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Ascorbic Acid & Baking Soda

Mar 7, 2011 | By Paula Quinene

Enhancing your health may be as simple as adding ascorbic acid and baking soda to your diet either individually or through baked goods. Ascorbic acid is actually Vitamin C, and baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. Along with their health-improving and performance qualities, these ingredients are quite common in the baker's or pastry chef's kitchen. The color, texture and taste of many baked goods rely on the use and volume of both baking soda and ascorbic acid.

Health Benefits

Vitamin C helps reduce damage to your cells due to metabolism and environmental carcinogens. It also helps keep your teeth and gum healthy and heals your wounds and cuts. Men need 90 mg of ascorbic acid per day and women need 75 mg. Baking soda is a base with a pH of about 8 ½, excellent for relieving heartburn or acid indigestion. Intense exercise, such as sprinting and weightlifting, makes the cellular environment more acidic from lactic acid buildup. Sodium bicarbonate is used acutely and chronically to maintain a less acidic environment, enhancing muscular contraction to increase performance. A mixture of three-tenths of a gram per kilogram of body weight of sodium bicarbonate is mixed with water and consumed 60 to 90 minutes prior to a competition, according to Scott Riewald, Ph.D., in "Strength and Conditioning Journal."

Discoloration

Ascorbic acid or the Vitamin C in lemon juice helps reduce the rate of browning on fruits such as apples and pears. The baking soda in baked goods helps increase the browning of the final product. When making cranberry and walnut muffins, or blueberry muffins, a green ring will form around the walnuts, cranberries and blueberries, if you have too much baking soda. Balance this reaction through substituting some of your berries and walnuts with a less acidic fruit like cubed apples. The ring may also form if you have too little ascorbic acid. Baking soda darkens natural cocoa in baked goods like devil's food cake and red velvet cakes.

Gluten Strength

Gluten is a molecule that forms when two proteins --- glutenin and gliadin --- bond. Gluten enhances the recoil and stretch capacities of batter and dough. Vitamin C strengthens the gluten which forms when glutenin and gliadin are mixed with water and agitated. Baking soda, on the other hand, increases the pH or makes the batter more basic, weakening the gluten. Ascorbic acid is used to make baked goods rise even higher, retaining carbon dioxide better, according to Shirley Corriher, author of "Bakewise, The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking." Baking soda is best used when you want your cookies to spread larger.

Forms

Sodium bicarbonate is available in tablets, solution, granules, powder and capsules. Ascorbic acid is also available in the same forms, as well as wafers, lozenges, chewable tablets and as syrup.

References

Article reviewed by Chuck Goldberg Last updated on: Mar 7, 2011

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