Bread is Safe, No Need to Panic: AIIMS Director

AIIMS Director MC Mishra has allayed fears that certain chemicals used in bread production may be cancerous.

AIIMS Director MC Mishra has allayed recent fears that certain chemicals used in bread production may be cancerous. He has said that there is no need to panic about potassium bromate and potassium iodate in pre-packaged daily bread, but that care must be taken not to ingest an “excess of anything.”

“It might pose some danger but no individual eats entire pack of bread everyday... majority of people eat a piece or two at the most, so in the long-term, there is no need to panic much as has also been said by the FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India),” he said.

The panic that followed the CSE study which reportedly found harmful chemicals in breads, buns, pizza bases and other commercially-sold bakery items has hit bakeries in West Bengal rather hard. Production of bread in over 4,000 bakeries in the state has seen a 30 percent decline.

The West Bengal Bakery Co-ordinators Committee and West Bengal Baker’s Association said they will carry out sampling and testing of breads from the bakeries.

Our daily production ranges from 10 to 12 lakh pounds, but after the reports of bread allegedly causing cancer started doing the rounds on media, our production was affected by 25 to 30 percent in the last couple of day.

Sheikh Ismail Hossain, Secretary, West Bengal Bakery Co-ordinators Committee

A bread manufacturers’ body said they will stop using potassium bromate and potasium iodate as additives from Thursday.

The All India Bread Manufacturers Association, which represents over 90 organised bread manufacturers such as Harvest Gold and Britannia, has, however, asked food safety regulator (FSSAI) to verify the findings of the CSE report that claimed most of the breads sold in the National Capital contained cancer-causing chemicals.