Baking Soda gets a bad rap at Pesach. In the battle to banish Chametz from every corner of the house, baking soda is often caught in the crossfire. I have seen numerous magazine articles and recipe guides that list it as a banned product and offer substitution advice. I suppose on some level it makes sense that people would assume sodium bicarbonate is Chametz. After all, the rules of Chametz are all about things that are leavened…and baking soda is a leavening agent. But no one ever said we couldn’t eat a leavening agent.

In fact, baking soda is listed as acceptable in the rabbinic guides that are widely available. (See the website of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and even the OU.) So why does this rumor persist? Maybe there are some people who take on unnecessary stringencies for some mystical reason, or because they want to be frummer-than-thou…but halachically, there’s no need to make Pesach any harder than it is. I think a big part of the reason for this misunderstanding is simply that most people don’t question the traditions they learned at home.

As a convert, I didn’t have this luxury. Converts have to study and learn all the basics from texts and rabbis. And yet, whenever someone born into the tradition challenges something I know to be correct…I always doubt myself. “They grew up with this. They must know better.” Which leads me to scour Beis Din websites and ask every rabbi I meet…just to be sure. This was the exact experience I had trying to verify that using baking soda on Pesach wasn’t “too good to be true”.

Luckily, I was able to verify this. I used this re-confirmed knowledge to develop a bread made of almond butter that doesn’t have a strange matzah-meal texture, and is hearty enough to be used for sandwiches. (It is this week’s featured episode on our site.) The recipe just needed a little creativity and some self-confidence.