Another reason to read labels.

Food is scary lately, no? There was a salad recall last week and a ground beef recall a few days ago. Blah.

I was talking to a friend of mine today who is an engineer. She said her company was doing some research on a chemical called sodium benzoate. Apparently this stuff is pretty benign, and is actually used as a preservative in a lot of things. The problem with it is that when it's mixed with vitamin C, it undergoes a chemical reaction that changes it into a chemical called benzine.

Benzine is a carcinogen.

Of course, you're probably sitting there thinking to yourself, so? Why is that important to me? Well, one of the things that sodium benzoate is used to preserve is soda. Also, many sodas contain citric acid as an ingredient as well. This means that potentially, you are drinking trace amounts of a known carcinogen in every frosty glass of fizzy pop that you pour. This probably won't bother you if you only drink a soda or two every month, but if you're one of the millions of Americans with a serious soda addiction?

I'd be reading the labels of your favorite beverage to see if that's one of the ingredients if I were you.

Of course, the one soda that I do like to drink when I choose to have one (Dr. Pepper with Mexican food is the BEST, y'all) has it as an ingredient, so I'll be having my tacos with lemonade from now on.

I'd like to add as a postscript here that this information came from someone really smart with a degree in engineering who deals with this stuff for a living. It's not something that I got in an email forward or from a Facebook status. I just thought it might be good information to share.