16 Things You Might Not Know About American Food
Some American breads still contain potassium bromate, a synthetic dough strengthener classified as "possibly carcinogenic to humans." It's banned or restricted in the EU, Canada, the UK, Brazil, China, and India. The FDA still allows it. Potassium bromate is a flour additive that strengthens dough, helping bread rise higher and produce a lighter, fluffier texture. It has been used in commercial baking since the early 1900s. Concerns about its safety emerged after studies found kidney and thyroid tumors in rats. Based on animal studies, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified potassium bromate as Group 2B, or "possibly carcinogenic to humans," in 1987 and reaffirmed that classification in 1999. Several countries subsequently restricted or eliminated its use in flour. The UK banned potassium bromate as a flour improver in 1990, while it has never been permitted as a flour treatment agent in the EU. Canada removed it from its list of permitted food additives in 1994. The consensus wasn't only European: the UN's expert committee on food additives concluded in 1992 that using bromate as a flour treatment agent was not appropriate, and the Codex Alimentarius withdrew its specifications for potassium bromate in 2012. At the federal level, potassium bromate remains permitted in the US. It's exempt from the Delaney Clause — which requires the FDA to ban additives shown to cause cancer in animals, and which forced Red Dye No. 3 off the market — because it was approved before the 1958 amendment that created that rule, a status known as prior sanction. The FDA has encouraged bakers to stop using it voluntarily since 1991, and major bakeries including Best Foods (maker of Arnold, Entenmann's and Oroweat breads), Pepperidge Farm and Pillsbury switched to bromate-free processes. The industry's safety argument is that potassium bromate is intended to convert to harmless bromide during baking, so that when bread is properly baked, little or no bromate should remain. But the conversion can be incomplete. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the FDA tested several dozen baked goods in 1992–93 and again in 1998–99 and found that many contained bromate at levels the agency considered unsafe. Since the FDA regulates the amount that can be added to flour rather than the amount left in the finished loaf, there is no federal residue limit for baked goods and no routine testing program. States have moved faster. California has required a Proposition 65 cancer warning on bromated flour since the early 1990s, and under the state's Food Safety Act it will prohibit foods containing potassium bromate entirely beginning January 2027. Sources: IARC, CSPI, 21 CFR 136.110, California AB 418, Down To Earth policy brief, Centre for Science and Environment