Another thing to worry about: canned food

I used to avoid canned food because of the lead in the soldering of the seams. But then the FDA finally spoke out against lead soldering and U.S. manufacturers quit using it, so I thought there were no more worries. After all, people have been eating canned food for decades.

Along comes a dispatch to my Inbox yesterday from National Geographic's Green Guide (Kick the BPA Can), which discusses the hazards of Bisphenol A (BPA), the hormone-disrupting chemical that is used to line cans in most commercial food.  The article states that Eden foods is the only manufacturer that they know of that absolutely doesn't use BPA in its cans. 

I went to the health food store today and happened to run into the marketing representative for Eden, who stopped to speak to me when he saw that I had Eden Soy Extra in my cart. I asked him about BPA and he said that Eden avoids using plastic in any of its products. The manufacturer of its cans uses a vegetable-based compound in the interior instead of plastic.

What makes me angriest about all this (besides the fact that I just bought a whole case of non-Eden canned cannellini beans from a food warehouse) is that manufacturers keep using chemicals and products that are harmful until there is enough noise from consumers (and/or the government, usually prompted by consumers or other outside entities) that they have to withdraw it or make it a new way. How many more food products and packaging chemicals are out there that someone already knows is harmful, but which hasn't been withdrawn yet because not enough people know about it or are angry enough about it yet?