A little off base

I’d like to lodge a minor complaint with the “All about that base” article (“Flash in the Pan,” Jan. 11, 2024). While the article does a great job of explaining the role of alkalinity in the kitchen, one part stands out: “It raises the pH by increasing the number of free protons in the pot.”

As a science teacher, I feel duty-bound to point out that under most models of acid-base interactions, a base actually accepts protons from the surroundings and lowers the number of free protons. As in most natural things, the reality is a hair more complicated than that, but changing “increasing” to “decreasing” in that sentence would improve the article.
–Peter Fogg, aka Count Base-y, Durango