Editorial: Let's make our own daily bread

By comparison with the fury over the years about fluoridation of municipal water supplies, the reaction to the planned addition of folic acid to bread has been remarkably muted.

Folic acid is a synthetic form of folate, aka vitamin B9, which is important in the production of red blood cells and is easily obtained from a diet rich in fruit and veges, particularly leafy greens. But low folate levels hugely increase the risk of a range of distressing birth deformities called neural tube defects, of which spina bifida is the best-known.

In June 2007, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) created a new food standard that required the addition, from September, of folic acid to most bread in both countries.

In Australia, it is to be accomplished by adding the acid to flour; in New Zealand, largely thanks to work by the Greens, the additive will be introduced in the breadmaking process, so organic and some specialty breads will be exempt.

On the face of it the proposal would seem entirely sensible: in North America, where they've been putting synthetic folate in most flour (hence pasta) for 10 years, the incidence of tube defects has fallen sharply. But on closer examination the issue is more problematic.

First, high levels of folic acid have been implicated in the increased incidence of other diseases, including prostate, bowel and breast cancers.

Arthritis and arterial disease may be aggravated, and it can potentially mask other vitamin deficiencies in elderly patients.

The use of foodstuffs as a medium of mass medication is not by definition problematic - the iodisation of salt slashed rates of the thyroid abnormality goitre - but when a health additive designed to protect one group raises the necessity of warning a variety of other groups about new dangers, something seems wrong.

The Food Safety Minister in the Labour-led Government, Annette King, welcomed the new standard as "a triumph for humanity and common sense". Her National successor, Kate Wilkinson, says she's "not a fan". And it's not hard to see why. As we reported in June, she has official advice that "research on the health effects of folic acid, both positive and negative, is a rapidly developing area". In Britain, potential risks have prompted a rethink.

Critics of the move point out that pregnant women would need to eat 12 slices of the treated bread daily to get the desired effect - and would be better off taking it in pill form.

Unfortunately it's not that easy. High doses of folate help prevent defects only if taken just before and after conception.

But half of all pregnancies are unplanned and most are unsuspected for the first few weeks. And it's hard to imagine that many women of childbearing age are putting away half a loaf of bread daily.

A wider issue is at stake here, though, about our right to decide what is in our food. In the quarter-century since we signed the CER agreement, we have moved to bring a host of different regulatory regimes into line with Australia's.

This is self-evidently sensible and has made life easier for exporters and importers.

But New Zealand is plainly a junior partner in FSANZ: 130 of the 146 bureaucrats who run the system are Australian and Kate Wilkinson is the only member of the Ministerial Board from this side of the ditch.

The minister has been told that if we go our own way on this matter, it will have "an undesirable effect" on the transtasman relationship. That's a diplomatic way of saying we should do as we are told.

But fresh bread is not an export item and it's our business what we make and eat at home. By all means let bakers produce a range of folate-rich breads. Let targeted marketing to women be subsidised from the public purse.

But the proposed regime is too full of uncertainty as to its effectiveness and its unintended consequences for us to sign on.

The Australians should be told: "No thanks, mate".