Hitting a Nerve with Soft Drinks…Brominated Vegetable Oil? Yuck!

Brominated vegetable oil…So this is what’s in some soft drinks ?!?!

I received an email from one of the social action websites that I am involved with and it really got my back up.  I know a little about the neurotoxin bromine. I know that it’s a fire retardant, but what I didn’t know is that it is allowed in food and drink products to set limits of 15 parts per million. That blows my mind, especially since our mattresses are tested down to .0000001 parts per million … and no one eats them … apart from those odd late night sessions induced by gastronomic related dream states.

It seems I’m not the only one that’s upset by brominated vegetable oil. Sarah Kavanagh has created a petition  that urges PepsiCo to stop putting BVO in Gatorade.

You should be aware that about 10 percent of soft drinks contain this oil including Mountain Dew, Fanta Orange and Sunkist Pineapple to name a few. It’s also present in pesticides, plastics, nasal sprays, dough conditioners for baking and you guessed it … mattresses. Not Essentia mattresses, mind you.

What bromine does is that it displaces iodine which can lead to an increased risk of breast cancer as well as cancers of the thyroid, ovaries and prostate. On top of this bromine can affect fertility as well as accumulate in the nervous system and breast milk.

So why not follow Sarah Kavanagh in her attempt to affect change.