What if the wheat we eat transforms the “antioxidant” ascorbic acid into the “oxidant” dehydroascorbic acid?

Kenneth J. Carpenter (The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C, 1986) wrote …

“As far back as 1935, it had been found that ascorbic acid was as effective an improver as potassium bromate. At the time this was of no practical significance, because ascorbic acid was then a rare chemical, but was of theoretical interest because it was a reducing rather than an oxidizing agent. By 1960, it was inexpensive and one of the few chemicals not under the suspicion of toxicity. Further research indicated that it was first oxidized in the dough to dehydroascorbic acid which then participated in the oxidation of the protein. In the 1970s, most of the bread in Britain was made with the addition to the bread flour of 30 ppm (parts per million) of both potassium bromate and ascorbic acid. In Britain alone, it has been estimated that over 60 tons per year of ascorbic acid were being used for this purpose; some other countries have used it at higher concentrations. In another development, high-energy mixing could be avoided via the addition of an amino acid, but ascorbic acid was still required at 30-50 ppm. Unfortunately, none of the vitamin activity remained in the final loaf.”

If ascorbic acid can’t be manufactured in the body, how does so much of it get into the brain?

Ascorbic acid can’t pass through the blood-brain barrier.

It can’t pass through the blood-ocular barrier either.

The blood-ocular barrier is a combination of the blood-aqueous barrier and the blood-retinal barrier.

Buck Rogers and other scientists of the 25th Century are going to roll on the floor laughing at our miserable level of medical mastery.
.
.