Michael A. Smith - Another Deadly Chemical in Our Food Supply
April 16, 2012 Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) is vegetable oil with bromine added to it. Brominated vegetable oil is used as an emulsifier in citrus-flavored soft drinks to help the flavors stay suspended in the drink and to produce a cloudy appearance.
Just look at Mountain Dew, for example. The hazy appearance within its very unnatural fluorescent color comes from BVO.
Patented by chemical companies as a flame retardant, and banned in food throughout Europe and Japan, BVO has been added to soft drinks for decades in North America. Now, some scientists have a renewed interest in this little-known ingredient.
Is BVO Safe?
Overall, this is probably not a safe additive. Even the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations imposes restrictions on the use of BVO in the United States. Because there are questions about its safety, an obvious restriction is to limit the amount of BVO in soft drinks. The FDA limits the use of BVO to 15 parts per million in fruit-flavored beverages.
Read More:
http://blog.lef.org/2012/04/deadly-chemical-food-supply.html
