The Chemistry of Household Ingredients

Time to demystify all your chemistry questions about common household products. If you're like most people, you find it hard enough to pronounce their ingredients (or if you're like most geeks, you memorize their ingredients to work into everyday conversation), much less understand why they're there. Now you'll be able to distinguish between preservatives and sweeteners, buffers and emulsifiers, stabilizers and surfactants.

Ingredients are grouped according to type, and each entry contains the substance's structural formula, synonymous names, and a description of its common uses. You'll even learn that table salt is much more than a flavoring - it can be used as a preservative, a meat tenderizer, a binding agent, or even a thickener to change the viscosity of shampoo. This helpful guide can be used as a basic primer on commercial chemistry or as an indexed reference to specific compounds found on a product label. Never fear the grocery again.