The Dangers of the Additive Brominated Vegetable Oil in Drinks

I can almost thank my lucky stars, that I’ve never been much of a soda drinker, in fact, I haven’t consumed any in years. First, I find them way too sickeningly sweet, for the regular types. I also never cared for the diet type as I just didn’t care for the taste, and in consideration that there are now warnings about the health hazards of the added artificial sweetener, aspartame, I would think anyone would steer clear of diet drinks in general.

Now I’ve come across information, of yet another dangerous additive that is found in the citrus flavored type sodas or drinks, such as Mountain Dew, Fresca, Fanta, and is even found in the power drinks, such as the familiar Gatorade, and that is the additive of Brominated Vegetable Oil or BVO. The real kicker in all this is that BVO has actually been banned in over 100 countries, and even the FDA considers this additive as unsafe, yet, so far, no measures have been taken to ban it’s usage here in this country.

Brominated Vegetable Oil, has as it’s composition the element of bromine in which, believe it or not, the vapors of bromine are considered both corrosive and toxic…in other words can outrightly be considered a poisonous chemical. The chemical bromine is used for a number of products, from one of the chemicals that treat surfaces for light-sensitive photographic printing papers, as an additive for gasoline, to agricultural fumigants. At one time, bromine was even used to make sedatives, but then the FDA banned its usage around 1975, as it was found to trigger a whole host of psychiatric disorders.

Just why is BVO used in certain drinks? Supposedly, the reason Brominated Vegetable Oil used in citrus type drinks, is to stabilize the citrus oils to prevent them from separating, giving them a more unified appearance. One can always tell that Brominated Vegetable Oil has been added even if one doesn’t read the ingredient label, as such drinks will have a rather murky, cloudy look to them, rather than clear. And believe it or not, many drinks containing BVO, do not include it on their labels!

Now of course, the FDA claims that BVO is used in acceptable levels that would do no harm, however, it has been proven that BVO, when consumed is stored in a person’s fat cells, thus over time can accumulate. With time, if the average person consumes enough of these beverages that contain BVO, you can just bet, its toxic side effects will start to show up. And what are the side effects? Do you really want to know? Yes, they are that bad.

I’ve taken the liberty to include the list of the effects of BVO are from the Natural Thyroid Choices Website This websites primarily discusses about the soda Mountain Dew, but it can pertain to any of the drinks that contain BVO in them.

Abdominal cramps
Anxiety
Anorexia
Blurred vision
Coma
Constricted pupils
Convulsions
Cyanosis (skin blueness)
Diarrhea
Dizziness
Heart beat malfunction
Headache
Weakness
Tremors of the tongue and eyelids
Muscular cramps
Nausea
Respiritory difficulty
Salivation
Slow pulse
Sweating
Tearing
Vomiting (1)

Other possible side effects I found listed in other sources also includes birth defects, growth problems, memory loss and fatigue (2) & (3)

It actual makes me shudder to think that people are consuming beverages that contain such an additive with so many dangerous side affects. Think for instance, how many people, including children, will drink Gatorade, especially after strenuous physical or sports activity and are under the impression that this is a “wonder” drink to rehydrate and replenish one’s body of vitally needed fluids, instead what they are getting is a dose of a toxic chemical.

Thankfully, I just never cared for the taste of Mountain Dew, and only once tried Gatorade and completely hated the taste. I’d much rather drink pure juices or even just plain water. I’m hoping that enough people will put pressure on the FDA to completely ban the use of BVO in any beverage, just as it’s been banned in over 100 countries. Isn’t our health worth it?

Information About Brominated Vegetable Oil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brominated_vegetable_oil

http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/the-dirty-dozen-12-foodsfood-additives-to-avoid-and-why/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromine

Image taken from a post on Living Next Door to Alice.  (Find John Prine lyrics there.)

” Because Krsna’s feet is compared as lotus — “lotus feet,” we say — so where there is lotus, there is hamsa, swan. Swan, you’ll find. That is the difference between the crows and the swan. Crows gather in a place, filthy place, where all rotten things are kept. The crows come there. Where all rotten things are there, all the crows will come. But when there is lotus, the crows will not go there; the hamsa, swan, they’ll go there.”

Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.9.18 — Mayapur, February 25, 1976

Today I got two different emails with quotes from the Vedabase. The following isn’t one of them just selected for sake of example:

“Therefore to become wise after many, many births of struggling or cultivating knowledge, when one comes to perfection of knowledge he surrenders to Kåñëa.”

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Conversation with Bajaj and Bhusan — September 11, 1972, Arlington, Texas, At Their Home

Note how Krsna is written as Kåñëa. This happens when things are copied and pasted out of the Vedabase.

The Vedabase is a database done by the Bhaktivedanta Archives which has all of Srila Prabhupada’s books, all of his transcribed lectures and conversations and books about him, lots of ISKCON related stuff et cetera. It turns any schmo like me into a researcher with access to lots of material right on my personal computer.

Sanskrit uses a nonWestern set of characters. When it is transliterated into English alphabet there are a lot of diacritical markings used in order to cope with the limitations of said alphabet.

In order for these diacritics to display properly a Sanskrit font has to be used, otherwise Krsna displays as Kåñëa and most other transliterated Sanskrit words are also messed up.

So I am on a campaign to eliminate Kåñëa from devotee writing.  Hence the following, which should make sense if you use Vedabase:

When copying from Vedabase there is a Copy With Reference without Diacritics feature.

On the toolbar that has the Search box, go to the right past the Arrows and the Show History icons and then there is the Copy with Reference icon, then the Copy with Reference without Diacritics icon which looks like two pages one on top of the other. When you have selected some text, one of the sheets turns yellow. Click on that instead of using other ways to Copy.

Then when the text is pasted in Krsna stays Krsna.

At least that is the way it works in my version.

If you use generic Copy by right clicking, diacritics are included and then it Pastes weird looking in places like email or word processing software where a Sanskrit font isn’t installed. Note the differences hereafter first with diacritics, then without:

You do not understand Kåñëa, and you want to understand Kåñëa’s dealings with Rädhäräëé.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Conversation with Indian Guests — April 12, 1975, Hyderabad

You do not understand Krsna, and you want to understand Krsna’s dealings with Radharani.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Conversation with Indian Guests — April 12, 1975, Hyderabad

Anyway I sent this out in reply to the emails I received, which came from a email group, which means everyone in the group got it.

Dulal Candra sent this in reply:

“Or better yet, use the new Vedabase.com online which is in unicode (diacritics will properly display in any font). It also has a wonderful search feature. Please note that diacritics will be automatically be stripped on pamho.net

“http://vedabase.com/en/

“Thank you Bhaktivedanta Archives for this wonderful tool.”

Next day (Jan. 25th) addendum:

I got this feedback:

> Thanks for the Vedabase tips, although my copy doesn’t have such features.

My reply:

If you go to the View tab in the menu bar go down and click on Toolbars and there will be a popup window.  Make sure Copy Options is selected.

Another update:

Ekanath sent an image of another way to get the icons on the Toolbar. Click on the thumbnail to see. You get to Customize under the Tools tab.

“And so, bewildered by such false attractions and aversions, the conditioned soul must accept further material bodies, which means he must undergo repeated births and deaths. One who is self-realized knows that all such mundane emotions have nothing to do with the pure soul, whose natural propensity is to engage in the loving service of the Lord.”

Srimad Bhagvatam 11.28.15

“Alienation begins when culture divides me against myself, puts a mask on me, gives me a role I may or may not want to play. Alienation is complete when I become completely identified with my mask, totally satisfied with my role, and convince myself that any other identity or role is inconceivable.”

Merton, Thomas. The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, edited by Patrick Hart (New
York: New Directions, 1981) 381

http://www.facebook.com/groups/AllThingsOxen/

PITTSBURGH – The huge, belching smokestacks of electric power plants have long symbolized air pollution woes. But a shift is under way: More and more electric plants around the nation are being fueled by natural gas, which is far cleaner than coal, the traditional fuel.

The most optimistic projections describe an abundant domestic energy source that will create enormous numbers of jobs and lead to cleaner skies.

Nationwide, the electricity generated by gas-fired plants has risen by more than 50 percent over the last decade, while coal-fired generation has declined slightly. The gas plants generated about 600 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2000 and 981 billion hours in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

During the same period coal generation declined from 1,966 billion hours to 1,850 billion hours, while hydroelectric and nuclear generation stayed about the same. The figures include electricity use by consumers and industry.

Nationwide, EIA said natural gas use for power generation rose 7 percent between 2009 and 2010. That’s about 515 billion cubic feet. The biggest jumps were in the Southeast, with use rising 24 percent in North Carolina, 18 percent in Virginia and 15 percent in South Carolina.

“Most of the people I know in the electric power industry are building natural gas” plants, said Jay Apt, a professor of technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. That’s because of low prices over the last few years and the relatively low cost of building such plants, compared with coal-fired or nuclear.

But Apt cautions that the trend could stall because the basics of supply and demand mean that if too many plants embrace cheap gas, it won’t stay cheap.

“The surest route to $6 or $8 gas is for everybody to plan on $4 gas,” Apt said, and if prices do rise, coal will again be the most cost-effective fuel. Natural gas is priced per million BTU.

Apt noted that there was a “huge building boom” in natural gas plants from the late 1990s to 2004, because utilities thought they would get rich from the combination of cheap fuel and plants that were highly efficient and relatively cheap to build. There were predictions that prices would stay low over the long term, too.

But natural gas prices spiked, and the new gas-fired plants around the nation stayed idle much of the time. That trend was also driven by another irony: The gas-fired plants are easier to start and stop compared with coal or nuclear, so many utilities used them just for peak electric demand periods.

Still, history may not repeat itself because of the huge surge in supply from Marcellus Shale gas drilling. Vast gas deposits that previously couldn’t be extracted economically are now being tapped using new technologies. Instead of drilling straight down, companies can drill horizontally and follow seams of gas for a mile or more deep underground. Then the drillers use hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to free the gas from the relatively dense shale rock.

That’s led to environmental concerns from some residents, scientists and regulators who feel there are too many unknowns in the process, along with an undisputed boom in production that’s brought great wealth to some landowners, and a surge of jobs.

Some companies clearly believe the switch to natural gas plants makes long-term sense.

Sunbury Generation LP in central Pennsylvania plans to close five of its six coal-fired generators and replace them with two natural gas-fired turbines by 2015, the Daily Item reported last month.

But some companies are deciding not to switch fuels.

The owners of the Homer City Generating Station in western Pennsylvania, the state’s second-largest coal plant, plan to add $700 million in pollution control equipment to keep the 40-year-old plant running and in compliance with clean air laws.

Natural gas-fired power plants are “orders of magnitude cleaner” than coal plants, said Jan Jarrett, president of the PennFuture environmental group.

Jarrett said PennFuture wants coal-fired units retired and replaced by gas-fired, at least for the short term.

“There’s no way that we can scale up wind and solar to meet the demands over the near future,” she said. “Gas itself is a much cleaner burning fuel that can help clean up our air.”

But Apt sees a slow, moderate shift.

“My sense is you’ll get small changes here,” he said, since the current low natural gas prices are attracting market demand from around the world.

There are already federal permits for 3 trillion cubic feet per year of natural gas exports, Apt said.

“Will we export that bounty, and if we do, will that drive up U.S. prices,” he said. Natural gas sells for about $8 in Europe and $14 in Japan, but less than $4 here.

“They’re not going to tear down the coal plants, because they’ve seen this movie before,” Apt said of electric companies. “They will mothball those plants and start up the coal plants again” if natural gas prices rise.

Bhagavad Gita 8.14

From the Harvard Business Review blog

by Oliver Segovia

Several years ago, a friend decided she wanted to follow her passion. She loved the liberal arts and the academe. She was a talented graphic designer, a great writer, and was the president of a student club. But the prospect of working a nine-to-five job was never interesting. I can’t blame her. After all, ours is a millennial generation proselytized to pursue our dreams. So she spent seven years getting a PhD, writing an award-winning dissertation in the process. It was a wonderful ride while it lasted, and she was among the happiest people I knew.

Then the recession hit. The value of university endowments crashed. Teaching and research positions were cut. She moved back in with her family, stopped paying off her student loans, and waited two years before getting a minor teaching role in a small research center. Throughout this time, she suffered the anguish of an uncertain future, became socially withdrawn, and felt a sense of betrayal.

It’s a poster tale for our times. Was following her passion worth it?

Like myself, today’s twentysomethings were raised to find our dreams and follow them. But it’s a different world. And as the jobless generation grows up, we realize the grand betrayal of the false idols of passion. This philosophy no longer works for us, or at most, feels incomplete. So what do we do? I propose a different frame of reference: Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.

Putting problems at the center of our decision-making changes everything. It’s not about the self anymore. It’s about what you can do and how you can be a valuable contributor. People working on the biggest problems are compensated in the biggest ways. I don’t mean this in a strict financial sense, but in a deeply human sense. For one, it shifts your attention from you to others and the wider world. You stop dwelling. You become less self-absorbed. Ironically, we become happier if we worry less about what makes us happy.

The good thing is that there are a lot of big problems to go by: climate change, sustainability, poverty, education, health care, technology, and urbanization in emerging markets. What big problem serves as your compass? If you’re a young leader and you haven’t articulated this yet, here are some things you can do.

Develop situational awareness. There’s too much focus on knowing the self. Balance this with knowing the world. Stay in touch. Be sensitive to the problems faced by the unfortunate and marginalized. Get out of the office and volunteer. If you’re in school, get out of the classroom. It’s been a long time coming, but business schools are finally instituting changes that put the real world at the center of their programs.

Look into problems that affect you in a very personal way. We’re more likely to be motivated by problems we can relate to on a personal level. In Passion & Purpose, Umaimah Mendhro recounts her story fleeing a war-torn Pakistan with her family and how the experience of dodging bullets to escape helped her summon the wherewithal to found thedreamfly.org, an initiative that helps create connections across communities in conflict.

Connect with people working on big problems. In a world where problems are by their very nature interdisciplinary, just getting to know people who are passionate about one problem leads to discussions on how other problems can be solved. When Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala helped reinvent Manila Water to better provide for the Philippines’ capital, he had to deal not only with the typical issues a public utility had to face, but also with problems related to climate change, technology, and community development.

Take time off and travel. Forget about traveling as a tourist. Instead, structure a trip that takes you off the beaten path. Go to an unconventional place. Backpack and get lost. The broader and richer experience pays dividends down the line. Steve Jobs described his time living in India as one of the most enriching and mind-opening phases of his life, and this undoubtedly helped him develop the intuition to solve the big problem of making lives simpler through technology.

We don’t find happiness by looking within. We go outside and immerse in the world. We are called to a higher purpose by the inescapable circumstances that are laid out on our path. It’s our daily struggles that define us and bring out the best in us, and this lays down the foundation to continuously find fulfillment in what we do even when times get tough.

Happiness comes from the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, and what the world needs. We’ve been told time and again to keep finding the first. Our schools helped developed the second. It’s time we put more thought on the third.

What big problems are you trying to solve?