darry wrote on 2024-05-18, 18:25:

And it's not a very healthy one.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petit … getable-oil-bvo

Bromine is not a food preservative. Your link is about a brominated compound.

Bromine is an element. A brominated compound is not the same as Bromine. It just contains Bromine, and other elements. That's like saying Hydrogen is bad because Hydrogenated Fats are bad for you. If that were the case, water would also be bad for you.

Aside: Bromelain (Enzymes found in Pineapple) and Theobromine (Found in Chocolate, Teas) do not contain Bromine. The Brom in the name comes from the genus of plants.

kingcake wrote on 2024-05-18, 23:05:

Bromine is not a food preservative. Your link is about a brominated compound. […]
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darry wrote on 2024-05-18, 18:25:

And it's not a very healthy one.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petit … getable-oil-bvo

Bromine is not a food preservative. Your link is about a brominated compound.

Bromine is an element. A brominated compound is not the same as Bromine. It just contains Bromine, and other elements. That's like saying Hydrogen is bad because Hydrogenated Fats are bad for you. If that were the case, water would also be bad for you.

Aside: Bromelain (Enzymes found in Pineapple) and Theobromine (Found in Chocolate, Teas) do not contain Bromine. The Brom in the name comes from the genus of plants.

BVO is a vegetable oil that is modified with bromine. As authorized, it is used in small amounts, not to exceed 15 parts per million, as a stabilizer for fruit flavoring in beverages to keep the citrus flavoring from floating to the top.

It's BVO that's the additive, not the bromine itself, so the analogy between BVO and hydrogenated fat indeed makes sense. This does not make bromine as an elemental compound necessarily bad, I'll give you that.
EDIT : Then again finding elemental bromine, like finding elemental chlorine, and ingesting it probably wouldn't be a great idea considering how reactive such elements are. Luckily, that very reactivity makes finding such elements quite unlikely outside of industrial or laboratory conditions.

Additionally, BVO is not a preservative (in the food preservation sense), it's a stabilizer, I'll give you that as well.

Thank you for correcting my attempt at oversimplifying to the point of inaccuracy.

However, bromine containing compounds in general can be toxic, if ingested according to the CDC, incidentally. Inhalation is not recommended either. https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/bromine/basics/facts.asp

That being said, it's a use case for bromine (producing BVO) that I (AND I suspect the average joe) had never heard of.

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