Why Canned Soups Can Be Dangerous to Your Health

[Breaking News Breaking News]

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
November 24 2009

consumer reports, canned food, cans, BPA, bisphenol A, campbell, campbell soupThe food processing world is reeling right now one day after a shocking new series of tests released by Consumer Reports revealed that many leading brands of canned foods contain Bisphenol A (BPA)—a toxic chemical linked to health risks including reproductive abnormalities, neurological effects, heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems.

BPA is used in the lining of cans and the toxin leaches from the lining into the food. According to Consumer Reports just a couple of servings of canned food can exceed scientific limits on daily exposure for children.

The federal government is currently studying the dangers of BPA and advocates are calling on the FDA to ban the use of BPA in food and beverage packaging by the end of the year. Companies in other industries, including Wal-Mart, Target, Nalgene, and Babies R Us have already made commitments to stop using BPA.

Sources:

  Change.org November 4, 2009

  ConsumerReports.org December 2009

  Food Politics November 3, 2009


Dr. Mercola's Comments:
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    Consumer Reports’ tested 19 name-brand canned foods, including:

        * Soups
        * Juice
        * Tuna
        * Green beans

    The results were discouraging. Nearly all of the tested canned foods were contaminated with the endocrine disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), and this included organic canned foods as well. BPA was even found in some cans labeled “BPA-free”!

    According to their estimates, just a couple of servings of canned food can exceed the safety limits for daily BPA exposure for children.

    The current US federal guidelines put the daily upper limit of safe exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight.

    However, this limit is based on studies from the 1980s, and does not take into account the findings of more recent animal and laboratory studies, which have found that far lower doses of BPA may still pose serious health risks.

The Worst Offenders

    According to Consumer Reports’ testing, the levels of BPA can vary greatly from one can to another, which makes sense when you consider that the BPA leeches from the lining, and a variety of factors, such as heat, can influence the rate of leeching.

    In general, canned green beans and canned soups had some of the highest BPA levels of the foods tested. The worst offenders during their tests included:

        * Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans had BPA levels ranging from 35.9 ppb to as much as 191 ppb
        * Progresso Vegetable Soup had BPA levels ranging from 67 to 134 ppb
        * Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup had BPA levels ranging from 54.5 to 102 ppb

BPA and Your Immune System

    That low-level exposure to BPA can be hazardous to your health has been established (but hotly debated and denied by industry) for over 10 years. According to Washington State University reproductive scientist Patricia Hunt,

        “Exposure to low levels of BPA -- levels that we think are in the realm of current human exposure -- can profoundly affect both developing eggs and sperm.”

    But fetuses and infants are not the only ones at risk. Researchers are also finding that BPA exposure can affect adults.

    There are more than 100 independent studies linking the chemical to serious disorders in humans, including:

        * Prostate cancer
        * Breast cancer
        * Diabetes
        * Early puberty
        * Obesity, and
        * Learning and behavioral problems

    As an example, a study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives last year, found that BPA promotes the development of Th2 cells in adulthood, and both Th1 and Th2 cells in prenatal stages, by reducing the number of regulatory T cells.

    This could have a profound effect on your health as Th1 and Th2 are the two “attack modes” of your immune system.

    Based on the type of invader, your immune system activates either Th1 or Th2 cells to get rid of the pathogen. Th1 (T Helper 1) attacks organisms that get inside your cells, whereas Th2 (T Helper 2) goes after extracellular pathogens; organisms that are found outside the cells in your blood and other body fluids.

    When your Th2 are over-activated, your immune system will over-respond to toxins, allergens, normal bacteria and parasites, and under-respond to viruses, yeast, cancer, and intracellular bacteria, because as one system activates, the other is blocked.

Industry is Putting Up a Fight

    Consumer safety advocates are currently calling on the FDA to Ban the use of BPA in all food and beverage packaging. Industry, of course, is fighting back. They dismissed Consumer Reports’ findings above, stating that: “The use of bisphenol A (BPA) in can linings is both safe and vital for food protection.”

    Personally, I believe BPA is neither safe nor vital for food protection.

    Remember, you’re not just consuming traces of BPA from a can here, and a can there. You’re also exposed to BPA from a host of other sources. Not to mention other chemicals that act in a similar fashion as BPA. When added together, it can amount to a significant amount of damage, especially in children.

What Can You Do NOW?

    It’s important to realize that you have a CHOICE, and by exercising it, you can influence industry to do the right thing.

    For example, you can avoid canned foods entirely and stick to fresh fruits and vegetables, or switch over to brands that use glass containers. Choosing fresh foods is clearly your best option -- ideally organic (to avoid exposure to pesticides), and grown locally (to reduce environmental impact and help your local economy).

    In addition, Change.org has started a petition asking Campbell’s to live up to its new “nourishing people's lives everywhere, every day” slogan, and be a leader of the industry move away from the use of BPA laden packaging.

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[Astrojewels]

Why would anyone eat soup from a can anyways?

[Richard]

Tons of people do because it's convenient. DT and I have eaten soup from a can. DT said I ruined it for her by posting this news story because she was eating soup from a can for lunch everyday.

[Mercy Now]

 Due to the relatively , long ,cold winters here in the states  household canning became almost a necessity before commercialization of canned foods. The foods available during the winter were limited and much nourishment was obtained from home canning. After WWII the commercialized canning business boomed as many women had taken jobs outside of the home and relished the convenience of the canned product. As our lives became more and more complicated the canned and processed food industry blossomed.Convenience was the name of the game.

I venture a guess that a very large percentage of Americans were raised on a steady diet of canned foods including soup. Tomato soup and grilled cheese, chicken noodle soup when you came in from the snow etc.

In the past few years there has been a shift to healthier thinking at least and the nutrition value of commercialized canned foods has been examined and questioned. The sodium content for example is usually very, very high.

 Another  area of consciousness shift.


However, as for the sources of BPA in our lives we may getting more of it from a simple receipt:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/...r_receipts

[EmeraldStar]

"I venture a guess that a very large percentage of Americans were raised on a steady diet of canned foods including soup. "

Yes, I agree.  I find it laughable whenever I hear families remarking that they are preparing meals at home more often during the weekends, or that they do not let their kids eat take-out food or even when mothers announce that they are making cookies for an occasion.

All of the above usually mean they are 'preparing' meals straight from canned foods, packaged macaroni and cheese and making cookies from cookie mix from a package. That's not cooking or baking, that's heating up goo and slapping pre-made sauce on a plate.

One co-worker, whose excuse for bingeing unnecessarily was that she was pregnant ( she STUFFED, literally STUFFED, her face with fruit loops, chips with high amount of sodium and guzzled soda like there's no tomorrow - her poor unborn child), boasted how she never spoils her kids and they are required to eat whatever she prepares at home. She was referring to packaged macaroni and cheese. She said once that take-out food was bad and she almost never allows it. Go figure. :?

Idiot nation, indeed.... :(

[William]

We Need Soup Recipes and macaroni n cheese Recipes. Anyone have some good home made (not canned) Recipes they want to share?

[leah]

This isn't new information, I was taught in school that tins are harmful, mainly if bent/dented!

[Mercy Now]

EmeraldStar,

  Tampering with the food and diet of people is deliberately done for specific reasons. It is an attack in a very real sense.

[Astrojewels]

I think the only time anyone should eat out of a can is if you are camping, and if you have children, you should be teaching them about nutrition and how wonderful food is, food is not a necessity in life, it is a pleasure, winter is a great season to be cooking.

Ever tried to reproduce the taste of a can of soup? You never will because they use inferior cheap product like dehydrated onion coated in salt!

Anyone can make tasty soup, if you are busy and don’t have time to make stock, buy a good stock and not the cubes or powder.

 

 

William I have this big file on soups, I will try and upload it for ya!

[Astrojewels]

EmeraldStar,

  Tampering with the food and diet of people is deliberately done for specific reasons. It is an attack in a very real sense.

Yes it is done purposely, and this is a big concern for me MN, I often wonder how the children will be in 10 or 15 years that have been raised completely on a ‘packet diet’! I can tell you that friends of my daughter that live like this just do not like the taste of real food!