Why is Carbon, the building block of life, safe when eating or drinking (carbonated water), but not when breathing (carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide)?

Question

Why is Carbon, the building block of life, safe when eating or drinking (carbonated water), but not when breathing (carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide)?

In: Biology

Answer 1

CO2 and especially CO bind to hemoglobin instead of oxygen and prevent your blood from carrying oxygen to the cells of the body. That’s bad.

The stuff in a carbonated beverage is CO2, there’s just not nearly enough of it to be harmful.

Carbon in most foods is in the form of some kind of hydrocarbon. It’s the raw material that your body uses to get energy. After we “burn” it , it turns into CO2