Snap, crackle and... what?

It's irresistible. You are eating your breakfast, and the most interesting reading in sight is the cereal packet. (It's that or more election news*.) So you start to read, and you notice that your cereal is 'fortified' with niacin. Now hang on there, cereal people. Why are you feeding me this strange chemical that sounds somehow related to nicotine? For that matter, why is my cereal so weedy that it needs fortification?

The answer comes with a decision made by government decree, but that strangely is more like to end in over-consumption than under-consumption these days. Find out more about niacin, aka vitamin B3, in my latest Royal Society of Chemistry podcast. Take a listen by clicking to pop over to its page on the RSC site.

* This is the expected humorous form. In fact, I can't get enough election news.

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Why I hate opera

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