodium chloride
Sodium sulfate
Sugar
Ammonium Chloride
Sodium carbonate
Baking soda
MSG
Cream of Tartar

Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies follows…

1 cup butter (softened) [margarine will work, but not preferred]
1 cup Sugar
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
2 medium size eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (don't use imitation)
2 cups flour
2½ cups rolled oats (uncooked oatmeal)
½ tsp Salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (or chunks)
1/3 cup baking cocoa (optional)
1 cup black walnuts, (or English Walnuts, Macadamia Nuts, Pecans, etc.)

1. Cream together the butter, sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
2. Place oats in blender and process until turned to powder (I like to process only 1 cup of oats and leave the other 1½ cups as is, for more texture)
3. Mix together flour, all oats, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
4. Mix butter-egg mixture (step 1) with flour-oats mixture (step 3) until just blended.
5 If you prefer more chocolate flavor, add the baking cocoa
6. Lastly, add nuts (if desired) and chocolate chips. Mix into dough until just blended.
7. Preheat oven to 350°. Let dough set in refrigerator while oven preheats (harder dough is easier to work with)
8. Roll into golf ball-sized balls (don't make too big!) and place about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet.
9. Bake for 12 minutes or until done. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

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What ingredient(s) could have been switched for MSG? How could you prove this?

Write a procedure in the space below showing what you would do to show the switch. Use back of page or another sheet of paper if needed.

Read about fingerprint identification

http://science.howstuffworks.com/handwriting-analysis.htm

Upon questioning the staff, the following people made a tossed salad or brought spaghetti or chocolate chip cookies: Ms. Fossesco, Mrs. Richards, Mr. Stipek, and Mrs. Vakos.

There are fingerprints on the cans of sauce, and plates of spaghetti and chocolate chip cookie. See if you can lift the fingerprints and match them to those in the police database.

You can try 'lifting' prints yourself. You'll need some powder; graphite sold in little tubes as vehicle lock 'de-icer' works fine. Dark make-up powder will also work. You will also need a fine soft brush. A photographer's lens cleaning brush works great, because it will also let you squeeze a puff of air to blow away the excess dust. Get some sticky clear tape and some white paper too.
.
dust1 Blow a fine layer of powder over the each print on the dishes . Carefully brush the print so that it is completely covered by a layer of the powder. You must use a very soft brush and be gentle, because you do not want to smear the print. Next, blow away the excess powder.
Now press a piece of sticky tape over the print, being careful to press down gently, but not slide the tape, to avoid smearing. Peel the tape back, and apply it to the piece of paper the same way. You should have a recognizable pattern easily visible by eye.

Now get the police print cards from the evidence room, and see if you can compare them to the prints you lifted.

Fingerprint Table:

Names	Type of Print	Match/ No Match - why

Write your results below:

Check the DNA of the rotten onion and see if it matches the DNA from the onion used in the sauce or toss salad.

DNA Extraction Lab

Contributed by the Shodor Education Foundation

What does DNA look like? You can see for yourself by isolating large amounts of DNA from yellow onions. This is an easy procedure that you can even do at home.

Materials and Equipment

Blender
Murphy's Vegetable Oil Soap
Hot water bath (60 to 70 degrees Celsius)
Rubbing alcohol
Salt (non-iodized)
Chopped yellow onions

Large container of ice
Funnel
Two 250ml beakers or comparable containers
50ml beaker or comparable container
Glass stirring rod, plastic stick or toothpick
Cheesecloth or coffee filter

Procedure

Make a 10% detergent solution consisting of 100ml Murphy's Oil Soap and 15 g non-iodized salt. Add distilled water to make a final volume of 1000 ml.
Coarsely chop onions and then use blender to cut onions into small pieces (about 1cm x 1cm size or less).
Measure about 50 ml packed onion pieces in a 250 ml beaker or comparable container.
Add 75ml soap solution to beaker. Mix well by swirling beaker several times.
Incubate mixture for 15 minutes in hot water bath at 60 to 70 degrees Celsius. A pot of heated water on a hot plate works fine.
Cool mixture in ice bath for several minutes, occasionally twirling beaker in ice.
Pour mixture into a blender and fasten the lid. Blend mixture for 30 seconds at low speed.
Pour mixture into 250ml beaker or comparable container. Allow it to stand in ice until cool. Swirl beaker occasionally.
Pour mixture through four single layers of cheesecloth (or a coffee filter) in a funnel into a 250ml beaker or comparable container, taking care to leave any foam behind. The filtered liquid is the onion liquid.
Add an equal volume of ice-cold rubbing alcohol to the onion liquid.
Gently swirl mixture until a white DNA precipitate appears in the beaker.
Spool out the DNA by rotating a glass rod or plastic stick (or toothpick) in one direction only in the beaker, allowing the DNA to wrap around the rod or stick.
Gently ease off the DNA into a 50ml beaker or small container of rubbing alcohol for storage. The DNA can be stored in a covered container indefinitely in the refrigerator.

Foods that had onion

DNA results

Sauce

Toss salad

Time to wrap up your investigation. Below are a series of questions that you can now answer confidently. Add anything you feel is pertinent and was not asked. Have you solved the crime? Who did it? What was the motive? Are you ready to make an arrest?

What types of forensic evidence were discovered at the scene? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What method of chemistry was used to tie the evidence to the crime? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What evidence will be used to convict the suspect? Why? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Using Inspiration construct a graphic organizer showing who were possible suspects and what evidence pointed to these people. Attach your graphic organizer to the back of this packet.

Who did it _____________________________________________________