An ingredient that was once commonly used in citrus-flavored sodas to thoroughly blend the spicy flavor into the drink may finally be banned for good across the United States.
The FDA has proposed revoking the registration of a modified vegetable oil called BVO because recent toxicology studies make it difficult to support its continued use.
“The proposed action is an example of how the agency monitors new evidence and, when necessary, conducts scientific research to examine safety-related issues and takes regulatory action when science does not support the continued safe use of additives in foods,” said James Jones, deputy FDA Human Food Commissioner.
BVO, or brominated vegetable oil, has been used since the 1930s as an emulsifier to ensure citrus flavorings don’t float to the surface of sodas. By binding a dozen bromine atoms to a triglyceride, a dense oil is created that floats evenly in water when mixed with less dense fats.
But that’s not BVO’s only trick. Animal studies strongly suggest that the compound can slowly accumulate in our fatty tissue. Given bromine’s potential ability to prevent iodine from doing its important work in the thyroid, health authorities around the world have been wary of the emulsifier’s risks for decades.
In fact, BVO is already banned in many countries, including India, Japan and European Union countries, and was banned in the state of California just last October, with legislation set to take effect in 2027.
But the FDA was slow to convince. In the 1950s, the agency considered the ingredient Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS); Official classification allowed for items that were either properly tested or, for ingredients commonly used before 1958, did not appear to be harmful.
That changed in the following decade when questions arose about its potential toxicity, leading the FDA to revoke its GRAS classification for BVO and temporarily restrict its use to relatively small concentrations of no more than 15 parts per million in citrus-flavored beverages only restrict.
Gathering data on the risks posed by even these small amounts of BVO over time has not been easy because they rely heavily on long-term studies that re-evaluate the health effects on a considerably large sample of people. But the evidence slowly piled up.
A British study in the 1970s found that bromine accumulates in human tissues. Animal studies have linked high levels of BVO to heart and behavioral problems.
It took time and a number of additional studies, but based on recent animal studies based on relative concentrations of BVO that humans are likely to ingest, the FDA is ultimately convinced that there is enough evidence to ban its use altogether.
Luckily, most major soda makers are ahead. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. have gradually removed the ingredient from their products over the past decade.
“Over the years, many beverage companies have reformulated their products to replace BVO with an alternative ingredient, and today few beverages in the U.S. contain BVO,” says Jones.
The ban could be a sign of more to come. Jones announced that the agency is reviewing regulations that allow the use of certain food additives, with the goal of automatically banning the approval of any food coloring that causes cancer in humans or animals, resulting in a more flexible bureaucratic process.
A final request to reclassify BVOs by the FDA must still go through a lengthy review process that is not expected to be completed until early 2024.
With suitable alternatives to BVO already being used around the world to add every last drop of flavor to citrus drinks, this ingredient is unlikely to be overlooked.