Controversial Ingredient In Gatorade To Be Replaced By PepsiCo

Controversial Ingredient In Gatorade To Be Replaced By PepsiCo

A controversial ingredient in Gatorade will be removed by Pepsi due to concerns by consumers.

A teenager from Mississippi also filed a petition in connection to brominated vegetable oil or BVO in the sports drink, although Gatorade indicated that the change was not due to the online petition.

The ingredient contained bromine, which is also present in fire retardants. A number of drinks with citrus flavor sold in the US contain a small amount of BVO to ensure an even distribution of the flavor.

Gatorade Lemonade and Orange contain the ingredient. Gatorade spokesperson Molly Carter indicated that BVO-free drinks will enter the US market in the coming months. The replacement of the drinks with BVO was reportedly being considered for some time already, and the move was not connected to the petition filed by Sarah Kavanagh.

A petition was started by the fifteen-year old from Mississippi on Change.org that requested PepsiCo to remove the controversial ingredient from Gatorade. Over 200,000 people signed the petition.

Kavanagh indicated that she thought her petition on Change.org will get support since no one would want to drink fire retardant, especially if it is a drink associated with health. But it will be difficult to know if it will change anything since the company offering Gatorade is quite huge.

She claimed victory following the announcement of Pepsi on the removal of the ingredient from Gatorade.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest indicated that BVO was not evaluated properly and it may be a risky additive to food, which means it may not be a viable addition to Gatorade or any other drink in the market.

Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the food safety watchdog, applauded the move of PepsiCo in removing the ingredient from Gatorade without any directive from the government.

Posted by George Daniels on Sunday January 27 2013, 5:34 AM EDT. Ref: Reuters. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0