You're right, it should be labelled clearly that this bread is good for pregnant women and this is not necessary for those who are not pregnant.

Excessive folic acid is said to cause kidney damage, lowered zinc levels and convulsive seizures in epileptics.

From wikipedia: Zinc deficiency affects about two billion people in the developing world and is associated with many diseases. In children it causes growth retardation, delayed sexual maturation, infection susceptibility, and diarrhea, contributing to the death of about 800,000 children worldwide per year.

On the flip side of the coin, Zinc excess causes ataxia, lethargy and copper deficiency.

You could buy a breadmaker and bake your own bread, that way you know exactly what you eat, unless the government directly adds folic acid to the flour before it can be sold, and then we'd have to grow our own grain.... Oh dear.

It's been at least a year since the U.S. started allowing synthetic folic acid to be added to all "enriched flour" products, which is pretty nearly everything.

My family's solution is to buy only those organic flour-based products which do not have folic acid added. That includes some noodle products (check especially in markets that sell Asian imports, which rarely have folic acid added ... a loophole!), sprouted wheat products (the Food4Life brand avoids folic acid also). and often flatbread products are also minus the folic.

The Journal of the American Medical Association published an article about a year ago citing special dangers for seniors (60+ years of age) who it turns out have even lower tolerance to synthetic folic acid.

[edit on 9/24/2009 by Uphill]