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[V5RED]

I will preface this by saying that I am not a chemical engineer, I am a chemist. I have a friend studying chemical engineering and we got into an argument about the best way to treat an overly acidic stomach. We both advocate using baking soda (sodium carbonate), but she thinks it will be more useful if you put the baking soda in an acidic drink before consuming it. I said this makes no sense since that eats up some of your base before you get to use it. She said that I do not understand acid base chemistry since I am a chemist and not an engineer. She said putting it in acid "gets the ball rolling" and thus acts as a catalyst (as far as I know catalysts are things not consumed by the reaction). Is there some engineering principle that supports this? I can't find anything online and she is not interested in explaining herself. I also wonder why the protons naturally present in water or the acid in the stomach would not suffice to "get the ball rolling".

In short, my friend claims that adding acid to a base before using the base to neutralize an acid makes the base better at neutralizing acid and would neutralize more acid than it would had the base simply been added to the acid you want to neutralize. She says that this is because the acid she adds to her base is a cwtalyst for further acid base reactions and that only chemical engineers could understand this.

Assume she and I both use the same amount of base to start.

Thank you for your help.