What Foods Contain Sodium Bicarbonate?

What Foods Contain Sodium Bicarbonate?

What Foods Contain Sodium Bicarbonate?
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Updated on August 7, 2025
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As a food, sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, has many uses.

It’s added to a variety of baked goods as a leavening agent, which gives them a fluffy texture. Soaking beans in baking soda can improve their nutritional value and make them easier to digest.

Club soda is enhanced with minerals including sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate is also used in a variety of ways in meat processing.

Baked Goods

According to McGill University in Montreal, sodium bicarbonate is used in baking as a leavening agent to make dough rise and give baked goods their signature fluffy texture.

When baking soda comes into contact with heat or with an acid, such as buttermilk, yogurt, or lemon juice, it reacts and forms carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide creates tiny bubbles, which make the dough rise, says the Orlando Science Center. The bubbles remain trapped in the dough as it bakes, giving baked goods their characteristic fluffy texture.

Digesting Beans

Soaking beans in sodium bicarbonate can reduce the levels of plant compounds that affect how digestible the nutrients in them are, improving their nutritional profile.

One study found that soaking beans in baking soda and boiling them reduced the amount of tannins and saponins, so-called “anti-nutrients,” that make bean protein harder to digest.

Researchers wrote that soaking the beans also significantly increased the protein, fiber, and fat content of chickpeas, bengal gram beans, and red kidney beans.

Effervescent Drinks

Sodium bicarbonate adds fizz to carbonated drinks when it reacts with an acid to create carbon dioxide, according to research.

The Royal Society of Chemistry says dissolving sodium bicarbonate in drinks is one way to make soda fizzy, though it’s much more common for sodas to be injected with carbon dioxide.

Club soda, however, always contains sodium bicarbonate in addition to carbon dioxide as well as minerals like sodium citrate and disodium phosphate, according to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Meat Processing

Sodium bicarbonate is also used throughout the meat processing industry in a variety of ways, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Baking soda is used to adjust the pH level (whether something is acidic or alkaline) of egg products, red meat, and poultry products.

It’s also used with other compounds as an antimicrobial treatment for red meat and poultry products.

In addition, sodium bicarbonate is sometimes combined with a form of vitamin C to make absorbent pads that reduce oxygen levels in packaged raw meats, which research says extends their shelf life.

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Reyna Franco, RDN

Medical Reviewer
Member of American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Reyna Franco, RDN, is a New York City–based dietitian-nutritionist, certified specialist in sports dietetics, and certified personal trainer. She is a diplomate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and has a master's degree in nutrition and exercise physiology from Columbia University.

In her private practice, she provides medical nutrition therapy for weight management, sports nutrition, diabetes, cardiac disease, renal disease, gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, food allergies, eating disorders, and childhood nutrition. To serve her diverse patients, she demonstrates cultural sensitivity and knowledge of customary food practices. She applies the tenets of lifestyle medicine to reduce the risk of chronic disease and improve health outcomes for her patients.

Franco is also a corporate wellness consultant who conducts wellness counseling and seminars for organizations of every size. She taught sports nutrition to medical students at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, taught life cycle nutrition and nutrition counseling to undergraduate students at LaGuardia Community College, and precepts nutrition students and interns. She created the sports nutrition rotation for the New York Distance Dietetic Internship program.

She is the chair of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine's Registered Dietitian-Nutritionist Member Interest Group. She is also the treasurer and secretary of the New York State Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, having previously served in many other leadership roles for the organization, including as past president, awards committee chair, and grant committee chair, among others. She is active in the local Greater New York Dietetic Association and Long Island Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, too.

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Maura Shenker

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Maura Shenker is a certified holistic nutritionist and health counselor who started her writing career in 2010. She leads group workshops, counsels individual clients and blogs about diet and lifestyle choices. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, a Master of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University and is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

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