This additive is popular in many commercial breads because it strengthens dough and decreases the bread’s baking time, which is important to large-scale industrial bakeries. Although its use is legal in America, many other parts of the world including the European Union, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and China have banned it in foods do to the fact that it is a suspected carcinogen. One study out of Japan, in fact, linked it to cancer of the thyroid and kidney.