Azodicarbonamide

Texas Senate Bill 25 (89th Legislature, 2025) lists this substance among 44 ingredients that trigger a mandatory consumer warning label under Texas Health & Safety Code Sec. 431.0815. The label reads: "WARNING: This product contains an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom." It applies to food labels developed or copyrighted on or after January 1, 2027. On February 11, 2026 the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas preliminarily enjoined enforcement against the plaintiff trade groups and their members; Texas appealed to the Fifth Circuit on March 5, 2026.

Named in Texas SB 25 (2025) among 44 ingredients requiring a consumer warning label: "not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom." The requirement applies to labels developed or copyrighted on or after Jan 1, 2027, and was preliminarily enjoined by a federal court (W.D. Tex., Feb 11 2026); Texas’s appeal is pending at the Fifth Circuit.

Weight of evidence suggests that azodicarbonamide can induce asthma in a significant proportion of exposed people, and azodicarbonamide should be considered as a human skin sensitizer.

WHO's chemical-safety assessment finds azodicarbonamide can induce occupational asthma and is a human skin sensitizer in exposed workers.

Semicarbazide was found in foods packaged in glass jars and bottles and traced to the "breakdown of azodicarbonamide, the foaming agent in the plastic gaskets that are used to seal metal lids to glass packaging." Commission Directive 2004/1/EC banned azodicarbonamide in plastics used as food contact materials, "due to enter into force on 2 August 2005," to eliminate that source of semicarbazide in food. This is a food-CONTACT action; it is not a ruling on azodicarbonamide used as a flour treatment.

The EU banned azodicarbonamide in food-contact plastics (Commission Directive 2004/1/EC, in force 2 August 2005) because it broke down to semicarbazide in packaged food. A packaging action - not a ruling on its use in flour.

The FDA is planning to revisit its approval of the food additive ADA (azodicarbonamide), which it previously approved to whiten cereal flour and improve baking bread dough; ADA is nicknamed the 'yoga mat chemical' and remains banned in Europe due to concerns that the chemical can create a potential carcinogen called semicarbazide during bread production.

FDA announced it is reassessing its approval of azodicarbonamide (the 'yoga mat chemical'); the additive is already banned in Europe over a semicarbazide carcinogen concern.

US federal regulation 21 CFR 172.806 permits azodicarbonamide "as an aging and bleaching ingredient in cereal flour in an amount not to exceed 2.05 grams per 100 pounds of flour (0.0045 percent; 45 parts per million)" and "as a dough conditioner in bread baking in a total amount not to exceed 0.0045 percent (45 parts per million) by weight of the flour used."

US regulation permits azodicarbonamide in flour and in bread dough up to 45 parts per million by weight of the flour (21 CFR 172.806).

In the same 2005 evaluation of semicarbazide - the breakdown product behind the food-contact ban - EFSA's AFC Panel concluded that "the issue of carcinogenicity is not of concern for human health, given the levels of SEM reported during 2003 and 2004," and that new studies showed a "lack of genotoxic activity of SEM in vivo."

EFSA's 2005 evaluation concluded that, at the semicarbazide levels reported in 2003-2004, "the issue of carcinogenicity is not of concern for human health," and that new studies showed a "lack of genotoxic activity of SEM in vivo."