What chemistry processes are involved in determining the energy of a peanut?

: What chemistry concepts are involved in determining the energy of a peanut?
This is a question about a lab we did in class. We were to find the energy content of a peanut and then tell what chemistry concepts we used.

Can anyone help me out here? I am not too sure of what is exactly asking.
Answers have been great, but I am asking what *chemical properties* are being used in the actual burning of the peanut and finding out how many calories are in it.

Answers and Views:

Answer by NerdierThanYou
Find how many calories it has. A calorie is defined as the amount of energy needed to heat 1 gram of water 1°c, so you can find that by burning it.

Answer by Edward
The energy of the a peanut changes depeding on various principles. For example, if the peanut if the penut is raised a certain height from the ground, it has gravitational potential energy, if the penut is being thrown across the sky, or falls it has kinetic energy, if the penut rubs against various objects or particles it could aquire static energy. However since your talking about a chemistry class, I’m assuming you are interested in the chemical potential energy, this is the sum of energy between bonds of atoms that make up the object, in this case it is a peanut. This can be measured by the amount of force, or energy must be used in order to break the bonds that make the peanut, a peanut, if you can destroy these bonds then you would release the energy in either more, smaller chemical energy, or thermal energy. Assuming, that the intent of release the chemical bonds of a penut is so that the energy could be digested by the human body, the best way to find out how much energy a peanut has, would be simply to figure out how many calories are in a peanut by determining how much the peanut weighs and then dividing the weight of a single peanut by the weight in grams of a serving of peanuts and then multiplying that number by the total calories in one serving of peanuts. Then you would find out how many calories are in one peanut and thus how much energy a peanut has when digested.