Friday, November 30, 2012

In Praise of Baking Soda




















I  love baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), especially delivered via New Jersey-based Arm & Hammer products (Arm & Hammer as an institution dates back to just after the American Civil War). 

Baking soda has many culinary, medicinal and cleaning properties that are hard to beat, particularly if you want to avoid toxic industrial alternatives. The widespread use of baking soda goes back to the mid-1800s.

I'm a consistently serious coffee drinker, using ceramic cups and mugs as delivery vessels on a daily basis. Anyone who drinks a lot of coffee or tea knows that these beverages tend to leave pernicious traces of themselves in ceramic kitchenware. Thank God for baking soda! A small amount of this powdery substance combined with hot water and an abrasive sponge or scouring pad will remove up to 100% of all coffee and tea traces. Wonderful!

Baking soda is a natural air freshener -- an open box will suck "bad smells" from refrigerators and elsewhere.

Baking soda is useful as a leavening agent for foods like pancakes and cookies.

Baking soda can be used as a tooth-whitener, and toothepaste (as a supplement or straightup with water).

Baking soda can be used as an antiperspirant. Arm & Hammer produces different types of underarm deodorants that are all excellent and affordable.

Baking soda can be used for laundry purposes, as detergent and fabric softener.

Arm and Hammer covers every aspect of baking soda's uses. I highly recommend their products, and the intelligent use of baking soda for its wide range of uses. For more, here's a link: http://www.armandhammer.com/Index.aspx

Finally, baking soda can be used to treat burns and poison ivy, but for those who haven't tried it, I'd do a little research before attempting these kinds of medicinal treatments.

Today's Rune: Joy.

2 comments:

WAS said...

I love this, and would add another key benefit of baking soda: it cures cancer. There's been a lot of scientific proof of this gathered in the last 75 years, but the basic idea is that cancer cells starve in an alkaline environment (blood ph). Baking soda is a natural alkafier, which is also why it's so good for acid indigestion, and why it does such a good job of balancing our systems against the onslaught of our modern diets full of sugar, starch, meat, coffee and other highly acidic substances.

jodi said...

Erik, I have to do my cups too. Baking soda also helps heartburn, strips gunk off of hair, and treats skin. I love to clean with b.s. and vinegar. So much less harsh!