By Kiara Clark, Cameron Hyatt, Kaylee Knox

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sarah Smith

Abstract

B vitamins play an essential role within the human body, as they support major cells and energy production. Both vitamins B2 and B6 are commonly found in animal-based products such as meat, fish, and dairy, which may result in deficiencies for individuals with restrictive diets. To
combat this, fortified foods, such as nutritional yeast, are often consumed as sources of B vitamins. To verify that nutritional yeast adequately supplements both vitamins B2 and B6, UV-Vis spectroscopy was performed on an isolated sample of Wegmans nutritional yeast. A 5 g sample is purported to contain 1.3mg and 1.15 mg of each vitamin, respectively. Five calibration standards were made from both B2 and B6 to compare with the prepared nutritional yeast solution. Since the nutritional yeast is a product regulated by the FDA, it is expected that the experimental data will correlate to the labeled values.