New York lawmakers have passed a bill to ban potassium bromate, an additive in some flour that supporters say can speed dough production and critics link to potential health risks. The measure, awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature, has sparked debate among bakers who fear that changing a long-used ingredient could alter the texture of city pizza and bagels.
In Brooklyn, Salvatore Lo Duca said he recently found bromated flour in a component of his thin-crust pies and began adjusting the recipe. Lo Duca Pizza, which he runs with his five brothers, began experimenting with another flour after what he described as a discovery in the back kitchen, and he said the switch produced results he preferred.
“From a consumer’s point of view, there’s nothing good about potassium bromate,” Erik Millstone, a professor at the University of Sussex focused on science policy and health impacts of chemicals in food, said in remarks included in the coverage. Millstone said studies going back to the 1980s have shown the additive can cause cancer in laboratory animals, even in “perfectly reasonable” doses.
Potassium bromate has already been banned in many places outside the United States, including across the European Union, China, India, and Canada, and it is scheduled to be banned in California as of next year. Millstone also argued that health-focused reasoning favors removing the additive, saying “Most well-informed people would prioritize a long healthy life over a slightly softer and more soluble bun.”
Advocates for the status quo say bromated flour helps maintain the familiar, fast-turnaround characteristics of New York-style dough. Scott Wiener, a pizza historian who leads tours of notable slice shops, said the additive plays a role in what people recognize as New York pizza and estimated that around 80% of pizza and bagel shops rely on a flour with the oxidizing agent.
Wiener said the additive reduces rest time for dough and helps ensure a stronger, chewier product. He also pointed to General Mills flour as an example of a standard ingredient used by neighborhood shops and said the city’s long-established pizza parlors helped set the practice that many retailers still follow.
For some businesses, the potential ban could mean both higher costs and a more labor-intensive process. Jesse Spellman, the second-generation owner of Utopia Bagels, said achieving the familiar bagel texture without bromated flour would take “a lot more work” and would likely be more expensive. Spellman said he has also been testing adjustments, including yeast concentrations and rise time, ahead of any possible change.
Other bakers and food producers, including some newer and more artisanal-leaning shops, have advertised “unbromated” flour as a selling point. Wiener said General Mills now sells an unbromated flour at roughly the same price, while he described other alternatives as costlier.
If the legislation becomes law, the bill would allow businesses a one-year grace period to keep using potassium bromate, plus additional time to use unexpired bags. A spokesperson for Hochul said she will review the bill.
The ripple effect of the proposal has extended beyond New York in online food talk. In an Instagram post, DoughBoyz owner Mario Mangilia, in Florida, joked that “Pizza in Florida is officially better than pizza in New York” and said his grandfather would “haunt” him if the shop’s dough recipe changed; after being confronted by prominent pizza accounts over the additive’s health concerns, the post described him as shifting to testing different flour.
For bakers like Lo Duca and Spellman, the debate is already translating into kitchen changes and recipe experiments, even before a final decision from the governor. For historians and researchers like Wiener and Millstone, the question is whether the state should prioritize maintaining a signature texture or removing an ingredient whose health risks they say have been documented.