Glass of orange soda
Glass of orange soda
By August, food and drink companies can no longer use the chemical brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, in their products. That’s thanks to an overdue federal ban on BVO as an ingredient, in response to concerns about its potential health harms with long-term exposure.
Some beverage makers aren’t waiting for the August deadline to comply with the Food and Drug Administration’s ban. Popular soft drinks and citrus-flavored energy boosters, like Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew and Gatorade, no longer contain BVO. They previously used the chemical to improve the drinks’ taste, consistency and appearance.
BVO is a chemical compound and additive that combines vegetable oil, usually soybean or palm, with bromine to prevent oil from separating, stabilizing ingredients and unifying textures in beverages and some food items, like baked goods.
Health risks associated with BVO exposure include irritated skin and mucous membranes. Long-term exposure harms the nervous system, causing headaches, fatigue and memory loss.
Because of these concerns, some countries have banned BVO. The United Kingdom’s ban dates back to the 1970s. More than 50 years later, the FDA finally banned it in 2024. Companies have until August 2 to remove BVO from their ingredient lists.
How BVO is used
You’ve seen bottles of drinks way past their expiration date – they don’t look as fresh as newly purchased products. That's because some beverages settle over time, losing their consistency and carbonation.
BVO let manufacturers affordably prevent oil- and water-based ingredients from separating, which would otherwise give drinks an unappealing, cloudy appearance. Companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola used it for this purpose.
Cost-effective and cost-competitive BVO alternatives exist, and companies have used them in products sold in other countries. But it was still allowed for use in most of the U.S. until last year.
The health effects of BVO consumption
BVO exposure has been a source of concern for decades.
Bromine, a naturally occurring element that is a liquid at room temperature, is harmful when ingested in large amounts. It accumulates in the body, impacting fat, the liver, heart and brain tissue.
A 2022 study found that when rats are fed an amount of BVO similar to average human consumption, the level of bromine in their bodies negatively affected their hearts, lungs, fat tissue and thyroid hormones.
Moderate consumption of BVO is less likely to cause severe health harms. But there are concerns over its potential long-term effects.
Regulating BVO
In the late 1950s, the FDA categorized BVO as generally recognized as safe, or GRAS. GRAS is a regulatory loophole that lets food and beverage companies add new chemicals to their products without undergoing the FDA’s safety review process.
Congress intended the GRAS designation to apply only to ingredients widely recognized as safe, such as salt or vinegar.
The FDA’s margin of safety for BVO in processed foods and beverages was 15 parts per million, meaning products couldn’t contain more than that. But continued research revealed that BVO’s toxicity was more harmful to human health than once believed.
As new information became available, BVO use in manufacturing products declined.
The United Kingdom banned BVO as an ingredient in the 1970s, followed by India in 1990, the European Union in 2008 and Japan in 2010. Meanwhile, the FDA continued to permit the use of BVO in fruit-flavored drinks.
From petition to regulation
A Mississippi teenager’s petition in 2013 sparked market pressure to remove BVO from beverages.
In the face of this public sentiment, PepsiCo began to produce Gatorade without BVO. Coca-Cola soon followed suit.
A decade later, with the 2023 California Food Safety Act, the Golden State became the first in the nation to ban BVO. One year later, the FDA rolled back its 1970 rule allowing BVO in food, setting the deadline for August to comply.
Today, companies have phased BVO out of many processed beverages, but you may still find products on store shelves that were manufactured before the ban.
Before then – and for some time after – make sure to study ingredient lists so you know whether a drink contains BVO.
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Food & Water
Food
Family Health
Children’s Health
Toxic Chemicals
Food Chemicals