Beans, beans, good for the heart...

Yesterday I posted about the most recent report on BPA concerns. I was surprised about BPA as a part of most canned goods.

We really don't use canned goods too often since we try to avoid the high sodium in them (Mr. Cheap and Green has high blood pressure) and we have been trying to avoid preprocessed foods anyway. So eliminated canned goods is kind of a non-issue with us...except for....

BEANS.

We eat a lot of beans. In my cheap efforts, a year or so ago, we bought dried beans and tried soaking them over night. No luck...they were hard as rocks. Tried soaking 2 days. Still no luck. This bean experiment went on for awhile before we gave up eating the hard, kinda chewy, gross beans.

I'd like to go back to the dried beans because of the lower sodium, they're cheaper and we'd avoid the whole canned goods/BPA thing. So, what are we doing wrong? Is our water too hard? Does anyone have any ideas how we can get our beans to an edible state?

More BPA Concerns

The Department of Health and Human Services' National Toxicology Program released a report today saying they have "some concern" that BPA is linked to health and developmental problems. While they don't recommend banning BPA, they do say that more research needs to be done.

Everyone has heard about BPA being present in baby bottles and reusable drinking bottles. but did you know BPA is in dental sealants? BPA is also found in canned food containers. I did a little research on my own. Did you know almost all canned goods have some amount of BPA in the can? Here's what I found at the Environmental Working Group.

This nifty little chart shows canned food items that have the highest levels of BPA in them. The red percentages show the highest toxicity levels.


EWG says "BPA is at unsafe levels in one of every 10 servings of canned foods (11%) and one of every 3 cans of infant formula (33%) ."

Yikes. We eat very little canned goods, but we do eat a fair amount of beans.

So how can you avoid BPA to be on the safe side? The Environmental Working Group has some good suggestions:


1) Avoid plastics labeled #7

2) Avoid canned liquid baby formula; instead choose powdered or liquid packaged in plastic. Canned pastas also rank high in BPA.

3) Choose a stainless steel water container that does not have any liner.

4) EWG recommends consumers avoid heating food in plastics in the microwave. Glass and ceramics are better choices.

While, some of the information we're hearing may seem a little scary, I see the report as giving us a chance to examine what we use that may not be healthy and find better alternatives.