BPA Linked to Man Boobs

Posted by allnaturalme in Thursday, June 26th 2008   under: Reduce Plastic Use    Tags:    

And Cancer!

But I’m not going to try to scare you away from plastic bottles with the Big C word, because hearing the word cancer doesn’t scare people anymore. Everyone’s like cancer? Psshhh. I’ve had that before.

Now man boobs… that’s scary. No one wants to have them OR see them.

Spread the word - we’ve got to start drinking out of plastic-free containers. You, me, the men, the kids and the babies who get the bottle all need to explore our healthier alternatives such as glass, lined aluminum or stainless steel.

If you must drink out of plastic, use BPA-free plastics. The safer number plastics are 1, 2 and 5.

So what is BPA?

Well, for us nerdy types, I’ve snagged the following info from our government friends.

BPA stands for Bisphenol A, a chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins.

Where is bisphenol A found?

Polycarbonate plastics are umm, everywhere: food and drink packaging, water and infant bottles, compact discs, impact-resistant safety equipment, and medical devices.

Epoxy resins are used as lacquers to coat metal products such as food cans, bottle tops, and water supply pipes. Some polymers used in dental sealants or composites contain bisphenol A-derived materials. In 2004, the estimated production of bisphenol A in the United States was approximately 2.3 billion pounds, (holy shit!) most of which was used in polycarbonate plastics and resins.

How does bisphenol A get in the body?

The primary source of exposure to bisphenol A for most people is through the diet. While air, dust, and water (including skin contact during bathing and swimming) are other possible sources of exposure, bisphenol A in food and beverages accounts for most daily human exposure. Bisphenol A can migrate into food from food and beverage containers with internal epoxy resin coatings and from consumer products such as polycarbonate tableware, food containers, water bottles, and baby bottles. The degree to which bisphenol A leaches from polycarbonate bottles into liquid may depend more on the temperature of the liquid or bottle, than the age of the container. Bisphenol A can also be found in breast milk.

What can I do to prevent exposure to bisphenol A?

If you are concerned, you can make personal choices to reduce exposure:

* Don’t microwave polycarbonate plastic food containers. Polycarbonate is strong and durable, but over time it may break down from over use at high temperatures.
* Polycarbonate containers that contain BPA usually have a #7 on the bottom
* Reduce your use of canned foods.
* When possible, opt for glass, porcelain or stainless steel containers, particularly for hot food or liquids.
* Use baby bottles that are BPA free.

Need links to find BPA-free drinking alternatives -

Click here for our Green Shopping Guru Friends

tn48.jpg All Natural Me wants to know -

What kind of bottle and containers do you use?

Popularity: 60% [?]

22 Comments Already

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Sam Said,
June 26th, 2008 @6:15 am  

It’s scary that it’s found in so many of the products we use these days. Thanks for the tips! I try to use glass or porcelain whenever I drink or eat at home. And of course I use a reusable aluminum water bottle. :)

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MamaBus Said,
June 26th, 2008 @1:11 pm  

BPA Sucks! I must admit I’m a little obsessed with being BPA free…people stare at my poor children when they bring their glass (vinegar) water bottles to swimming, soccer, friends houses, etc…They are heavy and they do break…but other than that, they’re perfectly safe!

For food storage, we use stainless steel lunch boxes, glass pyrex storage (the lids are plastic…but don’t touch the food), reusable produce bags instead of the plastic ones from the store, unbleached waxed sandwich bags, reusable shopping bags and we just broke down and purchased a BPA-free plastic camelback water bottle from one of those really expensive, commercial hiking stores…because my man refuses to clean up anymore shattered vinegar bottle glass!

As for bottles, we never needed those…breast worked best for our family.

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Sam reply on June 26, 2008:

Wow! You’re doing alot to keep your family safe from BPA! Nice! I didn’t even think about those plastic bags from the stores. I definitely use reusable cloth and canvas bags for shopping, and I just got a bunch of those mesh produce bags from Whole Foods. :)

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MamaTaney Said,
June 26th, 2008 @3:48 pm  

We’re slowly eliminating plastic use from our house (who has the money to go whole hog?). The kids have SIGG bottles, as do the hubby & I. We use aluminum made take-along coffee cups. We’ve been working on collecting old/vintage pyrax dishes, though I need to break down and buy some with the plastic lids, as the glass lids don’t “stick” on. :P
Thanks for the tips, though I have to leave a comment about one of them - about reducing your consumption of canned foods. Canned foods are great if they’re the type that you can yourself in glass jars!! Store-bought bi-metal cans = yucky; homemade, homegrown, harvest keepin’ canned foods = utterly awesome!!

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Sam reply on June 26, 2008:

Good point! I always love to receive homemade canned food in jars as gifts! I heard that people with AIDs are told by their doctors to not even buy store bought canned foods, especially if their dented. So maybe that should let other peole know that it’s obviously not safe.

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Mothering Naturally Said,
June 26th, 2008 @9:29 pm  

We have long ago stopped using canned foods, and opted for fresh or frozen. I have spoken with many companies and only 1 has said they do not use BPA in their cans, Del Monte. We also use glass water bottles, such as vinegar bottles. I have had people stare! LOL I just ordered some New Wave Enviro stainless steel bottles for my little ones. They are just like Klean Kanteen but cheaper.
Storage is a little harder. We reuse all glass bottles, but do find freezing hard. What do you use??? I make snack bags and sandwich wraps for the kids, so no ziploc bags or foil here. And of course cloth everything! Thanks for the information!!

* For the record, #3 plastic is NOT a safe alternative, and should be avoided.

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MamaTaney reply on June 26, 2008:

I’ve always heard that as long as it is intact & not blemished plastic containers are ok to use for freezing (such as #5 containers), as they aren’t likely to leech when frozen.
For freezing we’ve used glass, just being sure to leave room for expansion; we’ve also frozen stuff in a pan (such as a casserole) and either left it in there with aluminum foil on top or popped it out once it is frozen solid and wrapped the entire thing in foil if we needed the pan. Wax and butcher’s paper are also good for wrapping things in when freezing (this is the old way of doing it).

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Mothering Naturally Said,
June 26th, 2008 @9:35 pm  

I tried emailing but it didn’t work. Not trying to smash you.I wanted to say to please not encourage your readers to use #3 plastic as it has more harmful effects than #7 and one should strongly be discouraged from using it. Perhaps you meant to put #5, which is largely replacing others and the least harmful from the rest. You can find more information about PVC items at http://www.chej.org/BESAFE/pvc/about.htm=20
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/370080/the_harmful_volatile_organic_compounds.html

I hope you are offended about this, I just want the public to be correctly
informed.

Thanks from your fellow tree hugger,
Melissa

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allnaturalme reply on June 26, 2008:

Thank You Melissa for finding a major flaw in our post. We would never suggest using # 3 PVC - oooooo - All Natural Me thinks vinyl is nasty nasty nasty! The blog post now shows the correct info.

Thanks again for your proof reading skills. We should try that sometime.

Much love!

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okorolina Said,
June 27th, 2008 @12:37 am  

Hi there — yes, there is still an error in the post. we have gotten rid of many plastics in our home and we reuce alot of our plastic bags and shopping bags. We just dumped our #7 plastic water bottles for SIGGs and I am looking at all my toiletries that I tend to reuse the bottles for ( i make a lot of handmade lotions, creams and soaps) and taking out anything that is not #2, #4, and #5 ( #1, 3, and 7 are the bad ones!!! )

ALso there is a new lawsuit potentially emerging about Teflon coatings, so i am also clearing out the cabinets with that cookware and bakeware as well.. please update the main blog post because its still incorrect as of today ..

Blessings!

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Mothering Naturally reply on June 27, 2008:

Where do you have info that supports #1 being harmful. I have never read such a thing, and Greenpeace.org states it as safe one. If you are going to make a point, it is best to follow up with supporting info.

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Jared Said,
June 27th, 2008 @12:43 am  

This is total disinfo, people. I know personally multiple people in the emergency prepardness business who have looked at all that science, stats from both sides. This BPA scare is nothing more than extension of the pathetic attempt of the corporate media to scare people away from having bottled water (articles everywhere trying to get people back to the chemical-laden TAP water). They are trying to shift the market in their favor. This whole BPA scare is crap. Eat clean organic food. Buy natural, organic body and cleaning products. Please stop spreading this fairytale disinfo.

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kerry reply on June 27, 2008:

we pitched our plastic and use glass and stainless steel. seems to be the safer side to me. I don’t really trust what is said about the so called testing…

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Mothering Naturally reply on June 27, 2008:

to each their own. What works for one family, may not work for the other. A lot of bottled water is just regular ole tap water, and not as regulated.There is many reasons one should avoid it.

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Sam reply on June 27, 2008:

I don’t know who is right and who is wrong. I just rather be safe than sorry, and a lot of the reusing we do is for the environment. Plastic isn’t the cleanest thing to make, and it’s less plastic bottles and bags in landfills. So I don’t care if the media is lying to us or whatever, I feel better when I reuse my shopping bags or my aluminum water bottle.

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MamaTaney reply on June 27, 2008:

While I can’t cite my sources for proof (as I never bothered to save them), from my own reading and research I’ve found that the danger with plastics is when it is heated because the molecular structure can change with intense heat and cause leeching, and when the item becomes compromised or damaged, becauase that is when leeching becomes a day-to-day concern.
Personally, I go with a common-sense approach. If I use a reusable plastic container and heat it in the microwave (especially when the lid is in there too) I can physically SEE and FEEL the effect of the heat on the container. Same with Teflon, especially when it is damaged and flaking, common-sense tells me it just isn’t wise to use the way common-sense would tell me to avoid rusty knives and broken glass.
I agree with the sentiments of better safe than sorry that have been stated on here. I don’t believe that the concern amounts to “spreading fairytale disinfo” - I believe that neither side is EVER 100% dead-on accurate and that means that while there may be no need to go full-scale-Y2K-bombs-are-dropping-run-for-the-hills-the-twister-is-coming panic, proceeding with caution isn’t a bad idea.
There are dangers we are currently faced with in our world and society that we can not POSSIBLY know the true long-term damage of, as they haven’t existed long enough for a TRUE and ACCURATE LONG-TERM study to be done on them. We can choose to worry or we can choose to trust, but either way we can’t know 110%. Variables are constantly changing, so even if a study has been done, the product might have changed so much between now and then as to make the study near irrelavant due to the changing of the variables. And were all the variables ever considered? Who funded the study and what did they have to get out of it? All things to consider.
Till then, I’ll make my decision to stick with things I feel safe in: reusable shopping bags (including ones I use for bulk or loose items), steel and aluminum containers for drinks (they don’t leech taste I’ve noticed!), plastic containers for freezing bulk homemade foods when I can’t use anything else, canning homemade foods, growing my own fruits and veggies, raising my own pastured chickens, drinking raw milk and making my own butter, buying from the Farmer’s Market even if it isn’t 100% organic, walking to as many stores as we can, and so on.
These are the decisions I feel safe and secure in. I can sleep soundly at night knowing that these are the decisions we’ve made that effect our children’s health and well-being as well as our own. If anyone wants to call these beliefs and decisions “fairy-tale” then I suppose I am truly “Princess Poultry” (a nickname from a friend because of our chicken situation) and I will count my blessings in being so.

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Sam reply on June 27, 2008:

Well said Mama T!!!! And thanks for backing up my “safe than sorry” statement. Haha. I think it’s the coolest thing that you make your butter and raise your own chickens! Someday… right now I just grow my own veggies in big pots. lol. Living in an apartment right now isn’t the best place to have a huge garden and chickens. :P Hehe. Keep up the awesomeness!!! <3

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MamaTaney reply on June 28, 2008:

Sam,
Making your own butter is SO easy!! We get raw milk from pastured cows, so we skim the cream off the top. If you don’t get this, just get some heavy whipping cream. All-natural, grass-fed, BPA-free cream is best, but store bought crap will work too (and still be yummy, even if you’re in danger of man boobs).
Anyway, easiest way is if you have a whisk attatchment for your mixer - attach that baby, dump in your cream and let ‘er fly! Whisk it for a nice while. First you’ll get whippped cream (you’ll see peaks forming), then that will collapse, after a while it will suddenly “split” & butter will seperate out from the buttermilk (yes, now you’ve also made “traditional” buttermilk!). Pour off the buttermilk. I put the butter back in the mixer and mix a little longer, as you want to get as much of the buttermilk out as you can (it will cause the butter to spoil quicker). Now you’re free to add some salt if you’d like or, even yummier, ingredients such as strawberries, garlic, herbs, honey and so on - though I wouldn’t add the strawberries and garlic together because a recent study just proved that together they form PVC in your body.
I next put the butter into little molds (originally for mini-tarts & quiches) & then pop them into the freezer to harden. Like I said, if you can get raw milk/cream from pastured cows (or I suppose goats and sheep - but not horses, though I have heard you can milk a cat …. hmmmm) this will produce the BEST butter.
Did someone call me crazy? I take that as a high compliment! :P

Jared reply on June 28, 2008:

1.Never said anything about microwaving plastic being a good thing (I never do it).
2. The point made was limited to the BPA frenzy scare, not you eating locally grown natural or organic food. So not sure why you’re acting as if someone called you crazy for doing that. Never happened. Absolutely great things to do.
3. The example of the BPA scare with for instance the #7 bottle used in 5 gallon water containers is extremely misleading to say the least. As for me, I’ve never heard of anyone trying to microwave a 5 gallon jug of water.
4. There are companies that belong to the IBWA (Internations Bottled Water Association). They have very high quality standards. Those companies belonging are subject to unannounced annual plant inspections and annual product testing. Here locally, customers and potential customers are welcome to a tour of the filtration system. In fact the one I’m speaking of received the highest score possible. Again, I believe this is myth we’ve continued to see on the news that most bottled waters just get filled up straight from the tap and sealed up in a bottle. Some waters such as spring come from an actual mountain spring owned by the companies. Other waters such as the purified water obviously originates from the city source, BUT goes through a heavy multiple step process to remove impurities and IS subject to high quality and Ph standards before it can be sold. If you buy water from some hokey little company with no such verifiable credentials, than who knows what they could be giving you. But to see so many news reports and videos going around telling people point blank that these bottled waters are JUST tap water is soooo false and misleading.

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Holistically Said,
August 20th, 2008 @2:40 pm  

Could someone make a recommendation in finding Bisphenol A free lunch containers for my kids. We are forbidden to send glass containers to school for their lunches. I think the lunchopolis lunch containers contain BPA which I am oppossed to. I hope someone can point me in the right direction. Yours in wellness!

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MamaTaney reply on August 20, 2008:

Check out http://www.reusablebags.com - they have a great selection of stuff, will tell you what it is made out of (if you have any questions, just give them a call, they’re super nice & SO helpful!!), and have lots of stuff for kiddos.
Hope this helps!
PS - If you find anywhere else that has good stuff, let me know!

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