Sep
23
Filed Under Bisphenol-A, Food Safety, Product Safety
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while but only until a reader wrote in to let us know about a great “BPA Free” find did I find the hook I needed to effectively write this. A reader (thank you to our lovely readers! We adore you!) wrote in to let us know she found out that Little Bear Snack Foods packaged their canned bean dips in BPA Free cans. And right there on their website it said,
“The cans are made from steel. We know we do not use biphenyl A. The cans are lined with a food grade material.”
I was enthused that we may have found another canned food aside from Eden’s Organic Beans that were packaged in BPA Free cans. The misspelling of the term Bisphenol-A had me a little worried though so I wrote in to the company to confirm. After a day or two I got back an email from the parent company, Celestial-Hain, stating that BPA was safe, and approved by the FDA and that their cans only have trace amounts that would cause no harm to humans. I’ll paste their full response below. I was confused that they had a statement on their site (which I just noticed has since been removed) that they do not use BPA and they’d sent me information confirming their packaging does contain BPA.
I wrote back again to gain some insight but of course, I have not gotten a response back from the company. It’s unfortunate a company was so misinformed or felt the need to misinform their customers in order to gain their trust.
This is the lesson I so desperately needed some of our readers to learn. Find out for your self. I am by no means saying you can’t trust anyone. There are many of us out here on the Internet striving to provide valid, correct and useful information regarding BPA and its safety. That said, I think it’s extremely important that you not take everything you read at face value. Write to these companies, ask questions, verify suspicions, educate yourself. The more noise these companies hear from consumers, the sooner our BPA Free options will increase.
I know many of our readers have been calling in to companies to find out the BPA status of products and reporting back here to us. We’ve gotten many more emails letting us know your findings in the past few months. (THANK YOU!) That means more of you are taking things into your own hands instead of relying on the Internet. For that, I want to applaud our SafeMama Readers for taking the extra steps to get accurate information. Keep it up SafeParents!
Here is the response I received from Celestial Hain:
M. Scoleri,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding our Little Bear Product. We strive to maintain the highest quality products and appreciate your patronage.
Most metal food and beverage packaging has a thin coating of an epoxy containing BPA on the interior surface. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a compound used in most metal food and beverage packaging. The interior surface of the can has a thin coating of an epoxy containing BPA, which protects public health by preventing corrosion of the can and contamination of food and beverage by not coming in contact with the metal. This is one of the very few FDA approved coatings that will provide the safety and shelf life that consumers expect from our products. Tests have indicated that trace amounts of BPA may be present in these can coatings. The minute amounts detected are well below levels deemed to be of concern for public health according to the FDA. The United States Center for Disease Control and The American Council on Science and Health, along with other Regulatory agencies worldwide, have extensively researched Bisphenol A and concluded there is no risk to human health. All coatings that come in contact with our products undergo stringent testing and comply with US Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
As one of our valued customers, your satisfaction is very important to us and we will share your comments with our Leadership Team. If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us at 1-800-434-4246, Monday through Friday from 7AM – 5PM Mountain Time.
James
Consumer Response Representative | Ref # 1726130
Related articles:
- Consumer Reports Tests Find BPA in Canned Soups, Juice, and More
- Similac Responds to Request to Stop Using BPA
- FDA reconsidering the safety of BPA
