SERY 5: BROMATE – “DEATH” NOT ONLY BY BREAD!

With two consecutive periods, Period 3 and Term 4, we can see the harm and destruction of Bromate when consumed in the human body. Therefore, we need to be aware of how bromate exists and in what foods people consume.

First we learn EWG's Healthy Living application is available in 3 versions: online website for computer users, Apple Store for Apple devices and Google Play for devices using Android operating system.

 

This application will help consumers use healthier food. With an intuitive and easy-to-understand search engine and scoring method, with just a few keystrokes, you will find information about a specific product of a brand with the following criteria:

• Food Score: 1.0 is excellent and 10.0 is the worst. The lower the score, the better it is for health.
• Nutrition level: the algorithm will calculate the score based on many factors such as: calories, saturated fat, unsaturated fat, sugar, salt, protein, fiber and the presence surface of fruits, vegetables and seeds.
• Ingredient: based on the presence of toxic substances, pesticides, hormone growth drugs, antibiotics and other health-affecting additives The system will calculate the corresponding number of points.
• Processing level (Processing): This index will evaluate the level of the composition of the product being processed, varying or less from raw materials. At the same time, this index also assesses the number of artificial colors and odors added to the product.

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EWG's extensive library of over 80,000 products is divided into each product group, making it easy for you to find and understand the food you are about to consume. . At the same time, EWG also provides a ranking of similar products but has a higher safety index (or lower) for you to choose and compare.

Based on this library, EWG also points out to users at least 86 products containing Bromate additives since 2015, stretching from common bromate products such as cakes, breads, cakes , to other ready-to-eat food products such as egg noodles, spaghetti, flat noodles, pizza covers, even in ready-to-cook chicken, meatballs and egg rolls. This shows that bromate is not only an additive in bread fermentation as we know it, but also appears in many different products.

 

In addition to the common use in breads, bromate additives are also used in butter cakes (pound cake) - a traditional baked cake from Northern Europe, with the weight of all ingredients is exactly 1 pound. and is becoming more and more popular in Vietnam. When using Bromate additive, butter cake sponge loaf will have a softer structure than the original cake which is quite heavy and dense (because pound cake does not have milk like sponge cake).

 

Furthermore, in the production of barley-fermented alcohol and beverages through the distillation phase, Potassium Bromate is also used as a strong oxidizing agent to support fermentation. Residues of potassium bromate after distillation are still difficult to control and measure, similar to baking using bromate additives, due to temperature, aging and fermentation.

 

In fruit-flavored beverage products, according to an article published in 2017, bromine ingredients to make bromate salts are added to the product as an aroma additive under the name "vegetable oil." bromate ”. Thanks to this vegetable oil, the fruit flavor will be kept more even and more fragrant in the drink solution. Thereby, consumers will be direct consumers of this bromate additive without any processing.

It can be seen that Bromate additives not only appear in bakery products but also appear in many other unexpected food lines. The feature of Bromate is to make the product achieve a structure, color, delicious taste, more eye-catching to increase user appeal. However, before the evidence shows that Potassium Bromate has the ability to affect DNA and cause cancer, many countries around the world have officially issued laws for the use of Bromate additives in food. What are the rules - let's find out next time "Bromate: Restrict or Prohibit Use?"

Scientific research references: Vietnam Journal Science