Call me sceptical or simply cynical but I’ve always had a mistrust of BPA *free* plastics and today my cynicism has been rewarded... how? well I stumbled across an article on MotherJones.com titled ‘The Scary New Evidence on BPA-Free Plastics’ ...‘And the big tobacco-style campaign to bury it’.The article basically reviews a lot of evidence that has been published by a number of scientists around the world who are all in support of the idea that low doses of BPA (Bisphenol-A) that is doses that nearly all of us are exposed to in the industrialised world are a potential health hazard.
I’ve known for many years now how this insidious chemical has the potential to wreck havoc with our endocrine systems in that it mimics the hormone estrogen and therefore has an estrogenic effect with in our bodies - and excess estrogen is one of the major driving forces behind the growth of uterine fibroids.
Due to the level of awareness of BPA and its adverse effects many packaging companies, food suppliers etc are now switching their products to BPA-Free plastics.
But what is really disturbing is that a lot of recent research, including a paper that appeared in Environmental Health Perspectives, found that almost all commercially available plastics, including the ones marked BPA-Free leach synthetic estrogens, even when these chemicals weren’t exposed to conditions that are known to unlock these potentially harmful chemicals such as heat exposure: like heating food in plastic containers in your microwave or simply leaving a plastic water bottle on the dashboard of your car in the sun!
Just contact with food or water was enough for these chemicals to leach out. More importantly some of the chemicals used in the BPA-free plastics actually have a greater estrogenic activity than BPA itself!
There are currently a number of legal battles waging between scientists and manufacturers of these so called BPA-free plastics who are naturally disputing the scientists' claims.
My mantra on any controversial issues such as this is...’if in doubt, leave out’ and thankfully I have always given BPA-free plastics a wide birth believing that if the harmful chemicals have been removed what have they been replaced by?
So how can you reduce your exposure to BPA and BPA-free plastics
- Drink and store liquids in glass bottles or invest in good quality steel lined thermos flask
- Store foods especially foods with a high fat content in glass containers and if you have to buy products in plastic transfer them to glass or ceramic containers as soon as you get home
- Wrap foods in baking paper not cling film or plastic wrap - can also be used with foods for freezing
- Avoid plastic lined tinned foods especially tinned tomatoes due the acidic nature of the fruit which helps leach out the estrogenic chemicals
- Avoid plastic lined tetra packs as used for milk, fruit juices etc
- Use Mason or Kilner jars which come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes
- Never heat foods or liquids in plastic containers in microwaves
