The mandatory addition of folic acid to non-wholemeal flour seems to be adding froth to a few buckets of artisan sourdough starter. The science regarding NTDs (such as spina bifida and anencephaly) seems incontrovertible and, in countries where folic acid is added to flour, birth defect rates do seem to have dropped. But dig a little deeper and there are questions regarding conversion and absorption, and the dangers of having large amounts of unconverted synthetic folic acid swilling around in the bloodstream. So it’s not all plain sailing. Shipton Mill founder John Lister calls it ‘mass medication’ and sees it as another attempt by mainstream flour mills to make anaemic white flour appear to be a healthy wholefood – which it very definitely isn’t. Why they chose white flour as the medium by which to medicate us with a basket of ‘necessary’ supplements (iron, calcium, thiamin and niacin) is a mystery. If they are so essential, why not put them in gluten-free flours? It doesn’t feel as though it’s been very well thought out.
All in all, it’s an argument that I wish I’d never started writing about because, although two hundred fewer babies born with serious defects each year sounds good, the science is way beyond my comprehension and there are many for whom it isn’t, who feel incredibly strongly about it. What I do know is that it’s yet another signal of just how bad our diet has become. If we all ate our greens, beans, liver and so on, we wouldn’t have a vitamin B9 deficiency in the first place, and we wouldn’t be talking about adding another name to the long list of ‘necessary’ additives in flour.
It’s a sign of the times – we live in supplement city whether we like it or not.