Ministers Plan to Force Bakers to Add Folic Acid to Bread

25/06/07 The meeting of health and food ministers has accepted a draft standard proposed by the regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand.

It will make it mandatory to add folic acid to wheat flour for bread-making to reduce spina bifida and other defects in babies.

The ministers predict that the addition of folate in bread could prevent between 4 and 13 per cent of neural tube defects in Australian babies.

A transition period of two years has been allowed, and the health and cost impacts will be independently studied, two years after that.

Bakers using organic flour for breadmaking will not be required to add folic acid.