If you drink a bottle of fruit punch or strawberry lemonade flavored Powerade anytime soon, see if you can note a change. According to the Associated Press, Coca-Cola has recently changed the recipe of its noted sports drink, all in an attempt to appease health-conscious customers.

The recipe change came down to a single ingredient called brominated vegetable oil, which has recently been the target of numerous widely supported consumer petitions. Last year, a teenager from Mississippi launched a Change.org petition calling for Gatorade to stop using brominated vegetable oil – a so called “flame retardant chemical” – in its sports drinks. The petition acquired over 206,000 signatures, noting that brominated vegetable oil (or “BVO”) was banned by Japan and by the European Union, and that it has no place being used in the United States, in a drink marketed toward athletes.

PepsiCo, Gatorade’s parent company, responded to the petition by removing the BVO chemical from all of its sports drinks. Now, Coca-Cola seems to be doing the same thing with Powerade, slowly and quietly phasing BVO out of all of its beverages.

But what does BVO do, and is it harmful to consumers? According to the FDA, BVO is used to stabilize oils and other ingredients in flavored drinks so that they don’t become separated after sitting for an extended period of time. Since drinks like Powerade and Gatorade do sit for extended periods of time, whether in vending machines or on store shelves, having a drink that holds together is important. Coca-Cola has not clarified which moves it took to retain a stable Powerade mix without BVO.

As for whether or not BVO is dangerous, that is also unclear. With FDA approval and with the obvious support and use of the chemical by numerous beverage companies, BVO is evidently not a substance known as a disease-causing agent. The chemical is unnatural, however, and as consumers get more conscious about what they are putting into their bodies and whether or not it is organic, it is likely that other beverage companies will begin seeking alternate stabilization methods just like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have.