But it takes much more than the small amount naturally present in foods to cause any internal distress. Leafy vegetables, fruits, legumes and nuts are the richest source, and beer, wine and cider also have an appreciable amount. Boric acid does appear naturally in some foods. If exposed to a large amount of boric acid in a short amount of time, the stomach, bowels, liver, kidney and even the brain can suffer. Though also banned in China, borax is sometimes illegally used to give a rubbery texture to rice noodles and root starch jelly.īorax converts into boric acid in the body, so when discussing the dangers of ingesting borax it’s important to look at the effects of boric acid. However, the European Chemicals Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration have banned borax as a food additive, putting the compound on the list of ‘substances of very high concern.’ In a single exception, caviar is still preserved by borax, at least in the EU. The sodium in borax can be replaced by calcium, magnesium, strontium or even by combinations of counterions.īoth borax and boric acid act as texturing agents in cooking to promote elasticity and crispiness, and prevent shrimp from darkening.
Many types of borates can be formed from sassolite, varying only by counterion. Although we call it a decahydrate, the unit cell of borax contains the 2– ion, so it is better written as an octahydrate, as in Na 2♸H 2O.įor now, borax remains far away from foods, in the cleaning aisle onlyīorax is the salt of boric acid, called sassolite when found in natural sources, and is produced naturally from the evaporation of lakes and seas in colourless crystals that turn white when ground. Borax and glue are mixed together to form a polymer of the glue crosslinked by borax – the more borax you add, the more the glue crosslinks and the more rubbery the goop becomes.īorax is actually a general term for a group of closely related boron–oxygen compounds that differ in their water content typically, there are ten water molecules per unit cell. A similar formula is used in a common children’s science experiment to make ‘goop’, a sticky substance with the consistency of snot. Silly Putty, in its original formulation, was made by crosslinking polyvinyl alcohol with borax.
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