The Dhaka Times Desk Coca-Cola and PepsiCo recently announced in a statement that they will remove the controversial ingredients from their drinks. Beverage products include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Fanta, Powerade and many more.
These ingredients in beverages are called brominated vegetable oils. It is actually made by mixing a bromine solution with various vegetable oils. The Coca-Cola and PepsiCo companies are taking this immediate action based on a petition by a company called Change.org. The petition comes from a Mississippi teenager who wants PepsiCo's Gatorade and Coca-Cola's PowerRed to be free of these harmful ingredients. The young woman named Sarah Cavenagh said in the court petition that the brominated vegetable oil used by PepsiCo and Coca-Cola in their beverage products is used to extinguish fires in various countries of the European Union and in Japan. But Coca-Cola and PepsiCo claim that their vegetable oil is completely natural. Here the health principles are followed in the matter of mixing of chemical ingredients. They also say that the use of this ingredient is due to its strong role in diet regulation.
The PepsiCo company claims it removed brominated vegetable oil from its Gatorade drink last year. PepsiCo says it is currently working to remove the ingredient from its other beverage products. PepsiCo uses BVO or brominated vegetable oil heavily in their Mountain Dew and AMP energy drinks. The company has not specified when it will remove BVO from all its beverage products. In another recent statement, Coca-Cola claimed to be removing the controversial ingredient from all their drinks. Coca Cola uses more BVOT in their Powerade drinks. It is also used in many other citrus flavored solutions, from Fanta, Fresca. The company also claims that the ingredient is used in accordance with US health laws.
Coca-Cola says it now uses sucrose acetate isoborate instead, and uses rosin instead of glycerol, for public health reasons. This ingredient is used not only in Coca-Cola, but also in many drinks in Canada and Latin America.
Reference: Times of India
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