Final answer:
Sodium chloride and cornstarch both appear as white solids and are used in cooking. While NaCl is an ionic compound essential to life, cornstarch is a carbohydrate and does not share NaCl's ionic properties.
Step-by-step explanation:
Sodium Chloride (NaCl), commonly known as table salt, shares some characteristics with cornstarch, although they differ chemically and structurally. Both are white solids, and they are used in the culinary field. Sodium chloride is an ionic compound formed by the reaction of a metal (sodium) and a non-metal (chlorine), resulting in a substance that is essential to life but also exhibits properties entirely distinct from its reactive elemental forms. In contrast to the individual behaviors of sodium, which reacts explosively with water, and chlorine, a poisonous gas, sodium chloride is non-toxic and simply dissolves in water. Cornstarch, a carbohydrate derived from the endosperm of corn, although structurally different from NaCl, can also come across as a white, powdered solid and dissolves in water, although not as readily as NaCl and without dissociating into ions.