Tuesday, October 5, 2010

What do these things have in common?

While reading Perspectives in Nutrition I realized that we ingest things that can react with each other if combined. Common things and found in many common products. Further reading on these 3 common food additives leads me to this question. If food product A contains ascorbic acid on it's own, and food product B contains either sodium or potassium benzoate, and neither contains EDTA, will this combination then as stated in the wiki links, produce benzene? Complex question I realize but this then leads to many other questions about common food additives and if we ingest them together will they react chemically?