Question - Cream of Tartar: Key Baking powder Ingredient

Cream of Tartar is a key ingredient of any baking powder.

I have been searching on the internet and found that cream of tartar is a by-product of the wine-making process:
[en.wikipedia.org]

Thus, is it OK to use baking powder which has this key ingredient?

Excerpt:
Potassium bitartrate crystallizes in wine casks during the fermentation of grape juice, and can precipitate out of wine in bottles. The crystals (wine diamonds) will often form on the underside of a cork in wine-filled bottles that have been stored at temperatures below 10 °C (50 °F), and will seldom, if ever, dissolve naturally into the wine.
These crystals also precipitate out of fresh grape juice that has been chilled or allowed to stand for some time.[1] To prevent crystals forming in homemade grape jam or jelly, fresh grape juice should be chilled overnight to promote crystallisation. The potassium bitartrate crystals are removed by filtering through two layers of cheesecloth; the filtered juice may then be made into jam or jelly.[2] In some cases they adhere to the side of the chilled container, making filtering unnecessary.
The crude form (known as beeswing) is collected and purified to produce the white, odorless, acidic powder used for many culinary and other household purposes.

I thought a lot of the people on this forum use baking powder. Please provide your views on this as this seems to be a serious thing to take care about.

It seems fine because its only by-product of some chemical process, just like many of the things we use in cooking. It's a form of salt.

Quote

"Cream of tartar is obtained when tartaric acid is half neutralized with potassium hydroxide, transforming it into a salt. Grapes are the only significant natural source of tartaric acid, and cream of tartar is obtained from sediment produced in the process of making wine. (The journal Nature reported some years ago that traces of calcium tartrate found in a pottery jar in the ruins of a village in northern Iran are evidence that wine was being made more than 7,000 years ago.)"

If you look at the wine-making process itself, it's basically just unwashed fruits left in water and sugar. The cream of tartar that''s taken from that doesn't mix with the alcohol that's formed during the fermentation.


It's very difficult to understand what's allowed in a bibeki diet when looking examining everything through science. We just need to know that chemicals like salts and sugars are perfectly fine.

However, if you still have reservations about using baking powder, there are many recipes you can make without it. Fruit crumbles/cobblers are a great example, and can be baked right in a batta! And of course, our traditional punjabi foods like kheer are unbeatable. I feel that the simpler food is, the better.

One substitute for baking powder is to use baking soda (which is just calcium carbonate) and lime or any other acidic medium. This does the same thing as baking powder.
But, then again it depends on whether one would want to term cream of tartar as ok for bibek or not.

If in doubt, leave out.