6 hours ago, Honkman said:
I don’t really see paranoia about bromate - the scientific (animal) data indicates some possibility of carcinogenicity and based on this it is banned in many countries around the world (with US one of the few exceptions).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/
https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+1253
You're not seeing paranoia because you're only skimming the surface. What you came up with took, what, about 2 minutes to google? 
Good science is about digging deeper- about getting all the facts.
First, there's never been a connection between bromate and cancer in humans. Humans are not rats, and rat based studies have been shown, time and time again, to produce different results in humans. The links you posted even references the fact that the findings for rats aren't even applicable to mice. If the findings aren't applicable moving from rats to mice, how the heck are we going to know how humans will react? Milling workers in the Eastern half of the U.S., where bromate is the standard for commmercial flour, have historically been exposed to high quantities. If there was a connection between bromate and cancer in humans, you'd see it in this population. You don't. Again, look at the links you posted.
Even if the link between bromate and cancer in humans could eventually be proven, a good scientist comprehends the connection between dosage and risk. They don't feed rats bromated flour bread. They don't even feed them bromated flour. They feed them pure bromate- in massive quantities. Bromate is added to flour in quantities below 20 parts per million. That's per million *pinky finger tip to mouth*. After baking, the residual bromate in bread typically measures 1/1,000th of that- parts per billion. That's billion, with a 'b' Bromate is naturally occurring. It's in the water you drink- bottle or tap. As we speak, California, the land of paranoia, allows more bromate in water than the quantity that ends up in bread. In other words, if you sit down and eat a slice of bromated flour pizza, the glass of water you drink with the pizza will likely have more bromate than the pizza does. That's the dose that we're talking about. A trace of a trace.
To put this in further perspective.
black pepper
tea
coffee
cocoa
cinnamon
nutmeg
all contain known carcinogens. Not potential carcinogens. Not carcinogens for rats that may be carcinogens for humans. Known carcinogens. We consume these foods without batting an eyelash because the quantity/the risk, like bromate, is so infinitesimally small it doesn't matter.
Bromate phobia is completely and utterly ridiculous. It stems from a bunch of short sighted WHO bureaucrats, who, 50 years ago, when confronted with the possibility that bromate might be a carcinogen, instead of actually figuring out if it actually was dangerous, just made the decision that it couldn't remain in the finished bread- which at the time, it didn't- with the technology they had to measure it. Instead of actually doing their job and protecting the public, honestly, they just said "maybe it poses a risk, maybe it doesn't. Who cares? It's not in the final product, anyway, so we can just pass a regulation that it can't be." Fast forward 20 or so years to a point where technology improves and instruments can measure the parts per billion in baked bread, and, rather than look at the misguided logic that brought them to their previous ruling, they just doubled down with the 'can't be in bread' regulation, and combined with 'we now know it's in bread,' and, voila, ban. And, then, once you have a ban, the public, rather than figuring things out for themselves, looks at it, and assumes that if it's banned, it must be unsafe- the tail wags the dog.
Beyond it's innate safety, nothing can touch bromate as a dough enhancer. Anyone that tells you that ascorbic acid is just as good is talking out of their behind. Ascorbic acid will never give you the same volume or dough handling ability. There's a good reason why you can't buy a slice of unbromated flour pizza East of the Rockies, it's because it creates a vastly superior product. I'm a pizza guy, not a baker so I can't unequivocally say that bromate always makes better bread, but the best bread that I've ever had, in my entire life, used bromated flour. Nothing else I've ever come across had that level of volume and tenderness of crumb.
