BAKERS: YOUR DAILY BREAD IS NOT A RECIPE FOR CANCER

After this paper reported last month how an astounding 86% of the bread samples tested in the national capital were found to be tainted with carcinogens, the business of bakers in Mumbai has taken a beating, but the bread manufacturers insist they do not add any potassium bromate and potassium iodate — the cancer-causing chemicals found in the samples in Delhi. Stating that they are recording a huge dip in sales with people flinching from buying bread — which has brought down production — industry members emphasised that they stopped using the twin chemicals more than a decade ago, switching instead to an enzyme to oxidise the dough. 

Khodadad Irani, president of India Baker's Association, said bread manufacturers in Mumbai have mostly adopted practices followed in the UK and Europe, where the two potassium salts are banned. "Over 10 years ago, when a similar debate had taken place, bakers from Mumbai decided to do away with these chemicals and switch to an enzyme, even though the chemicals are permitted by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in minuscule quantities," Irani said. The body he heads has 250 members who make sliced bread and ladi pav in Mumbai. 

Irani, who also co-owns the popular Wibs, a sliced brand of bread that has been in the market since 1973, said Mumbai has about 8-10 slicedbread makers. "The sliced bread requirement of the city is over 11 lakh packets daily. But since this controversy, the production has dropped by 3.5 lakh," said Irani. 

"It is upsetting the business has taken a hit even when we stopped using the chemicals in question long ago," he said, stressing that city manufacturers have been using enzymes, a class of organic substances found in vegetable tissues, instead of the chemicals. 

"Bread in Mumbai is bromatefree and safe," he underscored. Irani's claim was backed by the Food and Drugs Administration (FAD). The food watchdog's joint commissioner, Suresh Annapure, said the authority has checked several bread samples at random and nothing problematic has come out. "The chemicals potassium bromate and potassium iodate are permitted within certain limits. But we have found that in Mumbai, these chemicals have been replaced with other alternatives," said Annapure.