Bisphenol A Is In Your Tomato Sauce
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 05.29.08
video: Hidden chemical in cans
We have discussed the danger of gender-bender chemical Bisphenol A from cans before; (see BPA Danger may be greater from Tin Cans than Water Bottles) Now the Globe and Mail and CTV have tested a range of canned foods and found that they are leaching more than double the amount of the stuff than the baby bottle and Nalgenes that everyone has been dumping. Tomato sauce had 18.2 parts per billion, kid's ravioli 6.2 ppb and tomato juice 14.1 ppb. "These results provide further evidence that we are marinating in this chemical on a daily basis," said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence.
Maratin Mittelstaedt writes in the Globe and Mail:
Based on Health Canada's current exposure guideline, which was developed in 1995 before it was widely known that BPA could act like a female hormone at very small doses, an adult would need to consume hundreds of cups of the tested products each day to exceed the limit.
But less than half a cup of tomato sauce or a cup of chicken noodle soup would exceed the lowest dose found in recent research to have an adverse effect on animals. That was a 2005 experiment at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston on mice exposed to amounts far below those detected in the Globe/CTV testing.
Female mice given traces of the chemical during fetal development and early in neonatal life developed double the amount of milk ducts, something the researchers surmised would increase breast cancer risk in humans. The concentration used was only 25 parts per trillion - Health Canada's safe limit is a thousand times above that and the concentrations found in Canadian canned foods were hundreds of times above what was used in the Boston experiment. ::Globe and Mail
See also:
Don't Buy A Nalgene Water Bottle Until You Read This : TreeHugger
Canada Calls Bisphenol A "Dangerous" : TreeHugger
Nalgene Dumps Bisphenol A Like Hot Potato : TreeHugger
It's Official: Canada Declares Bisphenol A Toxic : TreeHugger
Bisphenol A Could Be In Your Teeth : TreeHugger
BPA Danger may be greater from Tin Cans than Water Bottles ...
Time to Pack In the Polycarbonates : TreeHugger
Gender Bender Chemicals Also Make You Fat : TreeHugger
Are Sigg Aluminum Bottles BPA Free? : TreeHugger
Camelbak Introduces Genderbender Free Bottles : TreeHugger
FDA Based BPA decisions on Industry Studies, Ignored Others ...
Wal-Mart Dumps BPA Bottles; More Studies Pan BPA
5 Ways to Beat BPA from Canned Food:
Don't use canned baby formula: All U.S. manufacturers use BPA-based lining on the metal portions of the formula containers. If you must use formula, choose powered or liquid in plastic bottles.
Don't eat canned food if you are pregnant. the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says "We don't want to tell people not to eat canned beans or tomatoes," said CSPI nutritionist David Schardt. "But at the same time, it makes sense for all parents, and especially pregnant and nursing women, to minimize the exposure of their kids' developing bodies and brains to BPA."
Buy in bottles, not cans. Many products, like tomato sauces, are available in bottles as well as cans. Does that white epoxy on the inside of the metal lid have BPA? Probably, but there is a lot less surface area than the whole inside of a can.
Start cooking instead of just heating. The fact that 17% of the American diet comes out of cans is just a scandal when we are surrounded by fresh food. Cook it from scratch and avoid the problem altogether.
Demand BPA-free cans. Not every manufacturer uses it; Some brands, like Eden Foods are BPA free. See a list of common brands and company responses at Organic Grace.
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American quality!
Write your grocery stores and demand BPA labels on cans so you can make smart choices. Ask what their return policy is on opened and unopened cans when you get home and find they contain BPA.
It's inaccurate to say that Eden canned foods are BPA free. Their canned tomatoes have BPA. Only their beans are in BPA free cans. http://www.edenfoods.com/about/environment.php
What are the regulations on organic food packaging? Are manufacturers of organic tomato sauce... able to use aluminum cans w/BPA containing liners?
One part per billion (ppb): Denotes one part per 1,000,000,000 parts, one part in 109, and a value of 1 × 10–9. This is equivalent to 1 drop of water diluted into 250 chemical drums (50 m³).
I have read that any foods containing citric acid (ie tomatoes, citrus, etc) are more likely to absorb plasticizers (BPA) from any plastics...
The answer is fresh tomatoes and glass or stainless steel containers!
Wow. I had no idea the danger was in tin cans. I have been so conscious of plastic bottles and now it's tin cans too! That is really frightening.
Thank you so much for posting this!
OK my second post after being appalled about the misinformation on bamboo. found a manufacturer of bamboo flooring who tell show they do it. Boil it in borate and hydrogen peroxide (not so bad - good basic chemicals), use waste shavings to fire the kilns (I am sure these Chinese plants have air pollution control equipment). Then they dry it for several days in the kilns (lots of smoke to be sure)...then glued together and meets formaldehyde emissions standards (why use this nasty chemical anyway). Then aluminum oxide (not sure about this but doesn't this require mining in rain forrests to get aluminum, not to mention the huge energy costs to produce Al. Then they add a coating or varnish. Gosh this all sounds so nice and eco-friendly. I believe hardwood floors would only require the varnish aspect of the above process and much comes from N. America where environmental standards are way higher than China. Ah I get it...who cares about the Chinese let them get tumors and cancers...at least we can have cheap goods and sound cool at cocktail parties taking about our eco-friendly bamboo products. It is frankly racist, ignorant, and self-centered, vain, self-important , etc. How many bamboo floor owning folks have a compost pile (ohh too messy). My next thought is how many of us use candles...come on where are they from and why do they smell so nice...CHINA and volatile organic compounds (yes the same chemicals found in gasoline and truly known to cause cancer). Here is the deal...if you can smell it then you are taking in molecules (it is best to not have those molecules be petroleum based). So again if you use candles from China what are u thinking. Beeswax OK but VOC infused parrafin you gotta be crazy.