Interesting information - I didn't realize that BPA could be found in cans. It certainly makes me more wary as I have been using canned goods as an alternative to frozen when using out-of-season ingredients. I don't know if I can find Eden products here in the DC area, but I will start looking.

One thing I would have changed about the article - rather than just inline discussion of the results, publishing a table of the results would have been nice.

Most can liners have BPA in them. That's one of the reasons you shouldn't freeze/heat cans (aside from them boing boom).

I'm trying to find the story, but there was suit by two men who worked in a canning factory that grew breasts due to how BPA acts with endrocrine system.

@ARP: Beverage cans too, I'm assuming.

You have to wonder if BPA linings are used earlier in the processing chain. Perhaps to store newly picked vegetables before canning, or as a non-stick liner for containers used for rinsing. I'd hate to think we have another Scotchguard here.

@JohnQPublic: I don't believe beverage cans are lined.

@Paladin_11: BPA is in the air and water. It's going to get into your food no matter what you do, even if it's very small quantities like that quoted in the article for a bpa-free can: 1ppb

@cmdrsass: So we do have another Scotchguard. Great.

For those that don't know, the key ingredient in Scotchguard, PFOS (and some of its precursors and byproducts) has been found in the blood and tissues of people all over the planet. Whether they've used the product or not. When you find it in remote villages in the Arctic you know you have a problem with a persistent organic pollutant.

@johnmc: They have liners, but nothing on that page says if the liner has BPA or not though.

Has anyone ACTUALLY gotten sick from this BPA? I'm asking seriously.

It seems to me like yet another stupid "BE AFRAID OF THE BAD CHEMICALS!!" hippie craze, akin to Saccharin 25 years ago. Still waiting for the first saccharin-related cancer case. If all this crap had this supposed poison in it, why aren't we all crawling with tumors??

SO...

Plastic bottles contain BPA.
Metal cans have liners, which contain BPA.
Glass jars have metal caps with BPA liners.

what's safe?
(am i the only one that's decided "fuck it, i can't go through life trying to avoid anything that might kill me"?)

I read the article in the December CR a couple of days ago and got really depressed. It was bad enough that the Avent bottles I got to give breastmilk to my daughter (well actually so my husband could occasionally feed her so I could get some damned sleep...obviously I had built-in bottles) turned out to be full of BPA. And here we were thinking we were smart, savvy consumers who bought a system of components that would allow long-term use as they convert to sippy cups and that we could use for future kids...hah...

Just when I'd cooled off about that nonsense, now I find out it's in the packaged foods too. We don't eat many canned goods very often...almost no veggies other than occasional cream corn in casseroles. But I do love love love Campbells' cream of mushroom and have never found a substitute as satisfying, even homemade. We've been cutting back on processed foods but that's still one I go to on occasion, frequently as a sauce.

So major bummer that it turns out to have poison in it. And you know, even if BPA turns out to be harmless to humans (which I doubt, given what it does to other species), we're still peeing it out and those other species have to deal with it.

The part of the article that really nailed it for my husband and I was the bit about how when Japanese companies voluntarily got rid of it in packaging, it cut the BPA in urine by 50%.

What is a reasonable daily exposure limit for BPA (the FDA's is too high, but by how much)?

Even at 171 ppb, if someone eats about 10oz of canned food a day, that's only about 50 micrograms. To surpass the FDA requirements, a 50kg person would need to eat 500oz of canned food a day to hit the FDA level (which is rather high). If the FDA's number is off by a factor of 100, then this amount of BPA is unacceptable. Otherwise, don't stop eating canned food solely because of BPA.

@gStein_has joined the star bandwagon: "am i the only one that's decided "fuck it, i can't go through life trying to avoid anything that might kill me"?"

No. I've accepted that I have to choose my battles.

This article makes a big deal about how there's lots of BPA around, but doesn't cite hard facts about what is or isn't a safe level of exposure (because research is ongoing). I've rewritten one of the article's paragraphs as if it were referring to another common chemical, water, to demonstrate that the article makes a big deal about environmental BPA without really saying much useful:

Water is now one of the highest-volume chemicals in the world, with hundreds of millions of cubic kilometers already out there in the world around us. Various studies have found water in samples from around the world. This unavoidable environmental exposure makes it all the more important to eliminate the use of water in processed foods and all materials that come in contact with food. Consumers Union is calling upon manufacturers and government regulators to do just that.

@West Coast Secessionist: Friend, I hate to break it to you but compared to our forefathers, we are pretty much all crawling with tumors (says a man who works for a cancer hospital, granted my opinion is going to be skewed.) What proportion of people you know who've died recently have died of anything other than cancer or heart disease? In my case, of about 16 people close to me who've died in the last 15 years, I'm looking at 11 by cancer, 2 heart attacks, 2 suicides and a traffic accident. Furthermore, the majority of them were under 60. My mother in law is a cancer survivor. My ex-wife is a cancer survivor. My officemate is a cancer survivor. Mark you, I'm 33. I shudder to think what the toll will be like when/if I make it to my 60s.

Sorry, rant over. I've just finished reading In Defense of Food and I'm feeling a bit edgy about the whole thing.

The think about BPA is that it is in pretty much everything. Stop using saran wrap, heating meals in ziploc containers, drinking water, soda, coffee...the list can go on and on. I don't know how much is in the linings of cans but I do know that the safe limit that the EU came out with was reasonable, but still impossible to achieve. To reach the safe limit a person would have to drink 20 5 gallon bottles of water, PER DAY, for the rest of their life. They'd be dead from the water consumption probably within 2 days. Unless you are eating completely organic, there is no way to avoid it, and imo there are much worse things to worry about than BPA. How about focusing on tobacco and alcohol since those will kill a person faster?

@West Coast Secessionist: BPA is an endocrine disruptor - the problem isn't so much tumors as it is different hormone release / absorption, especially androgen and estrogen hormones. It has reproductive effects and can also amplify the natural impacts of hormones in your body.

There's still quite a bit to learn about BPA, and the biggest controversy (IMO) is how significant our environmental exposures to it are. I don't think there are many people now who say that BPA is harmless - they just question whether it's worth the effort to remove/ban something that we may not be encountering in large doses.

I think that's nonsense and laziness and ignores a lot of environmental impacts - and the fact that we don't know much about endocrine disruptive impacts in general. Err on the side of caution. Also, BPA has been proven to disrupt chemotherapy for many types of cancer, particularly breast cancer. So there are demonstrated negative impacts.

This is a good (but technical) article with the full version available for free, that gets into the question of low-level exposure and significant dose.

[www.fasebj.org]

@Jubes: I'm 99% positive that saran wrap and ziploc containers do not contain BPA

You think BPA is bad, look up PHTALATES. And parabens (methyl, propyl, isopropyl, butyl). All that shit is so bad for you... I got really depressed because all my life Ive been slathering body lotions, using tons of hair products, and sometimes makeup...all of these chock-full of parabens. Come to find out its an endocrine disruptor. What do you know, I was diagnosed last month with endometriosis... I did my research and ran across some interesting info about how endometriosis is an endocrine issue... I was so angry.. =( Ugh..

@henneko: Beverage can linings are also made with BPA.