NAFDAC to bakers: Use bromate, saccharine to produce bread and risk shutdown

Worried by the health implications of some additives in bread production, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) read the riot act to bakeries across the country against using saccharin and bromate in bread production.

So far, NAFDAC said it has closed down some bakeries for using bromate during bread production and promised to continue to clamp down on such bakeries.

The agency’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, gave the warning while featuring in an interactive media forum in Abuja.

While warning that bakeries caught in such acts would face the full consequences, she said: “This is where our post-marketing surveillance comes in. We go out routinely to look for certain products; sometimes it may be due to complaints through our reform office.

“We have closed down a few bakeries because they are using bromate during bread production. If we find out, or someone suspected or tasted the bread and it has bromate, we will shut the bakery down.”

Persecondnews culls from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine that potassium bromate is probably the most effective oxidizer used in bread production, and bakeries exploit these beneficial properties for profit. During baking, heat catalyzes the conversion of potassium bromate into a less toxic substance (potassium bromide).
However, excessive use of potassium bromate results in residual concentrations in bread having potentially harmful effects.

Potassium bromate is a possible human carcinogen, and several organizations, agencies, and countries have banned its use as a flour additive.

Several studies have shown that potassium bromate has acute and chronic health effects. Acute symptoms of potassium bromate toxicity include abdominal pain, diarrhea, irritation of the upper aerodigestive mucous membranes, and vomiting. Free radicals of potassium bromate in the human blood result in nephrotoxicity and cancer.

It also induces renal cell tumours, mesotheliomas, and thyroid follicular cell tumours in rats. In addition, it exerts mutagenic effects and causes injury to the tissues of the central nervous system (CNS) and kidneys.

Adeyeye also said: “We have equally closed down many water-producing factories as a result of substandard production or producing it in an unhygienic environment. Our Regulatory Inspection Directorate is important to us because it ensures that what is brought to us at the point of registration is what is still in the market.

“When we do inspections at the beginning, we go there and take samples and test the product. Sometimes after they know that the product has been registered, they start changing the process of production or formula.

“This is why post-marketing surveillance monitoring is very important. It ensures that what they brought to us is still what is in the market in order to maintain standards. That is what is called market control.”