Attention! Class is about to begin.
Let’s get started with today’s lesson in healthy living. Operation Take Back Your Health is now underway:
Step 1: Walk to your kitchen pantry and open the door.
Step 2: Remove all canned foods especially canned soup. Yes, even the organic ones.
Step 3: Throw them in the trash.
Yes, the trash. That’s where they belong. Don’t give them away as this is simply passing on the curse of ill health to another unsuspecting soul.
Step 4: Do your very best to never, EVER buy anything in a can again.
Well done. Class dismissed.
Canned Soup Risks Toxic Chemical Exposure
If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you know that canned food is something that is very much a detriment to your health. The reason is not just because the food is nutritionless due to the high temperatures and pressures required during processing.
Possibly the most worrisome problem of all is that almost all brands of canned food, except for a very few organic ones, contain the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A. This chemical, better known as BPA, is part of the can lining. It is a byproduct of the chemicals used to prevent corrosion. Those that don’t contain BPA contain a very similar chemical known as BPS, which is just as dangerous!
Why are BPA and BPS such a HUGE, HUGE problem, particularly for our children?
Because they are linked to massive hormone disruption with the serious problem of early puberty, ADHD, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and the list goes on and on and on.
Think this problem is overblown? Consider this.
Currently, as many as 10 in 100 white girls, 15 in 100 Hispanic girls, and 25 in 100 African American girls are experiencing breast development as early as 7 years old! The earlier a girl goes into puberty, the higher her chances of breast cancer later in life.
Canned Foods Much Worse Than Previously Thought
Now comes the news that the BPA in canned foods raises urine levels of this dangerous chemical much more than previously believed.
In a study published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, participants who ate canned soup every day for only five days had urine levels of BPA that were 1,221% higher than those who instead ate soup made with fresh ingredients and homemade broth.
Karin Michels, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard University and leader of the study, said, “To see an increase of this magnitude was quite surprising.”
Michels added, “We are concerned about the influence of [hormone-disrupting] chemicals on health in general, and BPA is one of them.”
The study included 75 people whose average age was 27. Progresso was the only brand of soup that was tested. This is the first study to actually measure the BPA levels in urine using randomized participants eating food that was either canned or fresh.
BPA in Mom’s Urine Risks Health Problems for Unborn Children
Study researcher Jenny Carwile, a doctoral student at Harvard made the following observation.
We’ve known for a while that drinking beverages that have been stored in certain hard plastics can increase the amount of BPA in your body. This study suggests that canned foods may be an even greater concern, especially given their wide use.
A number of studies have linked BPA with a host of health problem. In 2008, a study of 1,455 participants showed that higher urine levels of BPA were linked with higher cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and abnormal liver enzymes even when factors such as smoking and age were taken into account.
Other studies have shown a correlation between BPA in a pregnant woman’s urine and resultant health problems in her child.
How much more evidence is needed? Wise shoppers who are truly concerned about the health and the potential for estrogen dominance from exposure to BPA will consistently bypass all canned foods on their trips to the supermarket or the health food store!
Have no idea how to make fresh soup? Relearn this traditional culinary wisdom by learning how to make homemade stock and bone broths as an important first step.
This is a shame, for people who are low income that go to food banks, poor people usually consume the most canned food, and it’s true that most of the kids from that background do have behavioral problems with hyper activity and the girls do seem to develop earlier.
Hi Sarah, I feel quite stupid that pineapple cans being lined with bpa did not click in my brain sooner than this morning. My favourite kefir smoothie is a banana pineapple smoothie. General health and as a nursing mom my brain froze in horror as I realized this. I called Dole to ask if their pineapple cans are lined with BPA assuming that is was going to be yes. I was going to say that I would no longer be purchasing this product until that was remedied. However, the answer that I received surprised me. They said that the cans are no longer lined with BPA. The outer side of the pull top cans are still covered with BPA, but the part touching the food is not. They are not advertising this because it is still new and studies have not not been completed on it. Have you heard anything about this? What is your opinion?
Regarding using plastic containers, it occurs to me that the biggest problem come from heat and plastic/BPA. Of course soup and other canned foods are always canned with heat, and there’s no doubt much more leaching of BPA while the food is hot than after it cools down. So I’m not going to give up using my old cottage cheese containers for things I put in the freezer, since they are so convenient, but I normally make sure the food has cooled before I put it in the containers. With a packed chest type freezer now at the end of gardening season, class containers would be a disaster.
My friend who’s concerned about these things got me to transfer the canned cat food from the can to a glass container when I open it, but I’m afraid that doesn’t really help, since the leaching has no doubt already occurred.
I did end up sending them to the food bank about a year ago. Better to eat something than nothing, although following up on what you’ve posted here, perhaps even so not the wisest choice.
ok that wasn’t nice what you did, if you knowingly sent them off to a food bank, where people with kids consume them. while you save yourself. There are other things you can send to a food bank that doesn’t contain bpa. but now days some food banks mostly get donations of food straight from the supermarkets. That was evil and wicked what you did, just because people are poor doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to eat healthy food, you don’t think of the children?
Seventy-five people took part in the study, eating a 12-ounce serving of either fresh or canned soup for five days in a row. They were advised not to otherwise alter their regular eating habits.
After a two-day break, the groups switched and ate the opposite type of canned soup. A urine analysis showed the canned soup eaters had 1,221 per cent higher levels of BPA than those who ate the fresh soup.
This is really important information and critical to make consumers aware of the dangerous chemicals and ingredients in these soups, and that buying local bones and meat/poultry from animals on pasture and making their own soup with sustainable ingredients is easy and much better for health. Thanks Sarah!
It takes sooo long for your site to load, I often don’t bother anymore. Can you do anything to fix it?
Have you tried a different browser? Sometimes its the browser .. I use Chrome and it loads like a flash.