Posted on 05/06/2014 12:13:55 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The world's largest beverage-maker, Coca-Cola, plans to remove a controversial ingredient from some of its US drinks brands by the end of this year, following an online petition.
Brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, is found in Coca-Cola fruit and sports drinks such as Fanta and Powerade.
Rival Pepsi removed the chemical from its Gatorade sports drink last year.
In Japan and the European Union, the use of BVO as a food additive is not allowed.
Pepsi has a plan to remove the ingredient from its entire product portfolio.
It uses BVO in its Mountain Dew and Amp Energy drinks sold in the US.
BVO has been used as a stabiliser in fruit-flavoured drinks as it helps to prevent ingredients from separating.
According to medical researchers at the Mayo Clinic, excessive consumption of soft drinks containing BVO has been linked to negative health effects, including reports of memory loss and skin and nerve problems.
BVO was dropped from the US Food and Drug Administration's "Generally Recognised as Safe" list of food ingredients in 1970.
However, drinks companies in the US are allowed to use BVO at up to 15 parts per million.'Safe'
Coca-Cola spokesman Josh Gold stressed the move to remove BVO was not an issue of safety.
"All of our beverages, including those with BVO, are safe and always have been - and comply with all regulations in the countries where they are sold," he said in a statement.
"The safety and quality of our products is our highest priority."
Coca-Cola said it would switch to using sucrose acetate isobutyrate or glycerol ester of rosin, which is commonly found in chewing gum.
The Atlanta-based company said two flavours of its Powerade sports drink - fruit punch and strawberry lemonade - have already replaced BVO with glycerol ester of rosin.
Coca-Cola said that BVO was not used in many nations other than the US, but it would be removed from products in Canada and Latin America.Online petition
Coca-Cola's decision to remove BVO from its drink reflects a growing move among companies to reconsider certain practices due to public pressure.
The campaign against the use of BVO was begun by Sarah Kavanagh, a teenager from Mississippi, who questioned why the ingredient was being used in drinks targeted at health-conscious athletes.
Thousands of people have since signed her online petition on Change.org to have BVO removed from drinks.
Following Monday's announcement by Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Ms Kavanagh was quoted as saying: "It's really good to know that companies, especially big companies, are listening to consumers.''
Do NOT mess with my Diet Coke or there WILL be trouble!
You can get a gallon for the cost of a can that way. And none of the artificial ingredients.
Big Lots sells Cokes made in Mexico with real sugar..........
Mt. Dew, in spades. Diet or regular.
I gave up drinking pop going on four years ago now.
Best health decision I ever made.
A racquetball buddy drank 6 diet sodas a day. When he started with us, we convinced him to stop. He switched to unsweet tea with lemon. His health, stanima and game improved significantly.
Really? Thanks, my only rule with Big Lots is `nothing with moving parts’, general rule, so I’m going to buy some Big Lots Coke!
Try it. The "real deal" without the HFCS tastes much beter.
From the article:
“According to medical researchers at the Mayo Clinic, excessive consumption of soft drinks containing BVO has been linked to negative health effects, including reports of memory loss and skin and nerve problems”
From the Mayo Clinic:
“There also have been a few reports of people experiencing memory loss and skin and nerve problems after drinking excessive amounts (more than 2 liters a day) of soda containing BVO.”
From Wikipedia:
“However, there was no evidence that the symptoms were caused by that particular ingredient. [16]”
From the article cited in Wikipedia:
“One extrapolation from the pig studies was the estimate that a 165-pound adult would have to drink 353 12-ounce cans of soda per day for 42 days to have detectable bromine in his/her fat. Laughable, you say? Your intrepid investigator has read the medical report of a man whose diet included three or four liters of BVO’d soda every day. In a month, he was in the ER with confusion, headaches, tremors, memory loss, and fatigue. By the time he was correctly diagnosed two months later, he couldn’t walk and was pretty much down for the count. Luckily, the diagnosis of bromism and six hours of hemodialysis brought him around.”
You guys figure it out.
Beer & wine. You forgot beer & wine.
Maybe it’s just our Big Lots, cause we have a lot of Mexicans around.................
If you can’t pronounce it, or spell it, don’t drink it......................
Don’t drink anything you can’t spell, pronounce or is referred to by letters and numbers.................
Well there goes the zing.... in Coke.
Bring back CYCLAMATES! They actually tasted good!..............
The new Alar scare of our times.
Just to sharpen the point a bit, a 165-pound man would have to consume 33 gallons of soda every day for 42 straight days just to have any detectable bromine.
Man, people are gullable. I'm beginning to think people like to be scared. They like to be frightened just so they can do SOMETHING and thereby feel in control.
you are dating yourself...trouble being - I remember that whole thing too
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