Bisphenol-A
Canned foods – miracle or menace?
Canning food first started in the early 19th century and was a huge step for the food industry. Canning enabled foods to be stored for much longer, processed quickly, transported with minimal damage and so helped reduce wastage. Prior to this foods were bottled, but less efficiently so. Funnily the can opener wasn’t invented for a further 80 years and the thick cans had to be hammered open with a knife.
Today’s cans, by comparison are thin, light, reliable and many have an easy open ring pull – no hammering or tin openers required. There have been some health concerns regarding canned food though – mainly surrounding the use of a substance called Bisphenol-A used in the lacquer that acts a barrier between the metal of the can and the food.
Is there Bisphenol-A in my canned food?
The simple answer is that there will be minute trace amounts. Without the lining, the cans would corrode and the contents (especially acidic food like tomatoes) would react with and leech metal from the can itself. Sadly, there is no commercially available alternative that we’ve found, so if you know of one we’d like to know. Guidance for consumers is available from the Food Standards Agency .
You can reduce the opportunity for any contamination from cans entering your food by:
- once a can is opened empty the contents into a bowl and store in the fridge
- don’t use to store food in cans or re-use them
- store cans in a cool dry place and use the oldest first
- throw away dented, rusting or bulging cans
Studies, advice and allowable levels
Bisphenol-A is a catalyst used in the creation of the plastics used to line cans. It’s been tested many times for safety, and government scientists have agreed a level below which it’s regarded as having no effect on human health. In early 2009, there was a study that claimed this level was erroneous and after a sudden outcry the government reduced the legal maximum level to a tenth of the previous levels. Suma canned products were below that new level, as were most of the cans on the market at the time.
After the above action was taken, various groups were commissioned to do more testing by governments and the results in the study mentioned were unable to be replicated. The acceptable levels of bisphenol-A were returned to their previous levels after this testing as all the evidence said that it was safe at that level.
All the scientific advice we can find, barring the odd scare reported in the newspapers with their legendary selectiveness, is that the acceptable levels are far above what’s in the linings of our cans and we are seeking something more acceptable. Glass jars are a consideration, but there’s a risk of food contamination when breakage occurs, there’s food-grade plastic underneath the lid to prevent corrosion, and it puts more carbon into the atmosphere due to increased weight of product. Tetra packs and pouches might not weigh as much but their layered composition means the packaging is difficult to recycle and, again are carbon and water heavy in their production.
If anyone does have a viable alternative for pre-cooked beans, soups, and vegetables in cans, we’re quite open to suggestions.
As one of my colleagues says, if you are concerned there are plenty of dried beans on the market and apart from requiring a little soaking before cooking, and therefore more preparation time, they’re just as good.
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Several US brands are producing BPA-free tins now (not for acidic food like tomatoes, true, but for beans, for example). Eden have been doing it since 1999 – so there must be a commercially available alternative. (I believe it adds approximately 2p to the price of a tin – a premium I’d be very happy to pay!)
I’m with Christine above, especially after the publishing of the Harvard study today. The argument that you can just buy dried beans is a disingenuous one, as in Scotland and Ireland, for some unknown reason, I cannot get beans to cook properly, and this is is the case with pressure cooking as well. Adding bicarb doesn’t help, using filtered water “sometimes” helps with pressure cooking, and with the price of gas being what it is, I can’t afford 2 hours of nonstop boiling (yes, after they have been soaked, sometimes for 24 hours), just to risk the beans finally turning from rock hard to mush in a minute.
You have had plenty of warning that this was coming. A study, like with plastic bottles was eventually going to prove what has been expected. I hope you have KEPT looking for an alternative since this was last posted…
I’ve just read the Harvard study too and I’d happily pay 2p per can or even more for peace of mind. BPA is an oestrogen mimic as are several other environmental pollutants. It’s the cumulative effect of them all that is never considered when setting ‘safe” limits for exposure
One wonders how food was safely canned before BPA was available.
I too, and many of my friends, would prefer to spend 2p extra to have BPA – free cans. And, how much more would glass jars cost?
Hi Emanation,
I’m just responding to let you know that we are aware of the ongoing investigation into Bisphenol A and will continue to monitor closely the research results and guidelines from the European Food Safety Association and the UK Food Standards Agency. Independant studies have shown that, even when consumed at high levels BPA is rapidly absorbed, detoxified, and eliminated from humans.
The current situation as outlined on the EFSA website is as follows:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/bisphenol.htm?wtrl=01
In effect it seems like research is ongoing and for now the EFSA is still stating that it is safe for food contact products in that:
“EFSA set a Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) of 0.05 mg/kg body weight for this substance. The TDI is an estimate of the amount of a substance, expressed on a body weight basis, that can be ingested daily over a lifetime without appreciable risk. EFSA found that intakes of BPA through food and drink were well below the TDI, even for infants and children”.
There is more information available on the UK Food Standards Agency website:
http://www.food.gov.uk/safereating/chemsafe/packagingbranch/foodcontactmaterialsbpa/
I, for one, will be soaking and boiling until you finally get your act together …
I use a lot of tinned beans/chickpeas and tinned tomatoes – I really appreciate the convenience on days when I don’t have a little extra time. I too would be happy to pay a small premium for BPA-free tins.
Various regulatory authorities say that there is no evidence that consuming a small amount of BPA is unsafe. However, they seem to agree that is not the case for babies and children.
For women who are pregnant, or for those who are preparing food for young children, it would be very helpful to have a BPA-free option available.