I like this post by Kristen Conn on Eat Drink Better about plastic in the kitchen – it’s all stuff I’ve mentioned in the past but it’s a good refresher…check it out!
So now they’re saying there is BPA on receipts! AND that it is more toxic than the BPA in plastic bottles! YIKES! I always take my receipt – even when I don’t need it so that I can recycle the paper, but now I think I’ll have to consider my health over the environment and take receipts ONLY when ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!
Please read this article from Science News…
and thanks to Young House Love for bringing this to my attention!!!
Category : Food & Beverages, Health, Household
Safe Plastics – IF there really are safe plastics! But, if you must use plastic at least be educated on the different types
Category : Food & Beverages
I didn’t realize I needed to worry about BPA in my canned foods! I rarely purchase canned goods but I certainly always have a few in my pantry. I’ve read a few articles online and it seems that things such as tomatoes can’t go directly into the steel can due to their high acidity. Eden Foods in Ann Arbor, MI is working with someone to develop a BPA-Free liner but it is a difficult task. The BPA-Free liners they use for non-tomato canned goods cost 14% more (2.2 cents) than a regular BPA liner but that hasn’t stopped them from stepping up to make their products safer for consumers. At this point it is best to buy as many of your prepared foods in glass jars rather than cans as possible. And don’t think that an organic label means it is safe – BPA is still found in organic canned food!
This article appeared in
December 2009 Consumer Reports Magazine.
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.
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.
Category : Food & Beverages
So I finally got around to exchanging my old Sigg water bottle for one that is BPA-FREE! It’s fun to have a new one after a couple of years but not having to pay for it! And it is much better to know that I won’t have to risk any BPA leaching into my drinking water!
Category : Food & Beverages, Health
So apparently the oh so safe Sigg water bottles that I always rave about have BPA liners. They’ve always been marketed as a healthy and eco-friendly product and now we find out that they could be leaching BPA into our water. They said they’ve tested the liner repeatedly over the years and they have never found their liners to leach but most of us still don’t trust BPA and would prefer to not have our food or beverages in contact with BPA products. It isn’t that they said they didn’t have BPA in their liners, its that they never said anything about it. Keeping silent made consumers assume they were in the clear.
Luckily Sigg is allowing consumers to exchange their bottles for ones with new BPA free liners. The process is super easy. Some retailers are offering the program in store. I’ll be running to my Whole Foods this weekend to make the exchange. If you don’t have a convenient place to make the exchange you can very easily send it in to Sigg. You’ll just print the label, fill out the form, package it and send it (at your own cost – but it won’t be much and that’ll be the only cost you’ll incur). They say to keep the top as an extra for your new bottle - good thinking!
Category : Food & Beverages
In an August 31 article in Chemical & Engineering News,Sarah Everts addresses the toxic chemicals that leach from food and drug packaging into the actual product we’re ingesting. We know plastic isn’t great but since with glass you normally have a rubber seal on the top – that rubber seal is a concern. Even the ink on packaging leaches!
“You will always have leachables,” says Guirag Poochikian, a retired U.S. Food & Drug Administrationregulator who used to evaluate leachables from inhaler devices. “The question is ‘What are they, and what is their safety margin’ ” in humans?
“The common feature of all potential solutions to the leachables problem is that they cost money—sometimes several times the price of the components they replace. It remains to be seen whether consumers are willing to pay more for expensive packaging that reduces leaching into their food and drugs.”
In May Chicago’s City Council voted to ban the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups with BPA (Bisphenol A – an endocrine disruptor and may also be linked to obesity and breast cancer).
Read the article from Chicago Tribune
I would love to see them ban BPA in all plastics used for food consumption in Chicago.
