Expert: Henry Boyter - 9/26/2006

Question
So does that mean that I am eating hydrogen in my food? I thought hydrogen was a gas, so why can we eat it?
-------------------------

Followup To

Question -
I just wanted to know what things like food are made of. Are they made of a certain element. Are drinks made of certain substances like water?

Answer -
Foods are made of the same materials as plants and animals from which they come.  You have carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus with lesser amounts of minerals such as iron, copper, magnesium, calcium and others.  Most foods are a large percentage water unless they have been dried.  You will find traces of other things.  peach pits (not the part you eat) contains very low amounts of arsenic (as do most seeds of that type).   Most salt has iodide added to it for health reasons.  Read the back of a vitamin bottle to see all of the essential elements.  

Answer
Yes, you are eating the element hydrogen.  It is just not in its elemental form.  Look at this structure for sugar.

http://web1.caryacademy.org/chemistry/rushin/StudentProjects/CompoundWebSites/19

There are many atoms of the element hydrogen in it.  Just like salt, NaCl.  You are eating the elements Na and Cl, just not in their elemental form, Na(metal) and Cl2 (gas).  The only elemental forms you would eat would be things like O2, N2, and yes H2 from the air dissolved at part per million or lower levels in liquids.  Anything else would be by accident, like carbon from burned food.