Posted on 12/30/2009 1:06:40 PM PST by woollyone
Last week, someone mentioned the Bisphenol A (BPA) leaching tendencies of canned tomatoes. That was all it took to send me on a tear.
First, I looked deeper into the BPA issue. I’ve mentioned it before, and the battles over BPA content in plastics have gotten a lot of publicity, but after looking at the preponderance of evidence derived from recent animal trials, I’m not sure I can recommend using canned food at all anymore. Industry leaders say BPA is crucial for preventing direct contact between food and metal; they also say ditching the stuff would lead to far more botulism cases. That may be. But it’s undeniable that BPA has an effect on animals. Various dosages have different effects, and it’s unclear whether the animal models are relevant to human models, but the stuff does leach and it does impact the mammals that have been tested. A quick rundown (these are rodent studies unless otherwise noted) of dosages in µg/kg/day and the reported effects:
0.025 – Permanent changes to genital tracts in adult females with in utero exposure to BPA that only show up during adulthood.
1.0 – Ovarian cysts were seen in adult mice with prenatal exposure to BPA
2.0 – Pregnant mice fed normal levels of (read: in doses similar to the range “currently being consumed by people”) BPA, but not octylphenol (another xenoestrogen used in commercial products), bore males that developed enlarged prostates by adulthood.
2.4 – BPA exposures of pregnant rats (from gestation day 12 onward) and nursing rats (up until postnatal day 21) resulted in decreased testosterone levels in the testicles by nearly half.
2.5 – Given no further “treatment aimed at increasing tumor development” beyond fetal BPA administration, mice mammary glands were induced to develop carcinoma. Mice with prenatal exposure, then, were predisposed to breast cancer in adulthood.
10.0 – In male rats, low levels of BPA exposure affected the prostate epigenome (“genetic code” of the prostate), enough to render it especially susceptible to disease later in life. In female mice, exposure to BPA resulted in altered maternal behavior: BPA mothers expressed less interest in nursing and more time away from their pups when compared to the control corn oil group.
30.0 – A BPA dosage far below the human “tolerable daily intake” was apparently not tolerated especially well by rats; BPA “abolished and inverted” sexual differentiation of the brain and behavior.
50.0 (the official U.S. human exposure limit, as ordained by the EPA) – In nonhuman primates, continuous administration of BPA interfered in the formation of spine synapses in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Spine synapse formation is especially critical in the regulation of mood and general cognition; government-approved levels of BPA were enough to “abolish” synapse formation in some of our closest primate relatives.
~snip~
I think I'll take my chances with them.
I stay away from anything that has SOY in the name to begin with.
Everybody's going to die of something.
What powerful lobby stands to make a lot of money off of this research, I wonder?
psst...I’m not Mark. I merely enjoy his website. However, his site has ample opportunity for you to post a commnent directly to him.
Other than home canned, canned food is nasty anyway. Fresh or frozen is the way to go.
For the purposes of stockpiling: As a half-@ssed prepper, my mentality is to collect a lot of nonperishable food, and canned food figures significantly in that goal. While high-acid foods like tomatoes do indeed eat through the protective linings of cans in a year or two, other, less acidic canned foods will last several years, which is long enough to endure the Obama-fomented food riots that are on the horizon.
You like GMO’s and support a thug company like Monsanto who takes farmers livelihood away? Who sues farmers because they think they may have purchased seeds from another company?
A GMO product that Round UP cannot kill? That little boys in poor countries have their skin on their feet eaten away just walking in the fields where these GMO’s are grown?
Okayyy, enjoy!
Quit EATING....tu loco chico!
I believe you’ll be fine.
This is about #7,183 on my list of things to worry about.
Every single person who has eaten canned food has eventually died.
What does that tell you? Hmmm?
Why eat synthetic soylentgreen when you can eat the human stuff?
Sometimes you can't, though.
For example, those of us who eat meals prepared at military chow halls far, far away.
Fresh fruits and veggies are availalble most of the time (although, there were plenty of times in the earlier, rough days when they were not) and you make do with what you have.
I long ago stopped worrying about all of these food scares. Joe Jackson had a song in the 80s called "Everything Gives You Cancer." Pretty much sums it up.
Say it isn’t so!
;-)
I immediately noticed that the inside of the can was coated with something. Checked it with my meter (on resistance) and found that the inside surface of the can will not conduct electricity, so we're not talking about bare metal.
This can of tomatoes was put out by Hunt's...perhaps some cheapo brands cut corners and don't use the coating, but I've seen it in a lot of veggie cans when I open them.
Clerks in so many of the stores dent so many of the cans right next to the seals now anyway, that botulism is an increasing risk. Tort reform (effort for abolition of recourse for damages) and apathy are getting to be more common, so it’s safer to grow our own food.
“God people are wusses.”
Really...we grew up playing on asphalt, getting into rock fights, playing sports without face masks, driving cars without seat belts, smoking cigars and drinking beer by the case. A GIQ was a bottle of beer. We didn’t live as long, granted, but we lived pretty well and pretty free.
I’m told that the average lifespan in America compared to 1963 is ten years longer. Like the old joke goes, I’m not sure they WILL live longer today, but it will probably SEEM like it.
We had nicknames like the Wop, Mick and Whitey. We ate foot long Guinea Grinders and bacon cheeseburgers. Now, they make playdates, and they play sports without scoreboards. They get wrapped in a cocoon until they turn 26 and are afraid to confront a rag head getting on a plane because it might hurt his feelings.
With this Usurper in office, 2010 and 2012 will decide whether or not we even make it to 2016 as a small d democracy, let alone the Republic we are supposed to be.
For over 20 years I haven't eaten Green Giant anything for an entirely different reason. Back in the '80s they moved their Watsonville canning plant to Mexico, throwing a lot of good people out of work. The people who worked for GG in Mexico were raising Hell because they'd only by worked 11 months of the year. That way GG could say they were "seasonal" workers and not even have to pay the Mexican minimum wage (never knew they had one).
I wrote the company that I was swearing off their canned goods as pist off employees could put all manner of stuff in the cans. Never got an answer.
Been eating canned goods for years from the others and it hasn't bothered me . . . bothered me . . . bothered me . . . :-)
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