Soda bread pastry flour (made from soft wheat), which has lower levels of gluten than a bread flour. In some recipes, the buttermilk is replaced by live yogurt or even stout. Because the leavening action starts immediately (compared to the time taken for yeast bread to rise), bakers recommend the minimum amount of mixing of the ingredients before baking; the dough should not be kneaded. Various forms of soda bread are popular throughout Ireland. Soda breads are made using wholemeal, white flour, or both. In Ulster, the wholemeal variety is usually known as "wheaten bread" and is normally sweetened, while the term
Sodium bicarbonate soda can also be useful in removing splinters from the skin. Some alternative practitioners, such as Tullio Simoncini, have promoted baking soda as a cancer cure, which the American Cancer Society has warned against due to both its unproven effectiveness and potential danger in use. Sodium bicarbonate can be added to local anesthetics, to speed up the onset of their effects and make their injection less painful. It is also a component of Moffett's solution, used in nasal surgery. As early as the 1920s, bicarbonate was found to cause increased bone strength in patients who were losing calcium in their