Coca Cola,Pepsi remove controversial ingredient from recipe

Melbourne: Coca-Cola has followed in PepsiCo 's footsteps by dropping a controversial ingredient from its Powerade sports drink.

A Mississippi teenager,Sarah Kavanagh had filed a petition on Change.org questioning the use of brominated vegetable oil in a drink marketed toward health-conscious athletes which prompted the company to drop it from its list of ingredients.

The petition, which had more than 59,000 online supporters, highlighted that the ingredient is linked to a flame retardant and is not approved for use in Japan or the European Union and a representative for the Atlanta-based company recently confirmed that its Powerade brands are now "BVO-free".