Have I ever told you how much I hate a recipe that is really just "open 10 cans out of your pantry and mix together" type recipes? This is why I hate, loathe, and despise that horrid Sandra Lee "Semi Homemade" travesty of a cooking show. That is NOT a cooking show!! That is a "let's justify being lazy" show.
Anyhoo, I was making King Ranch Chicken and opening up the 5,233,739 cans. And what did I spy inside these cans?
Some of them have that crappy BPA plastic coating and some do not. Those companies that do are going to be getting letters from me complaining, and those that do NOT will be getting Attaboy letters from me.
Do y'all know about the BPA stuff? It stands for Bisphenol A, a chemical which can mimic human estrogen and which is linked to breast cancer and early puberty in women. You know how over the last 15 years or so people have been blaming the meat and dairy industries for all the hormones causing 9 year old girls to start puberty? Well, the canned food people need to shoulder their part of the blame on this one.
What I am saying is this BPA is bad news. We don't need it.
Let me show you my cans.
There are all sorts of brands of cans I used there, but the two that stand out as being bad in that they are lined with the dreaded BPA are two of my favorite canned products.
Ro-Tel tomatoes & chiles and also Hatch brand Green Chile Enchilada Sauce.
It is a sad day when I have to tell these two companies that if they don't change their process of adding white plastic lining to the inside of their cans, I can't buy from them again. But there it is.
Does anyone know and can anyone effectively explain to me why on earth anyone thought we needed this? Why do we need to take perfectly good metal cans and paint carcinogenic cancer on the inside of them? Do my tomatoes care if they are in white or shiney silver metal? Does my body care if my tomatoes come with extra carcinogens for free? Why yes, it does!
I will let you know if and when I hear back from Ro-Tel and Hatch. In the meantime, check your cans. Do you use many canned products? If so, how many of them have the BPA lining? Do you care? Do you care enough to write companies and demand change? Or do you care enough to find an alternative that is packaged in a safer manner?
interesting.... when I worked in restaurants we were always told not to store tomatoes in metal containers. Not sure why or if it's related!
ReplyDeleteI've never really paid attention to the insides of my can goods. I will now.
ReplyDeleteI want more info (read: recipe) on this King Ranch Chicken Casserole of which you speak. I'm always looking for new chicken recipes.
Not that I actually COOK them but I like having them.
The plastic lining was to avoid having aluminum cans with food leaching aluminum and depositing it in our bodies, on our brain and causing Alzheimers....or something to that effect. Don't the silvery, metal insides still have a coating that exudes BPA into the food? Maybe I got that wrong. Nothing like a response with "maybes"...lol. I am so tired that I could not swear to my name right now!
ReplyDeleteTomatoes leaches the BPA or anything the worst. Not storing food in metal cans meant after it was opened. I have always put anything in a can into a glass bowl before I put it into the refrigerator. Okay, maybe a can of peaches will be okay for an hour, but never anything with tomatoes in it.
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