Is there flame retardant in your drink?!

By Evening Express staff

updated 4:17 PM EST, Mon January 28, 2013

NEED TO KNOW

PepsiCo plans to take 'brominated vegetable oil' out of Gatorade
See a list of drinks with the chemical, which is also found in fire retardants

What use is an orange soda that doesn’t taste like orange, right? But in order to keep those citrusy flavors suspended in your drink, some companies are using brominated vegetable oil (BVO), a substance also found in flame retardant.

PepsiCo says it plans to remove the controversial chemical from its Gatorade drinks (no word on their plans for Mountain Dew, which also contains BVO). Officials say the move has been in the works for awhile, but a 15-year-old girl who petitioned the company to stop making Gatorade with BVO attracted a lot of attention to the issue with her petition on Change.org.

Several other countries have already banned BVO, but you can find it in about 10% of soft drinks sold in the United States, including these:

PepsiCo: Gatorade and Mountain Dew
Coca-Cola: Powerade, Fanta Orange and Fresca
Dr. Pepper Snapple Group: Sunkist Peach Soda

You can expect the BVO-free Gatorade products to hit shelves in the next few months.

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