FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, bottles of Powerade sports drink and other Coca-Cola products are chilled over ice in Orlando, Fla. A controversial ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, is being... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, bottles of Powerade sports drink and other Coca-Cola products are chilled over ice in Orlando, Fla. A controversial ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, is being... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — Coca-Cola is dropping a controversial ingredient from its Powerade sports drink, after a similar move by PepsiCo's Gatorade last year. 
 
 The ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, had been the target of a petition by a Mississippi teenager, who questioned why it was being used in a drink marketed toward health-conscious athletes. The petition on Change.org noted that the ingredient is linked to a flame retardant and is not approved for use in Japan or the European Union. 
 
 In response to customer feedback, PepsiCo said last year it would drop the ingredient from Gatorade. At the time, Coca-Cola declined to say whether it would remove the ingredient from the two flavors of Powerade that contain it as well. 
 
 But this week, bottles of Powerade in fruit punch and strawberry lemonade flavors being sold in the Detroit, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska, New York and Washington, D.C. areas no longer list the ingredient. Some bottles still list it, however, suggesting Coca-Cola Co. may have started phasing it out recently. 
 
 A representative for the Atlanta-based company confirmed Sunday that its Powerade brands are "BVO-free." But no details were immediately available on when the change would be complete or how the drinks were reformulated. 
 
 Powerade's website still lists brominated vegetable oil as an ingredient for its fruit punch and strawberry lemonade flavors. 
 
 The Food and Drug Administration says brominated vegetable oil is used as a stabilizer for flavoring oils in fruit-flavored drinks. Coca-Cola has said in the past that it uses it to "improve stability and prevent certain ingredients from separating." 
 
 The decision by Coca-Cola to remove brominated vegetable oil from Powerade is just the latest evidence that food makers are coming under pressure for the ingredients they use. While companies stand by the safety of their products, some are making changes in response to the movement toward foods that people believe are natural. 
 
 Earlier this year, for instance, Subway said it would remove an ingredient dubbed the "yoga mat chemical" from its breads. The ingredient, azodicarbonamide, is approved for use by the FDA and can be found in a wide variety of breads. The petitioner, Vani Hari of FoodBabe.com, said she targeted Subway because of its image for serving healthy food. 
 
 Likewise, brominated vegetable oil can also be found in several other drinks. 
 
 But the Mississippi teenager, Sarah Kavanagh, said she targeted Gatorade and Powerade in petitions because they're designed for athletes, who are likely more concerned about what they're putting into their bodies. Her Powerade petition had more than 59,000 online supporters while the Gatorade one had more than 200,000. 
 
 As Americans cut back on soda, sports drinks have become more important for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo Inc., which is based in Purchase, New York. 
 
 Although Coca-Cola has long dominated rival PepsiCo on the soda front, it lags the company in the growing sports drink category. According to the industry tracker Beverage Digest, Gatorade has 64 percent of the sports drink market. 
 
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 Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi ||||| Thanks to the people who signed my petition on Change.org, I’m glad to know the Powerade sold at my school and consumed by people around the world will be a little bit healthier without BVO in it. I knew that if Gatorade could do the right thing, so could Powerade. 
 
 A couple months ago, I found out that one of my favorite drinks, Gatorade’s Orange, contained brominated vegetable oil (BVO). According to Scientific American and other news reports, BVO is patented as a flame retardant and has been banned in Europe and Japan. So I started a Change.org petition asking Gatorade to stop using it. More than 200,000 people signed my petition on Change.org and we won! But I learned that BVO is also in other drinks, like Powerade’s red fruit punch that is actually sold in my school! 
 
 It’s weird because Gatorade’s fruit punch doesn’t have BVO! But Powerade’s fruit punch does, and it is probably one of the most popular flavors for my friends. It is so wrong to be selling something like that to a bunch of kids anywhere! What are these companies thinking? I don’t want anyone in my family touching that stuff. Why do these companies put all this weird, crazy stuff in our food and drinks? 
 
 After Gatorade agreed to remove BVO from their drinks, a lot of people have been encouraging me to keep going, so now we’re back to officially ask Powerade to do the same thing! It’s common sense that sports drinks here shouldn’t contain crazy ingredients that are banned in entire countries because of health concerns. 
 
 I’ve read some crazy information about how BVO and the ingredient bromine can build up in people’s bodies over time and how the chemical is linked to problems with hormones and fertility and stuff like that. I also saw that Powerade may be the official drink of the NCAA for college athletes! Athletes shouldn’t be drinking that! NASCAR also has a deal with Powerade, but I don’t know why unless it’s to put out those engine fires! 
 
 Gatorade did an amazing thing and agreed to stop using BVO, and I hope the entire beverage industry is paying attention. Consumers don’t want BVO and every day that they keep it in there makes us trust them less. 
 
 For now though, Powerade pretends to be a healthy sports drink and it has to decide if it wants to be the only one (there will be no BVO in Gatorade or Vitamin Water) that still uses a chemical banned in Europe and Japan and that its main competitor, Gatorade, agreed to remove. 
 
 I know Powerade will listen. If they sell those things overseas without BVO, why risk my health and my friends’ health? 
 
 *Please sign and share to support me* ||||| The other day, I Googled "brominated vegetable oil." It was the last time I drank Orange Gatorade. I found out that this "BVO" is a controversial flame retardant chemical that is in some Gatorade drinks! Who wants to drink that? Not me! 
 
 I’m naturally a curious and argumentative person doing things like debate team in school. I also love sports like volleyball, and I always believed Gatorade when they said stuff in their ads about how it's good to drink when exercising. And, just like most people, I care about my health. So, as I was sitting at home the other day drinking an Orange Gatorade, I decided to look up some of the ingredients. 
 
 The last ingredient is "brominated vegetable oil," which has been banned in Japan and the European Union. That means, #1 it’s not necessary to make Gatorade, and #2 there is enough information out there that entire countries have banned this chemical product. 
 
 According to Scientific American, BVO has been patented as a flame retardant and is found in some beverages including some flavors of Gatorade. It is “under intense scrutiny because research has shown that they are building up in people's bodies, including breast milk, around the world.” The same article also mentions that there are “links to impaired neurological development, reduced fertility, early onset of puberty and altered thyroid hormones.” 
 
 I’m not a scientist, but if there are lots of suspicious things about putting a flame retardant chemical in Gatorade (most flavors don’t even use it!) then why would Gatorade want to put it in a product designed for people like me who are into sports and health? 
 
 It doesn’t make sense. Please sign my petition asking Gatorade to stop putting flame retardant chemicals in sports drinks. 
 
 Photo by marcgelinas on Flickr
– Looks like a teenager's online petition has induced Coca-Cola to remove an ingredient from Powerade. The Mississippi teen, Sarah Kavanagh, led the charge with two Change.org petitions against brominated vegetable oil—one targeting Powerade, the other Gatorade—that gathered nearly 260,000 supporters in all, the AP reports. PepsiCo agreed to pull BVO from Gatorade last year, and now Powerade bottles in strawberry lemonade and fruit punch flavors in several cities don't have the ingredient listed. Some bottles still list it, and Coca-Cola said today that Powerade is "BVO-free," so it seems the company is phasing it out. Just what is BVO? According to the FDA, it's used in fruit-flavored drinks as a stabilizer for flavoring oils. But Bromine is a patented flame retardant that's banned in the European Union and Japan, and may be harmful to anyone who drinks it in large amounts, the Telegram reports. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo aren't the only companies under pressure from petitions: Subway yanked an FDA-approved ingredient known as the "yoga mat chemical" from its breads earlier this year when a petitioner at FoodBabe.com challenged the company's healthy-food image.