How Brominated Vegetable Oil Found Me

Most of my early drafts of blog posts start with “I was minding my own business, surfing the net….”  That is something I often do; “surf the net,” I mean.  Not “minding my own business,” something which my Mother-of-Blessed-Memory would attest I haven’t done since the beginning of high school.

This time I was thumbing through a copy of the “New York Public Library Desk Reference.”  In my lap as I write, it’s a 1989 edition — Simon and Schuster, New York, of course.  I have wanted one on and off for a long time, despite the presumed omniscience of the internet.  It showed up in our favorite local thrift shop, evidence of how the universal intelligence of the, well, universe works. The first thing I had to check was anything calendar related, which would obviously be the limitation of the book.  Surprise — a universal calendar with days of the week through 2076.  This is as omnipotent as a book can get.

But who would have believed that the first thing to otherwise impassion me, a non-homemaker on the best of days, would be in the section with information appropriate for homemakers.  Within the list of food additives, on the right hand side of page 519, was brominated vegetable oil (BVO).  It’s an “emulsifier or clouding agent” and is in body fat.  Marked gently, for those who would check the code, as “A” to avoid, BVO rings familiar.

I have already blogged about this additive in Gatorade, as noted by a 15 year old girl.  Insufficiently tested, slipped in maybe to maintain color or prevent stuff from floating to the top or something.  I do not know exactly what it is doing there, nor does anybody else.  But I do know now, thanks to the colorful workings of the unit, that we have known at the level of New York Public Library reference knowledge that it ought to be avoided. Me, I just keep on moving.  If label reading seems too onerous, maybe at this point it is easier to know that anything that seems too widely used or “advertised” is suspect, for they often times go together.  Anything that seems to be processed too much should probably be avoided.

Keep it simple and diverse.  This may be the key to keeping it healthy.