For the record, nothing says “thirst quenching” like a mouthful of BVO. “What the fuck is that,” you ask? It stands for Bromated Vegetable Oil, and up until recently, it’s been a main ingredient in your favorite sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade. It’s also a patented flame retardant.
Perfect for extinguishing the fire in your belly
That’s right, after your workouts, you’ve been downing fire extinguisher.
Now it’s not all that surprising that, something colorful and sugary has all kinds of chemicals floating around in them, but what might surprise you, maybe just a little, is the fact that BVO is a chemical that has been a part of pretty much every soft drink in the US, despite being banned internationally for human consumption.
I’m no organic, tree hugging hippie, but I do realize that the majority of things we willingly put in our body on a daily basis is probably killing us. I suppose the worst part is not so much that companies are pretty much openly doing this sort of thing, but that no one really seems to care until someone crazy enough to give a shit puts out some petition that gets attention from the media and then all of a sudden, you realize that half the garbage you consume on a daily basis is made of lips and assholes, or more likely…chemicals.
Maybe food chemicals get a bad rap, but no matter how many lab rats don’t immediately die from tasting foods laced with fire extinguisher juice, at some point, you have to stop and wonder that were it not for shit you can’t spell that “improves stability and prevents certain ingredients from separating,” maybe we’d all be a little healthier.
But then there’s bacon…and when there’s bacon, fuck health.