{"id":250210,"date":"2026-11-15T15:49:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T15:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=250210"},"modified":"2026-11-15T15:49:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T15:49:30","slug":"your-bread-and-cows-have-something-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/your-bread-and-cows-have-something-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Bread and Cows Have Something in Common"},"content":{"rendered":"

Folic acid is added to flour and Bovaer is added to cattle feed, both from one company, and both backed by Bill Gates.<\/em><\/p>\n

Are Additives Good News?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are told that folic acid being added into bread is a public health triumph. You are told that a feed additive being given to cattle is a climate breakthrough. Two separate issues, two separate wins, two separate good-news stories.<\/p>\n

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Except they\u2019re not separate at all. Behind both sits the same company and the same foundation that spent two decades building the machinery to make both occur. This is a story about how a single corporate entity manages to be the beneficiary of two different government mandates, dressed up as two different public goods, sold to you by two different charities.<\/p>\n

The Flour Mandate<\/strong><\/p>\n

In November 2024, the UK government enacted the Bread and Flour (Amendment) Regulations 2024<\/em>. This statutory instrument is not an Act of Parliament, meaning there was no debate, no vote, and no public information campaign (Department of Health and Social Care, 2024). From December 2026, every non-whole meal wheat flour sold in the UK needs to contain 250 mcg of synthetic folic acid per 100g (Real Bread Campaign).<\/p>\n

The stated goal of the addition: to prevent roughly 200 neural tube defects, such as spina bifida and anencephaly, per year. The stated beneficiaries: babies.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the uncomfortable part. The molecule being mandated is pteroylmonoglutamic acid (PGA), the synthetic, oxidized form of folate. It is not the natural methyl-folate (5-MTHF) your body actually uses. Your liver has to convert PGA into 5-MTHF before it can do anything useful.<\/p>\n

In a large chunk of the population, that conversion doesn\u2019t work well. People with the MTHFR C677T\/TT genotype (roughly 10-15% of the population, and up to 20-40% in some ethnic groups) have a sluggish or impaired version of the enzyme that performs this conversion. For them, synthetic folic acid doesn\u2019t get metabolized properly. It stays in the blood as unmetabolized folic acid (UMFA).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the kicker: DSM-Firmenich, the company that sells the synthetic folic acid being mandated, has admitted this in its own marketing. In a 2014 alliance announcement with Merck, DSM\u2019s own global marketing manager stated that \u201cin some specific genotypes, the process of converting folic acid to MTHF doesn\u2019t work very efficiently<\/em>\u201d (Starling, 2014). They know. They sell it anyway.<\/p>\n

The Known Harms of Folic Acid Fortification for the Entire Population<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the part the press releases skip. The harms aren\u2019t hypothetical, and they aren\u2019t confined to the MTHFR minority.<\/p>\n

Unmetabolized Folic Acid in the Blood<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since hepatic dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) only slowly reduces synthetic folic acid, mandatory fortification generates UMFA circulating in the bloodstream of a substantial share of the population. In the US, where fortification has been mandatory since 1998, one major study detected UMFA in 21.4% of controls (Cho et al., 2015). You\u2019re not just \u201cgetting more folate\u201d. You\u2019re getting a synthetic, unmetabolized compound circulating in your blood that your body never asked for.<\/p>\n

Colorectal Cancer Risk, Especially in the MTHFR Population<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The 2015 Cho et al. study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute<\/em>, found an association between UMFA levels and colorectal cancer risk among men (RR = 1.57), and a striking 2.20-fold increased risk among those with the MTHFR CT\/TT genotype (Cho et al., 2015).<\/p>\n

Precisely what this means is the crux of the whole argument: the population most vulnerable to the cancer risk is exactly the population least able to metabolize the synthetic form. The mandate delivers a chemical to people who can\u2019t process it, and the people who can\u2019t process it are the ones who face the highest documented risk. The study itself concluded that overall, UMFA levels were not associated with CRC risk across the whole population, but the elevated risk in men and in the MTHFR subgroup is precisely the point. The harm is concentrated where the benefit is absent.<\/p>\n

B12 Deficiency Masking and Nervous System Damage<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the one that genuinely frightens neurologists. The Reynolds, Sobczy\u0144ska-Malefora, and Green (2025) paper in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition <\/em>summarized 60 years of evidence and concluded that excess folate, particularly in folic acid users, can cause direct harm to the nervous system, especially in the presence of vitamin B12 deficiency.<\/p>\n

The mechanism: high-dose folic acid masks the anaemia of B12 deficiency while the underlying neurological damage progresses silently. The anaemia gets treated symptomatically, but the irreversible neuropathy continues. The paper explicitly calls for \u201ca more prudent and balanced approach to fortification with folic acid, or preferably a natural reduced folate, combined with vitamin B12<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Even the UK\u2019s own Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (2017) acknowledged the masking concern, noting that \u201ctreatment with high doses of folic acid can alleviate the anaemia and, as a consequence, \u2018mask\u2019 the vitamin B12 deficiency ……. this could delay the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency and may lead to irreversible neurological damage<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Broader Risk Catalogue<\/strong><\/p>\n

A major review by Choi et al. (2014) in Nutrients<\/em> catalogued the full range of contemporary concerns: UMFA in blood, masking of B12 deficiency, interference with anti-cancer medication, photo-catalysis of folic acid leading to potential genotoxicity, a role in colorectal cancer pathoaetiology, elevated risk of twin birth, insulin resistance in offspring, and altered epigenetic mechanisms of inheritance. The same review noted that accumulated UMFA can inhibit dihydrofolate reductase and other enzymes, meaning the synthetic form can actively interfere with your body\u2019s own folate metabolism.<\/p>\n

The \u201cNo Deficiency\u201d Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what makes the whole situation absurd. The 1981 Department of Health expert panel, chaired by Sir Frank Young and Dr. John Cummings, and including the legendary Dr. Elsie Widdowson, concluded unanimously that there was no nutritional reason to add these compounds to flour, and specifically that there was no public health problem arising from folate deficiency in the general population.<\/p>\n

Between 1981 and 2024, there was no new evidence that British folate intakes had fallen. If anything, diets had improved. There was no deficiency problem then and there isn\u2019t one now. So, a synthetic chemical is being mandated into a staple food to fix a deficiency that doesn\u2019t exist, and the chemical carries documented cancer and neurological risks for a significant minority of the population.<\/p>\n

The Bovaer Disaster: What Actually Occurred<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s look at the other half of the story. Bovaer, which we have covered in depth before, is an additive for cattle feed that is designed to suppress methane emissions by changing how cattle digest food. The harms of Bovaer are not theoretical but have occurred at scale on commercial farms, and the farmers are still fighting back.<\/p>\n

The Danish Mandate<\/strong><\/p>\n

In January 2025, Denmark became the first country in the world to require that dairy farmers reduce their herds\u2019 methane emissions by 8%. This requirement could be met by feeding Bovaer or a high-fat diet. The legal basis was the \u201cGreen Three-Party Agreement<\/em>\u201d (Den Gr\u00f8nne Trepart<\/em>) of October 2021, which set a general digestion-reduction requirement from 2025 onwards (Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, 2023).<\/p>\n

The mandate was framed as technology-neutral: farmers could use Bovaer or increase dietary fat. However, Bovaer was far easier to implement. Here\u2019s the critical detail: the EU had approved Bovaer in 2022 based on an EFSA risk assessment focusing on efficacy, animal health, and food safety (Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, 2023).<\/p>\n

The Sickness Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most farmers waited until the October 1, 2025 cutoff. Within weeks, the reports started flooding in. SEGES Innovation, an independent Danish agricultural research firm, released its survey results in late November 2025. The results showed that among 644 dairy herds using Bovaer:<\/p>\n