Suicidesoldier#1
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- Posted: Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:37:17 +0000
Mountain dew has flame retardant in it! It's called water.
But, apparently, there has been recent concern over Brominated vegetable oil, or "BVO". Brominated vegetable oil is vegetable oil that has been brominated. More or less, they pump bromine in it, to change the density, so it won't float to the surface, like most oils do in water. It’s allowed to be used at a level not to exceed 15 parts per million, according to the FDA, but most soft drinks use about 8 parts per million. Assuming it was pure bromine, you would need about .5-1 gram a day to cause bromism, which are side effects from bromine. Since Bromine has a long elimination half life, 9-12 days, compared to say oxygen at a few minutes, at most, or say water, it can accumulate in the system. The therapeutic dose of bromide is about 3-5 grams of bromide, partially explaining why chronic toxicity (bromism) was once so common. Assuming you consumed 1 gram of bromine for several months, it would still take some 9-12 days for half of this to be gone, and then a longer time for the rest of it. Damaging doses are therefore somewhere around double what the toxicity levels are, since even after the half life is run out, half still remains.
That being said, at 8 parts per million, in a 2000 milliliter thing of mountain dew, that means there are some .00025 mililiters of bromine per 2 liters of mountain dew, or at 1.33 g/mL, or .0003325 grams per 2 liter. To reach half a gram, this would take approximately 1500 2 liters, or 3000 liters. So, if you drank 3000 liters a day, for months on end, you could potentially get sick. Who knew?
Despite this, there has been one documented case of bromism, from a guy who did drink 2-4 liters of squirt a day (still a lot). Apparently, he had an extreme sensitivity to it and was drinking some random off brand grapefruit soda thingy.
This guy seemed to have an extreme sensitivity to it.
It's arguable that if you are sensitive, you'd want to avoid sodas with large quantities of brominated vegetable oil in them, or at least weirdo brands with who knows what in it with 4 liters a day for 20 years.
While this is a good argument against using it, potential unknown sensitivities, lots of people have food allergies, more common to peanut butter, nuts, chocolate, eggs, and even things like chicken and beef. More people are likely to have problems from food poisoning or food allergies with these things than from brominated vegetable oil. In addition, bromine tablets are often used in pools and hot tubs, instead of chlorine; if you've been in a bromine pool, you've likely been exposed to higher concentrations (usually 30 ppm) and inhaled or absorbed higher quantities, given the raw volume of the water, than is even realistically possible from Mountain Dew or other sodas. That being said, this is mostly insignificant; the largest problem with the guy was his unusual ability to retain the bromine, until hemodialysis cleared out most of it and all the symptoms disappeared with no permanent damage relatively quickly.
So if your kidneys don't work, and can't flush out build up waste, you may want to avoid large quantities of soda over many years, or just get some hemodialysis every so often to help clear out build up.
But otherwise I think this controversy is rather silly since it's mostly harmless. Do I want brominated vegetable oil in there? Not really, but their replacement is ester gum, which is, like most types of gums, is just, empty gummy stuff that can build up based on the fact it's so viscous in the first place. It's arguable it's harmless, as well, but no more harmless than consuming vast quantities of sand or sawdust (bacterial free, of course). You could replace it I suppose, but it wouldn't do much.
Despite this! Due to popular demand, pepsi decided to replace it. This has made some believe it's dangerous; but really, if a million people said, hey, we want a cherry version, they'd probably make it. That's how business works.
I think it's kind of silly and an over reaction, but what do you think, ED? Do you mind brominated vegetable oil in soft drinks, or do you think they should switch over to ester gum? Personally I don't care too much, but it would be nice if they made it into a healthier drink; imagine spiking vitamins or something. You could make it so your average American could get way more nutrients, and possibly not worry about calories; but, then you might have problems with that, idk. So, what do you think ED?!
But, apparently, there has been recent concern over Brominated vegetable oil, or "BVO". Brominated vegetable oil is vegetable oil that has been brominated. More or less, they pump bromine in it, to change the density, so it won't float to the surface, like most oils do in water. It’s allowed to be used at a level not to exceed 15 parts per million, according to the FDA, but most soft drinks use about 8 parts per million. Assuming it was pure bromine, you would need about .5-1 gram a day to cause bromism, which are side effects from bromine. Since Bromine has a long elimination half life, 9-12 days, compared to say oxygen at a few minutes, at most, or say water, it can accumulate in the system. The therapeutic dose of bromide is about 3-5 grams of bromide, partially explaining why chronic toxicity (bromism) was once so common. Assuming you consumed 1 gram of bromine for several months, it would still take some 9-12 days for half of this to be gone, and then a longer time for the rest of it. Damaging doses are therefore somewhere around double what the toxicity levels are, since even after the half life is run out, half still remains.
That being said, at 8 parts per million, in a 2000 milliliter thing of mountain dew, that means there are some .00025 mililiters of bromine per 2 liters of mountain dew, or at 1.33 g/mL, or .0003325 grams per 2 liter. To reach half a gram, this would take approximately 1500 2 liters, or 3000 liters. So, if you drank 3000 liters a day, for months on end, you could potentially get sick. Who knew?
Despite this, there has been one documented case of bromism, from a guy who did drink 2-4 liters of squirt a day (still a lot). Apparently, he had an extreme sensitivity to it and was drinking some random off brand grapefruit soda thingy.
This guy seemed to have an extreme sensitivity to it.
It's arguable that if you are sensitive, you'd want to avoid sodas with large quantities of brominated vegetable oil in them, or at least weirdo brands with who knows what in it with 4 liters a day for 20 years.
While this is a good argument against using it, potential unknown sensitivities, lots of people have food allergies, more common to peanut butter, nuts, chocolate, eggs, and even things like chicken and beef. More people are likely to have problems from food poisoning or food allergies with these things than from brominated vegetable oil. In addition, bromine tablets are often used in pools and hot tubs, instead of chlorine; if you've been in a bromine pool, you've likely been exposed to higher concentrations (usually 30 ppm) and inhaled or absorbed higher quantities, given the raw volume of the water, than is even realistically possible from Mountain Dew or other sodas. That being said, this is mostly insignificant; the largest problem with the guy was his unusual ability to retain the bromine, until hemodialysis cleared out most of it and all the symptoms disappeared with no permanent damage relatively quickly.
So if your kidneys don't work, and can't flush out build up waste, you may want to avoid large quantities of soda over many years, or just get some hemodialysis every so often to help clear out build up.
But otherwise I think this controversy is rather silly since it's mostly harmless. Do I want brominated vegetable oil in there? Not really, but their replacement is ester gum, which is, like most types of gums, is just, empty gummy stuff that can build up based on the fact it's so viscous in the first place. It's arguable it's harmless, as well, but no more harmless than consuming vast quantities of sand or sawdust (bacterial free, of course). You could replace it I suppose, but it wouldn't do much.
Despite this! Due to popular demand, pepsi decided to replace it. This has made some believe it's dangerous; but really, if a million people said, hey, we want a cherry version, they'd probably make it. That's how business works.
I think it's kind of silly and an over reaction, but what do you think, ED? Do you mind brominated vegetable oil in soft drinks, or do you think they should switch over to ester gum? Personally I don't care too much, but it would be nice if they made it into a healthier drink; imagine spiking vitamins or something. You could make it so your average American could get way more nutrients, and possibly not worry about calories; but, then you might have problems with that, idk. So, what do you think ED?!
