Well, if vinegar is made up only of that, I'd imagine that you don't
get any other vitamins or minerals. Pure, reagent-grade (stuff you get
from chemistry lab stockrooms) probably is that pure. Quite possibly
also stuff you can get from the grocery store too. I remember hearing
that commercial sugar at the grocery store was purer at one point than
sugar available at much higher prices from chemical supply firms for
university research.
Acetic acid has many uses -- one of which is to use to stop the
developing chemicals used to process black-and-white film and
black-and-white prints (I am less familiar with color film processing,
but possibly the same stuff gets used there). Another is as a household
cleaning fluid.
But not all vinegar is intended for those uses. People like to
pour it on their salads. So you might find at the grocery store "red
wine vinegar" (it'll be reddish), "apple cider vinegar", and possibly
many other varieties. These other kinds of vinegar will have other
nutrients, but I'll bet they're in nutritionally insignificant amounts.
You wouldn't want to use them as photographic chemicals or clean your
tables with them, however.
Tom
One thing you can easily taste in many food vinegars is some sugar.
Mike W.
(published on 10/22/2007)
