France Bans BPA in Food Packaging page

[JoanieL]

From here: France Bans BPA in Food Packaging | Rodale News

France Bans BPA in Food Packaging

Safer canned food is on its way to France. The French parliament recently voted to ban the controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) from food packaging, making it the first country in the world to do so.

BPA is used in the epoxy linings of metal food cans, in certain types of plastic and as a coating on thermal receipts. It's an endocrine disruptor, meaning that the chemical interferes with the way your body produces and regulates hormones such as estrogen, testosterone and insulin. Independent studies have linked the chemical to reproductive damage in children and certain metabolic disorders, such as obesity and heart disease.

Because of all the studies showing the potential damage that BPA can have on developing fetuses and infants, many countries have already banned its use in the polycarbonate plastics used to make baby bottles and sippy cups. However, the food lobby has been successful in defeating any ban on the chemical's use in canned goods, at least in the United States.

France's ban goes against even the cautious European Union's stance on the chemical; the EU has banned BPA in baby products and is currently re-evaluating its stance on BPA in food packaging but still allows its use. But they aren't acting fast enough for the French Agency for Food Health Safety. In October 2012, the Agency asked the European Chemicals Agency to classify BPA as a reproductive toxin, based on all the available scientific evidence, which eventually would have led to a ban on the chemical in the EU.

But France's parliament decided to pre-empt any decision by the European Chemicals Agency anyway, voting to ban the production, import, export and distribution of any form of food packaging that contains BPA as of January 1, 2014.

[Paleobird]

Vive la France!

[ryanmercer]

They'll just find something to use in it's place that's just as bad.

[JoanieL]

Maybe, but food mfgs have to do what is necessary to get their foods off the shelves. If cartons and glass sell and the cans stay on the shelves, they'll switch. If you were a food producer on a large scale, and even one out 20 of your customers stopped buying your product, wouldn't you do something? Even if only to buy a smaller label company and charge a higher price for the nonBPA product. They are all competing for a limited number of consumer dollars per market.

We are minority shoppers, but that doesn't mean we can't have an impact. I used to go through ~20-25 cans of tuna in a month. Easypeasy protein. BPAs + soy = 0 cans per month now. I eat fresh salmon now in its place. That's just one example. I buy Pomi chopped tomatoes which come in a carton (actually cheaper at WFoods than at Azon), and buy tomato paste in glass. If I couldn't find those products, I'd make big batches of my own and freeze them.

The thing with BPAs, is that they had suspicions about the negative health effects over 30 years ago. But hey, a penny saved is a penny earned, even if somebody dies. The whole issue of poison in the food supply, even to the packaging makes me pretty angry.

[ryanmercer]

Maybe, but food mfgs have to do what is necessary to get their foods off the shelves. If cartons and glass sell and the cans stay on the shelves, they'll switch. If you were a food producer on a large scale, and even one out 20 of your customers stopped buying your product, wouldn't you do something? Even if only to buy a smaller label company and charge a higher price for the nonBPA product. They are all competing for a limited number of consumer dollars per market.

We are minority shoppers, but that doesn't mean we can't have an impact. I used to go through ~20-25 cans of tuna in a month. Easypeasy protein. BPAs + soy = 0 cans per month now. I eat fresh salmon now in its place. That's just one example. I buy Pomi chopped tomatoes which come in a carton (actually cheaper at WFoods than at Azon), and buy tomato paste in glass. If I couldn't find those products, I'd make big batches of my own and freeze them.

The thing with BPAs, is that they had suspicions about the negative health effects over 30 years ago. But hey, a penny saved is a penny earned, even if somebody dies. The whole issue of poison in the food supply, even to the packaging makes me pretty angry.

Life is just too short. I literally grew up eating lead paint chips from a house form the 1800's. The first tooth paste tubes were lead for decades, plastics leach this and that, bpa in cans, the glass could be leaded... etc etc.

[Neckhammer]

Removing non-food from all items sold for consumption is step one IMO.....good on France. We're not arguing about carb levels or even which grains are the most detrimental here. We're talking about known poisons that affect everyone.

[Nekron]

The thing with BPAs, is that they had suspicions about the negative health effects over 30 years ago. But hey, a penny saved is a penny earned, even if somebody dies. The whole issue of poison in the food supply, even to the packaging makes me pretty angry.

No, the thing with BPA is, that its the least disgusting of all the things they could use. A ban on BPA itself is the worst thing they could do, the manufacturers wont say "oh great, we will now switch to fucking expensive glass containers that double the price and lead to no one buying it", they will just go "well we use industrial plastic Xc^3-25 instead. What does that do? I dont give a fuck."

[ryanmercer]

No, the thing with BPA is, that its the least disgusting of all the things they could use. A ban on BPA itself is the worst thing they could do, the manufacturers wont say "oh great, we will now switch to fucking expensive glass containers that double the price and lead to no one buying it", they will just go "well we use industrial plastic Xc^3-25 instead. What does that do? I dont give a fuck."

Exactly.

[JoanieL]

So stop buying cans completely. It's your health. It's my health. "Whatever," is exactly the response over the last 30 years that has put us in this shithole of unwholesome food in unwholesome packaging. I mean we're on a primal message board. We're busting our humps to buy food that isn't garbage.

Whatever.

[Nekron]

1. im not buying cans
2. wtf does that have to do with anything, you can do that right now as well, this isnt affected by the bpa ban at all

Some people...