FDA Warns: Remove This Popular Item from Washington Kitchens

You might be surprised to find that you likely have some of this in your own home.

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FDA Warns Food Usage No Longer Considered Safe

This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about a widely used food product that they have found to no longer be safe. BVO, or Brominated Vegetable Oil, is a food product that is regularly found in diet sodas. BVO is vegetable oil that has been modified by bromine and is used to keep the natural oils they use for flavoring dissolved in some liquids without separating. BVO is already not allowed in both Europe and Japan and many major US soft drink companies like Coca-Cola and Gatorade both removed BVO from their products between 2013 and 2014 according to the Food Network. As far as a reason for the sudden change after years of use, the FDA says "Although BVO has a long history of use in foods and was at one time considered GRAS, we have continued to study it to understand any potential health impacts". To find if you have BVO in your diet soft drinks, the FDA advises to check the ingredients on the label and it should be near the bottom. Food Lion-brand sodas, some Great Value-brand sodas, and Sun Drop citrus sodas are known to have BVO in their ingredients. You can read the full press release from the FDA on their official website by clicking here.