A recent area of activity regarding cereal food additives involves the use of "flour treatment agents" such as chlorine and chlorine dioxide, dough improvers such as ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide and potassium bromate, and pH regulators such as aluminum phosphates ). The use of these chemicals has been heavily scrutinized and their use is often restricted or banned in many jurisdictions, notably the European Union. The reasons for this change in the EU are partly related to the harmonization of relevant legislation among member states and developments in toxicology. Therefore, after reviewing the toxicological data on the safety of azodicarbonamide cakes baked with chlorinated flour, there was concern that the chlorinated fatty acid 9,10-di Chloroctadecanoic acid may bioaccumulate. . The industry chose not to respond to calls for more evidence on the safety of their use and consequently subsequent harmonized legislation did not include permission to use chlorine and chlorine dioxide as flour treatments (CoT 1996). A similar situation occurred with potassium bromate and azodicarbonamide. In the case of potassium bromate, this compound has been identified as a genotoxic carcinogen by Kurokawa et al. (1983). However, some countries have considered, or currently consider, that the additive is completely converted to bromide during the baking process and therefore does not pose a health hazard (e.g. American Bakers Association and American Baking Association, 2008). However, the advent of more sensitive analytical methods with lower detection levels led to the detection of bromate in British toast (Dennis et al., 1994). Partly as a result of these findings, the use of this compound has now been banned in several jurisdictions (eg Anonymous 1990). A similar fate befell Azodicarbonamide when it was shown to be linked to the emergence of the carcinogen urethane in bread.