I talked about celiac disease and bromide problems last time. And said I’d be back with more bad news. And here I am–with more bread ingredients you don’t want anything to do with.

• Most bread lists Malted Barley Flour as an ingredient, typically the second one–which means it’s the second most prevalent ingredient. Translated? There’s a bunch of it in there, and it causes brain damage.

How’s that, you ask? Well, malted barley flour comes loaded with the amino acid glutamate, an excitotoxin. That is, it revs up the hypothalamus part of the brain to toxic levels, leaving it a wounded warrior.

Now, this is a very bad thing seeing as how the hypothalamus controls your nervous system AND your endocrine system. When it gets wounded, so do you. Count on it.

You may not connect that to your autoimmune disease, but you should. Same with a punked out thyroid. Or any other endocrine gland. Not to mention neuropathies, the pins and needles pain that seems to have no explanation.

And, as if brain damage isn’t enough, malted barley flour contains a ton of tannins, a major cause of migraines. Now, tannins can do wonderful things, but if you’re allergic to them, there goes your head.

Most commercial breads and bags of flour contain malted barley flour. Ya gotta read labels! And if there’s no label to read, as in a restaurant? Assume it’s there.

They say malted barley flour improves the taste. Stomping all over your health isn’t mentioned.

Malted barley is also in some beers, with the same effects.

• Then there’s azodicarbonamide (ADA). It’s a pesticide from China that’s added to flour to speed up the bleaching process.

This is a biggy and getting bigger. While typically the last ingredient listed on labels, even a little packs a wallop.

PesticideInfo.org links it to cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, nerve damage and overall toxicity.

Well, is there enough of it in bread to do any real damage? Oh, indeedy!

It causes coughs, headaches that can last for days, shortness of breath, wheezing, swollen nasal cavities, burning throat and breathing problems. People report being diagnosed with asthma because of ADA. Quit the ADA, and they’re healed! Same with sinus infections.

The United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and most of Europe ban ADA. The FDA and World Health Organization say it’s just hunky-dory. No problem here. Move along.

Subway, Dunkin’ Donuts and Burger King all add ADA to their bread. MickyDs apparently doesn’t.

• And don’t buy any bread that’s fortified with iron. They make it sound as healthful as all get out, but it’s illegal in most of Europe because it triples the incidence of liver cancer. Besides, too much iron rusts us out. It also leads to heart problems. The reason women don’t have heart attacks before menopause is because their periods get rid of any excess iron. Men can reap the same benefit by donating blood every month or so.

• Finally, high fructose corn syrup. I’m worn out from all my jumping up and down about HFCS, so I’ll just recap: HFCS raises triglyceride levels, leads to obesity and diabetes, raises uric acid levels, damages the kidneys, wears out the liver and creates general mayhem. Poison.

Some people hope Ezekiel bread, said to be from a Bible recipe, is the answer. Sorry. Ezekial bread contains soy. Soy is a poison. Again, I’ll summarize: Soy disrupts the endocrine system, causes kidney stones, strips us of the minerals we need, damages the hypothalamus, depresses the thyroid and eventually leads to breast and prostate cancers. And the thing is, it didn’t exist in Bible lands during all the centuries in which the Bible was written.

I love bread. I love the taste, the texture in my mouth, everything about it. I just wish somebody would make bread that didn’t do me in.