Bromate Residual Contents In Some Brands of Bread And Bakery Products Collected From Benghazi`s Bakeries, Libya

Abstract

Potassium bromate is an oxidizing agent that has been used as a food additive added to preserve flavour or improve the taste and appearance of food, mainly in the process of making bread and baked products. The continuous consumption of potassium bromate is hazardous to human health. The aim of this study is to assess the safety of some bread and baked products by determining the residual potassium bromate using a spectrophotometric method, in twenty nine bread and different bakery products samples included; croissant, toast and cake, collected from different bakeries in Benghazi, Libya. The obtained results indicated that, the level of residual potassium bromate in the analyzed bread and baked samples ranged from 0.6138µg/g to 1.558µg/g, with mean concentration equal to 0.9641± 0.4 µg/g. A significant differences were found in the potassium bromate levels of the different analysed samples (P<0.05). The results of this study showed that the contents of potassium bromate in all analysed baked products were higher than permissible limit sets by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and by Libyan Standard Regulations. The excessive consumption of potassium bromate has a highly toxic effects to consumer`s health.