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Health & Fitness

Have a BPA-Free Thanksgiving

Make your holiday meals delicious and healthy by avoiding ingredients packaged with BPA.

It’s easy to make your holiday cooking healthy as well as delicious. Just in time for your Thanksgiving cooking, Executive Operations Advisor and Community Health Advocate Stacy Weinberg Dieve has some great information and tips about keeping your festive meals safe and BPA-free.

What does BPA have to do with Thanksgiving?

BPA is in a variety of food packaging, including the epoxy resin lining of over 90 percent of the canned food on the store shelves in the US. The BPA in cans leaches onto the food contained inside. Therefore, when we use canned pumpkin, green beans, corn and other canned foods in our Thanksgiving recipes, there is a strong chance we are serving BPA with our meal too. Even products labeled “healthy” or “organic” are just as likely to be contaminated with BPA as their conventional counterparts. 

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What is BPA and why should we be concerned about it?

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine disruptor, a class of synthetic chemicals that mimic or disturb hormones, including testosterone and thyroid hormones. BPA is linked to cancer, early puberty, reproductive problems and a number of other serious diseases and health problems. 

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How can I find out if my favorite brand of canned food has BPA?

The Breast Cancer Fund just completed a study of BPA in popular Thanksgiving canned foods, which can be found on their website. To find out more about BPA in canned foods beyond what we traditionally use for Thanksgiving, the National Working Group for Safe Markets did a comprehensive study in May of 2010.  

Unfortunately, even BPA-free canned goods may use other unknown toxic chemicals as a substitution. When in doubt, contact the manufacturer. 

What are safer alternatives?

 Limit canned food when possible. Choose fresh or frozen produce first, and buy processed food in brick cartons, pouches or glass. This goes for beverages too -- glass bottles are the ideal alternative for soda, beer and other canned drinks when available.  

The Breast Cancer Fund conducted a BPA food study earlier this year and found that families eating a fresh food diet for three days reduced their BPA levels by an average of 60 percent, and the number went up to 75 percent for those with the greatest exposure levels. We too can drastically reduce our BPA exposure by avoiding BPA-laden food packaging. 

Want to find out more?

On Feb. 2, 2012, Stacy will be presenting Detox Your Shopping List: 10 Products You Should Never Buy with Debbie Friedman of MOMS Advocating Sustainability for the Holistic Mom’s Network at the Life Studio in Sausalito from 6 to 8 p.m.

To get updates on this and other great talks and programs, sign up for the Sustainable Fairfax Newsletter.

Stacy Weinberg Dieve, co-founder of RootedHealth is the Executive Operations Advisor and Community Health Advocate for Sustainable Fairfax. Among other accomplishments, she is on the Steering Committee of MOMS Advocating Sustainability as the Executive Administrator and served on the Board of Directors of Sustainable Marin. She teaches sustainability courses for the Tamalpais Union High School District Adult and Community Education program and lectures as a subject matter expert on the topic of toxins and environmental health. 


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