Thanks for the suggestions! I was thinking of making something like this for a while too, still hard to believe I managed to pull it off during the jam :)
The products (except for food and toxin) are arbitrary, they are supposed to be signalling proteins/molecules you can use to do stuff. I actually want you to be able to add and name them, but I didn't want to write text input etc. during the jam, I spent most time writing UI and physics sim already.
Breaking a product just removes it in an exponential way, no byproducts are produced. You can break down toxin, but it's much much slower to make it hard. I want special chemicals and reactions, designed for each puzzle/level, like food and toxin now, but I didn't have time for that. And food is a simplification too, should be something like "energy" that is needed for the cells to grow, which you can get by breaking down food etc.