People most certainly don't eat sodium hydroxide on their pretzels anymore than they eat raw egg in their cakes. Coating pretzels with lye before baking causes

People most certainly don't eat sodium hydroxide on their pretzels anymore than they eat raw egg in their cakes. Coating pretzels with lye before baking causes a chemical reaction that consumes the lye. You really, really shouldn't ingest any amount of lye, lest it react with the inside of your squishy organic matter like the surface of pretzel dough...