2 toxic additives to avoid in bread

There are two toxic ingredients added in commercial baked goods that not only do your body no good, but they have detrimental impact on your hormones and your health.

Being gluten free is more than unnecessary. Eating gluten-free isn’t THE answer to being healthy. You may actually be depriving your body of the nutrients it desperately needs to be in balance. Being oblivious to the facts that gluten sensitivity does exist isn’t helpful either.

Choosing to eat or not eat grains isn’t so black and white. There are many shades of gray to consider when choosing which ones to avoid and which ones may be safe and healthy to consume.

Here is a chapter from my book that gives you a glimpse of of the “Shades of Gray” that makes bread either healthful or harmful.

Eating the wrong kind of bread can suck the life out of you. Consuming the wrong kind of bread can literally deplete your energy. Choosing the right kind can actually actually be nourishing…increase your vitality…..if your system and gut are not compromised.

Bromine and Alloxan are often added to commercially baked goods. They are very disruptive to your hormones and hurt your overall health.

Bromine

Bromine is an oxidizing agent that is added to commercial breads and baked goods. Commercial bakeries substitute Bromine (aka potassium bromate,) as a dough conditioner because it makes breads easier to shape, allows for faster mixing, strengthen and soften dough, and also reduce the staling of bread.

Although a simple recipe for bread includes; flour, water, salt, yeast or sourdough starter, commercial bakers find it impossible (not cost effective) to obtain consistent-looking bread with just these four simple ingredients without the use of potassium bromate.

For nearly 80 years before the introduction of potassium bromate, these bakeries instead added potassium iodate to bread as a dough conditioner but stopped using it in the early 1970s due to the iodophobia.

Idophobia is a fear of consuming too much iodine and can be traced to a study done by Wolf-Chaikoff paper which advised bakeries to stop using potassium iodate based on their study that rats showed the reduction in a their thyroid hormone levels which was caused the ingestion of large amount of iodine.

This insignificant and surprising study on iodophobia made room for an alternative to potassium iodate, Synthroid. This new solution for consumers to avoid thyroid problems began a few months after the Wolf–Chaikoff paper was published. The timing of this paper and the lack of its comprehensive science behind is not coincidental, but a ploy to sell more Synthroid.

The manufacture’s of Synthroid released it is at “wonder” drug and bakeries began using potassium bromate instead of potassium iodate.

Since this change, it has been found that Potassium bromate has been discovered to be toxic and every effort should be made to avoid bromated bread and pastas. When commercial bakeries reacted to the Wolff-Chaikoff study and replaced potassium iodate with potassium bromate, consumer’s daily intake of iodine dropped significantly which causes many health problems.

Bromine has been scientifically found to destroy the iodine in your body and is found in our food supply, particularly in products made from brominated flour such as bread, pasta, and cereal. Bromine produces brominated halogen, which binds to iodine and leaches it out. Bromide appears to play a large role in the rising levels of iodine deficiency.

Dr. David Brownstein explains this serious problem in his book Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It. Iodine is part of a class of elements known as halogens that include bromine, chlorine, fluorine, iodine and astatine.

Bromine has a weight that is very similar to iodine and competes for binding in the body. It binds to iodine receptors in the thyroid gland.

Remember, iodine is necessary to your thyroids to help produce hormones. Without iodine, our body doesn’t have enough hormones and your hair dries out, becomes brittle, and falls out, your skin loses its shine and elasticity, joints start feeling pain, you start losing energy, libido, mood and on and on.

Nearly every time you eat bread, pasta or a baked good commercially made for grocery stores or served at a restaurant (no matter how fancy it may be,) you are consuming Bromine.

Because commercial bread using modern grains is so prevalent, this is why there is a Bromine overload epidemic and iodine deficiency in western cultures.

In 2007, Chinese authorities pulled a batch of imported snack chips from store shelves because they believed the chips contained potassium bromate, a food additive banned in China. Potassium bromate is also illegal in the European Union, Canada, Brazil and elsewhere because it causes cancer in rats and humans.

In recent toxicology studies, researchers discovered bromine in urine and samples that were TWENTY times higher than in the 1970’s.

Bromide is found in beverages (Mountain Dew, AMP Energy Drink and Gatorade), commercial bread (as potassium bromate), on berries to preserve them, ozonated water, toothpaste, mouthwash, flame retardants, permanent wave solution, hair dye, textile dye and pesticides.

Alloxan and Other Bleaching Agents

Alloxan is the by-product of the process of chemically bleaching flour.

Before Alloxan became common practice, flour was whitened using traditional practices by leaving it out and exposing it to air. That process took a few days, which caused more, cost, labor and time.

By chemically bleaching the flour, commercial bakers can save time and money because they are able to turn the flour white quickly and efficiently.

Modern mills cause grains to become rancid through high heat and removing healthiest parts of the kernel. Grains that go through a bleaching process become toxic.

Bleached flour is processed using chemicals like, commonly benzoyl peroxide and chlorine gas, among others to speed up the flour’s aging process.

This results in whiter, finer-grain flour with a softer texture. Many food producers favor bleached flour because it has a softer texture, better volume, and brighter color than those made with unbleached flour. This is more palatable to unassuming consumers and increases sales for the manufacturer of the food.

Alloxan can make your blood sugar spike up and down as a diabetic person’s insulin would. And it is literally used and injected in lab animals to make them diabetic so that diabetic drugs can be tested on them.

According to Dr. Erick Kelly, elevated insulin forces a woman’s body to skyrocket her testosterone levels.

Testosterone gets converted to Dihydroptestoster

– one (DHT).

Harvard Health states “Excess insulin can cause [a woman’s] ovaries to make extra male hormones… the more testosterone a woman has, the more testosterone gets converted to DHT.”

DHT is a hormone that destroys your hair follicle.

Did you know 99% of hair loss triggers are hormone related!

Women who have elevated testosterone, not only have a high amount of hair loss, they also have a host of unwanted symptoms like …

Weight gain that is primarily, but not limited to, the midsection
Excessive facial hair and body hair
Moods swings
Irregular menstrual cycles
Anxiety and depression

Unfortunately when commercial bakers lace grains with synthetic and hormone depleting conditioners and bleaching agents, it can create imbalance causing cascading inflammatory effects.

Choose organic whole unbromated unbleached flour/bread.

As always, I hope this has been helpful. Share this with your loved ones.

To read all the “Shades of Gray”, you may purchase the book “Fifty Shades of Grain: The Truth about Eating Bread and Feeling Great” by clicking HERE so you can “have your bread and eat it too”.

You’ll find out how to source and/or make bread that is tasty and nourishing.

To you having your bread and eat it too.

To Your Health,

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About Caroline

My vision is to empower you to achieve your optimal health and lead a healthy life through awareness and education. It is to bring you simple, delicious, nutritionally dense foods and easy recipes that support the wellness of your mind, body and soul. My goal is to teach the effective principles and practices of our ancestors in a modern context forliving a vibrant life.