Nutritional health is achieved through the therapeutic use of whole foods, safe culinary preparation, and understanding the metabolic impacts of specific dietary frameworks and ingredients.
Sodium carbonate is more commonly known as washing soda. Like the similar-sounding compound sodium bicarbonate—baking soda—it's basic, and can react with acids. HCl, or hydrochloric acid, is a strong acid that reacts with sodium carbonate.
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Folic acid -- also known as folate and as vitamin B-9 -- is a vitamin you need to help maintain normal cellular function. While you need it all the time, it's of particular importance during pregnancy, and pregnant women generally take larger quantities than non-pregnant women. Despite the word "acid"
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Vinegar and citric acid both have a sour flavor, and they're both common ingredients in foods. They're not, however, the same molecule, nor is one made of the other. While your cells make citric acid as part of normal metabolism, they don't make vinegar.
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During pregnancy, it's important to eat a healthy, balanced diet in order to make sure you're providing your developing fetus with the nutrients it needs. While citric acid technically contains calories, it's not an important part of a pregnancy diet.
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Many personal care and pharmacy products contain a mixture of citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. While sodium bicarbonate is technically an acidic salt, it acts as a base in the presence of citric acid.
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Citric acid is named for citrus fruit, in which it's quite prevalent. Lemon juice contains citric acid, but it also contains many other chemical compounds besides. Pure citric acid is common in nature, but is also a common food additive for its flavor and preservative properties. It has no important nutrient value.
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You may wish to take many different vitamins and minerals in the form of supplements. Some multivitamins contain both folic acid and calcium. There's no reason that you shouldn't take these two micronutrients at the same time, and both can benefit you -- particularly if you're a female of reproductive age or pregnant.
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Lactose and sucrose are both common kinds of sugar that feature prominently in the typical American diet. Though chemically similar in many regards, your body digests them differently, using different digestive enzymes. They also have different sources in food.
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Diarrhea is uncomfortable and aggravating, and if it goes on too long, can actually lead to dehydration and fluid imbalance. There are many causes of loose stool, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. These include infection by parasites or viruses and irritated, inflamed intestinal linings.
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H2O2, also called hydrogen peroxide, is a strong chemical oxidizing agent. It's very useful in many common household applications, but it's also a poison, and can be quite harmful if swallowed.
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Unlike overdoses of many substances, sugar "overdoses" don't lead to toxicity reactions--though in extreme cases, they can cause dehydration, which has its own set of side effects. Instead, a sugar overdose leads to two separate problems: high blood sugar, and over-consumption of calories.
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Sodium carbonate is a household chemical with a variety of different uses. Its chemical formula, Na2CO3, is similar to that of baking soda, NaHCO3. But baking soda is a nontoxic chemical commonly used in food preparation, while sodium carbonate is toxic and should not be consumed.
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Fructose, which is commonly called fruit sugar, is a monosaccharide. This is a biochemical term for a single sugar ring composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Fructose is closely related to glucose, and like glucose, it is a component of table sugar.
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Sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite are two food preservatives with very similar chemical formulas, but different properties in the body. Sodium nitrate, with the formula NaNO3, helps prevent bacterial colonization of foods. Sodium nitrite, with the formula NaNO2, is a strong oxidizing agent used as a meat preservative.
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Fructose and sucrose both fall under the designation of sugars. Biochemically, they're both carbohydrates -- fructose is a monosaccharide and sucrose is a disaccharide, meaning that fructose is made of a single sugar unit, while sucrose is made of two sugar units.
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The energy content of a food is a measure of how many calories the food contains. Your body needs a certain number of calories each day -- the required amount varies with your age, gender, weight status and activity level -- to maintain itself.
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Glutamic acid and glutamate are the chemical names for two very similar substances. You consume glutamate when you take in protein -- glutamate is a constituent of protein -- or when you eat food that contains monosodium glutamate. Because of the similarities between the chemicals, scientists often call glutamate "
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If you’re one of the many adults who can’t consume dairy products because you struggle with lactose intolerance, you can consume lactose-free milk and dairy without difficulty.
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The different components of milk can confuse some people trying to decide which of them cause dietary difficulties or allergies, and the kinds of milk most appropriate for sensitivities.
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In recent decades, the general public has become interested in health-related topics and methods for maintaining and improving health. In response to this, there is an increasingly wide variety of supplements available for purchase at health food and drug stores.
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