Baking Powder
Food · Pantry & Condiment · Food, Typed Supps
Half a teaspoon in a cake is nothing. A spoonful straight is a medical emergency.
Stage by stage
- Dry until wet (The tin): Acid and base sit together inert, kept apart by a starch filler until water arrives.
- CO₂ (Stomach): Taken neat, the same reaction happens in the stomach — the basis of the rupture case reports.
- Sodium (Circulation): 6,868 mg per 100 g, divided across a whole batch in any real use.
- Potassium (Circulation): 8,267 mg per 100 g, from the cream of tartar that forms the acid half.
Timing
Nothing to time in cooking. Double-acting powders release gas twice — once when wet, once in the oven — which is why batter should not sit too long.
Time to effect
- Immediate: CO₂ release on contact with moisture.
- —: Nothing accumulates from culinary use.
Allergens
None of the fourteen major allergens. May contain: Gluten. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.
Eating patterns
Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP, Gluten-free.
Satiety
Not scored: the satiety index is measured on 240 kcal servings, and nobody eats a 240 kcal serving of this. The question does not apply rather than the answer being unknown.
Cost band
Cheap — roughly £1.5 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 87
- Protein: 0.8g
- Carbohydrate: 19.8g
- Fat: 0.3g
- Fibre: 0.4g
- Sodium: 6868mg
Food vs. supplement
Baking powder is the sharpest example in the library of dose deciding everything. The same teaspoon is invisible spread through a cake and a genuine emergency swallowed on its own.
Kitchen tip
Test an open tin before trusting it: half a teaspoon into hot water should fizz hard. A weak fizz means the cake will not rise.
Common myth
“A spoonful of bicarb in water settles indigestion.” In reality: It neutralises stomach acid, and it does so by producing carbon dioxide inside a stomach that may be full. Case reports include metabolic alkalosis, dangerous electrolyte shifts and gastric rupture. Antacids that do the same job without the gas exist and cost very little. In a cake, spread across a whole batch, the identical teaspoon is entirely harmless — the dose is the whole difference.
Recipes that use it
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