Concern about canned foods.

[hippywife]

The chemical Bisphenol A, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and
food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and
municipalities because of potential health effects. The Food and Drug Administration
will soon decide what it considers a safe level of exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA),
which some studies have linked to reproductive abnormalities and a heightened risk
of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease.


BPA in Canned Food


Now Consumer Reports' latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna,
and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods we tested
contain some BPA. The canned organic foods we tested did not always have lower BPA
levels than nonorganic brands of similar foods analyzed. We even found the chemical
in some products in cans that were labeled "BPA-free."

The debate revolves around just what is a safe level of the chemical to ingest and
whether it should be in contact with food. Federal guidelines currently put the
daily upper limit of safe exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body
weight. But that level is based on experiments done in the 1980s rather than
hundreds of more recent animal and laboratory studies indicating serious health
risks could result from much lower doses of BPA.


Examples of High BPA Levels


- Progresso Vegetable Soup (67-134 ppb)
- Campbell's Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup (54.5-102 ppb)
- Canned Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans Blue Lake (35.9-191 ppb)

more...

http://www.walletpop.com/consumer-reports/insurance/article/concern-over-canned-foods/770756?icid=main|aim|dl3|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.walletpop.com%2Fconsumer-reports%2Finsurance%2Farticle%2Fconcern-over-canned-foods%2F770756

[TreasonousBastard]

1. When I first head about this...

I wondered just what to do with all the canned vegetables I have around here.

And the canned milk, almond paste, stewed tomatoes...

But, although I doubt I'll die from slowly using all this stuff up (and not eating all of it myself) there is the question of all those cans in restaurants. Just what are the effects of cumulative dosages?

(And what are my cats eating?)

[Warpy]

2. I use very few canned items

I like Italian green beans because they don't sell them fresh or frozen here in NM. If I'm getting sick I have an uncontrollable craving for Mother Campbell's chunky chicken noodle soup. Once a year I'll make tuna salad and twice a year I do coconut macaroons with condensed milk.

That's pretty much been my pattern for decades, 4-6 cans of something or other a year. That seems like a pretty acceptable risk to me.

If I'm ever too poor to afford frozen goods, I'll just get canning jars and can my own stuff again, snapping up the unwanted bounty at the local farmer's market in August and September.

I shudder to think what my intake was when I was a kid, though. My mother hated cooking and the can opener was her best friend.

On edit: I think the biggest risk for most people is from bottled water which is consumed at the rate of several bottles a day and has had gawd knows how much time to sit in a warehouse and leach nasties into the water.

I use plastic bottles for soda, but I make my own and drink them immediately. Not much chance of getting a lot of chemical that way!

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Veggies I prefer frozen to canned, and the super 15 cent deals...

aren't out there any more, so that's the end of that.

But, besides the almond paste and sweetened condensed milk, I have shelves of canned tomatoes, stocks, fish, beans, and fruit.

And coconut milk.

All sorts of stuff I use that would be highly inconvenient to get otherwise, if even possible. The alternative to dumping a can of creamed corn into the corn bread wouldn't ruin my life, but it would be a major aggravation. And cost more.

Make my own sweetened condensed milk? Grind my nuts to paste? Kill my food processor with a coconut? Can my own tuna and sardines?

(I wondered about that plastic coating that suddenly appeared inside cans years ago, and now I know.)

[hippywife]

4. My guess would be

that coating was created to put a barrier between the food and the metal. I'm sure the idea was to prevent the "taste" of the food from picking up a metallic tinge and, and in some cases, preventing the corrosion of the can and in effect extending the shelf life of the product.

The unintended consequences are a strong recommendation for eating fresh foods as much as possible.

We do have some canned foods. I like to keep a few cans of Amy's Organic soups around for Bill, and I do buy tomato paste and, before I canned my own from the garden this summer, canned tomatoes. I've never cared for canned veggies as they develop a sugary off-flavor in the can, except as Warpy pointed out Italian cut green beans on occasion.

[wildflower]

13. I believe BPA is a hormone disruptor

Chemically similar to estrogen, which leads to effects on puberty, ovulation, and reproductive cancers, and many other things related to reproductive hormones and organs (for both women and men).

[Vinca]

5. There is nothing on earth worse than a canned green bean. Yecchh!

:puke:

[EFerrari]

6. Canned spinach?

That's hell in a can, right there!

[Vinca]

7. LOL - spinach slipped my mind. It's a tie.

[hippywife]

8. Doh! See, now there's another

place I need to eliminate a can that I nearly forgot about. About two to three times a year, I make homemade Italian wedding soup. I've always liked using the canned with the juices because of the flavor it adds to the broth. Gonna have to start planning a little farther ahead to cook down fresh the day or so before.

[surrealAmerican]

11. I make that too.

I usually use frozen chopped spinach. No additional planning required.

[hippywife]

12. To me, nothing adds as much

flavor to the soup as cooked spinach with the juices, so I'll probably stick to the idea of cooking some the day before.

[japple]

14. How about those canned small whole potatoes. I remember

eating those as a child, though not very often. My mother was a great scratch cook and rarely relied on prepared foods, thank dog.

[hippywife]

9. As I'm sure many of us did,

I grew up on canned veggies. Too many kids and not enough moola to go around to be able to afford frozen at the time, and there were fewer fresh veggies that kids will eat available in the grocery year round like there is now.

I don't used canned veggies and haven't for a really long time, for the most part with the exceptions of the aforementioned Italian green beans and spinach, and only occasionally at that.

For me, corn is the absolute worse example of what an abomination a canned veggie can be.

[kestrel91316]

10. Lol, when I had my garden I much preferred my home-canned green beans

to frozen...........

[hippywife]

15. Ran into another one yesterday.

Wanted to make a really quick chili for supper last night since it's been cool and drizzly here. Canned black beans.