A Proposed Additive Ban Could Change New York’s Pizza and Bagels, Some Say for the Better
Picture your perfect New York slice. The thin, foldable crust with just the right chew. The tiny grease puddles pooling on top of the cheese. That first bite, hot enough to burn the roof of your mouth but too good to stop.
Now picture someone telling you there’s a chemical in that slice that’s been linked to cancer, and it’s already banned in Europe, China, India, and Canada.
That’s exactly where we are.
A bill sitting on Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk could ban potassium bromate, a dough-conditioning additive used by an estimated 80% of New York’s pizza and bagel shops. The legislation has already cleared the State Assembly and Senate with bipartisan support. And while the news has rattled the baking world, here’s the twist: many people, including some of the city’s most beloved dough-slingers, say this change is long overdue.
This is the story of what’s in your dough, why it’s divisive, and why your next bagel might actually taste better because of it.
The Chemical Hiding in Your Morning Bagel
Let’s get the science out of the way, but we’ll keep it simple.
Potassium bromate is a white powder that gets mixed into commercial flour. Think of it like a personal trainer for your dough, it strengthens the gluten structure, helps the bread rise higher, and makes the final product look whiter and more consistent. For a busy pizza shop cranking out hundreds of slices a day, that consistency is gold. No surprises, no flat crusts, no customer complaints.
The problem? When potassium bromate isn’t fully baked off, and sometimes it isn’t, what’s left behind is a compound the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. Studies dating back to the 1980s have shown it causes cancer in laboratory animals, even at “perfectly reasonable” doses.
“From a consumer’s point of view, there’s nothing good about potassium bromate,” said Erik Millstone, a professor of science policy at the University of Sussex who studies the health impact of chemicals in food.
It’s the culinary equivalent of finding out the paint in your living room has lead in it. Yeah, it’s doing a job. But there are safer ways to get the same result.
From Brooklyn to Buffalo, an Industry on Edge
The Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act doesn’t just target potassium bromate. It also bans Red Dye No. 3 and propylparaben, additives linked to cancer, behavioral issues in children, and hormone disruption. But it’s the bromate ban that’s causing the biggest stir, because it strikes at the very identity of New York’s most iconic foods.
The Pizza Historian’s Warning
“This is an earth-shaking event for New York pizza,” said Scott Wiener, a pizza historian who leads tours of notable slice shops. He estimates about 80% of pizza and bagel shops rely on a flour containing the oxidizing agent, most notably a General Mills product called All Trumps, which has been the industry standard since the city’s first grab-and-go pizza parlors opened nearly a century ago.
“That ingredient is part of the identity of the slice,” Wiener said.
It’s a striking claim. Not the water. Not the ovens. The bromate.
The Bagel Maker’s Lament
Across the East River, Jesse Spellman, second-generation owner of Utopia Bagels, is already tinkering with the family recipe, experimenting with yeast concentrations and rise times to replicate what the chemical shortcut once delivered: that height, that structure, that crackly exterior and springy interior that defines a proper New York bagel.
“You could achieve that same bagel texture, but it’s a lot more work and it’s going to be a lot more expensive,” Spellman said. “It’s going to take some time to get a product that we’re happy with.”
That’s the tension in a nutshell: tradition versus health. Craftsmanship versus convenience. The way we’ve always done it versus the way we probably should have been doing it all along.
The Health Case: Why “Better Living Through Chemistry” Has Limits
What the Lab Rats Told Us Decades Ago
Going back to the 1980s, multiple studies have linked potassium bromate to cancer in lab animals. It’s not a fringe concern, it’s one of the reasons the substance has been banned in the United Kingdom since 1990. The World Health Organization flagged it as a concern back in 1992.
Yet the FDA has allowed it to remain on the market, taking what’s known as a “risk-based approach”, essentially, innocent until proven guilty. The U.S. generally allows a wider variety of additives than the European Union, which takes a precautionary approach: if there’s reasonable evidence of harm, you pull it.
Europe’s Been Fine Without It. So Has Canada.
Here’s the thing that makes the industry panic feel a little overblown: much of the rest of the world has been baking without potassium bromate for decades.
The European Union bans it. China bans it. India bans it. Canada bans it. Brazil bans it. California passed its own ban in 2023, set to take full effect in January 2027.
Have European baguettes crumbled? Have Canadian croissants collapsed? Not exactly. In fact, some experts theorize the absence of these additives is one reason many Americans find baked goods in Europe “more tolerable”. You know, that mysterious “I can eat bread in Italy and feel fine” phenomenon? This might be part of it.
The Surprising Upside: Better Pizza Through Slower Dough
Here’s where the story takes a hopeful turn.
The Artisan Shops That Already Made the Switch
Many of New York’s most celebrated pizzerias, particularly the newer, more artisanal shops, already tout their use of “unbromated” flour. Joe Pucciarelli, head pizza maker at Extra Extra in Buffalo, never used bromated flour to begin with. Why? Because early recipe testing found the additive-free dough simply tasted better.
The trade-off is real though: “There are days when we mix dough, and it’s 70 degrees one day and 40 degrees the next day, and the doughs are pretty different from day to day,” Pucciarelli said. “Using the chemically altered flours, it would give you much more consistency.”
But isn’t there something kind of beautiful about that? Bread that responds to the weather. Dough that’s alive, not chemically stabilized. A baker who has to feel the dough rather than just rely on a powder to do the work.
“A Little More Expensive, But the Quality Is There”
Salvatore Lo Duca of Brooklyn’s Lo Duca Pizza is one of the converts. After discovering that the bromated flour his family had used for over a decade contained a suspected carcinogen, he started experimenting with alternatives, and was genuinely surprised by the results.
“When we started playing around with a different flour, I actually took a liking to it,” he said. “It’s a little more expensive, but the quality is there.”
“A little more expensive, but the quality is there.” That might as well be the tagline for this entire transition.
What This Means for You (and Your Friday Night Slice)
Will It Taste Different?
Possibly, but not necessarily worse. If anything, the shift could push more shops toward slower, more traditional methods, longer fermentation, more careful dough handling, better flour. The kind of stuff bread nerds get excited about.
Your corner slice shop might go through a slightly awkward transition period. But a year or two from now, you may not even notice. Or you might notice that your pizza and bagels actually taste a little cleaner, a little more like the places you seek out on vacation.
Will Prices Go Up?
This is the real question, and the answer is: probably a little. Unbromated flour tends to cost more. The labor required to achieve the same results without a chemical shortcut is more intensive. Industry groups have warned that the compliance costs will eventually reach consumers.
But context matters. We’re talking about a difference of pennies per slice, maybe a few cents more per bagel. “A little more expensive,” as Lo Duca put it. Not a doubling of prices. Not the end of affordable pizza.
America’s Food Additive Reckoning
New York isn’t acting alone. California’s ban kicks in next year. West Virginia passed a sweeping ban on food dyes and additives in 2025. Pennsylvania has legislation in the works. The American Bakers Association is already phasing out related additives like azodicarbonamide voluntarily, with a full phase-out expected by the end of 2026.
Something is shifting in how America thinks about what goes into its food. The “generally recognized as safe” loophole that let companies quietly add chemicals without public disclosure is starting to close, state by state.
New York’s pizza and bagels happen to be the most delicious front line of that fight.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is potassium bromate definitely in my pizza? Not necessarily. Many artisanal shops already use unbromated flour. But if you’re eating at a standard neighborhood slice joint or a commercial bagel shop, there’s roughly an 80% chance they’re using bromated flour.
What other foods contain potassium bromate? It’s used almost exclusively in commercial bread products, pizza dough, bagels, hamburger buns, some packaged breads. It’s not something home bakers typically use.
When would the ban take effect? If Governor Hochul signs the bill, suppliers would have about one year to phase out bromated flour, with restaurants allowed to use up existing stock before making the switch.
Can they just switch to something else? Yes. Unbromated versions of the same commercial flours already exist, General Mills sells an unbromated version of All Trumps. It’s widely available. It just costs more and requires more skill to work with.
Is this going to kill New York pizza? Not even close. If Europe can make incredible bread without it, New York can make incredible pizza without it. This isn’t a death sentence, it’s a course correction.
Change is hard. Especially when it involves something as sacred as New York pizza and bagels.
But look at it this way: The same chemical that’s been quietly strengthening your dough has been quietly worrying scientists for forty years. It’s banned in countries whose bread we romanticize. And some of the best pizza makers in New York have already moved on, and they’re not looking back.
The ban might make your slice a few pennies more expensive. It might make your bagel slightly less predictable from one day to the next. But it also might make them better. Cleaner. Crafted with a little more care and a little less chemistry.
And honestly? That’s a New York food scene worth getting excited about.