Driving Under the Influence of . . . Bread

Phil Price a nationally known DUI attorney in Montgomery, Alabama, conducted an interesting series of tests a few years back on one of the most commonly used breath testing machines.  Without consuming any alcoholic beverages, he submitted himself to repeated breath testing after eating various different types of food. His findings were absolutely startling.

After consuming almost any type of bread product for example:

• white loaf bread
• donuts
• pretzels
• pastries, etc.

Price consistently registered blood-alcohol readings on breath testing machine. These levels were commonly around .03%, but rose as high as .05% (which is enough, along with a drink or two, to reach illegal levels). Further to this, the Intoxilyzer’s slope detector (an electrical circuit designed to detect alcohol from the mouth rather than from the lungs) failed to indicate the presence of any "mouth alcohol".

Reacting to the use of these findings by defense attorneys, the Washington State Toxicology Laboratory conducted their own studies. Their research confimed Price’s experience.

What caused bread to register on breath machines as alcohol? The theory of the state lab’s experts:

"Most baked products with listed contents indicating they contained yeast did in fact have some alcohol present. Alcohol is produced by the fermentation process in yeasts by their action on simple sugars used in preparing the dough….Although most of the alcohol in the dough is lost during the baking process, some is evidently retained in the matrix of the bread…"

The effects of bread on breathalyzers is not just an interesting anecdote.  The significance of these findings should be apparent. First, bread dough tends to stick between the teeth and remain there for extended periods of time, later to be breathed into a breathalyzer; it also absorbs alcohol while between the teeth. Second, although it is not illegal to drive with a .04% blood alcohol level,adding one or two drinks to the bread reading could raise that above the illegal .08% level.

Tuesday 24th August 2010 - Source Lawrence Taylor Duiblog