BPA

Dateline NBC, on Sunday March 24th, aired a segment titled “Hormone Disruptors”, where correspondent Andrea Canning embarked on a study of foods and personal care products in her home, to better understand her detectable exposure levels to the chemicals BPA, triclosan and phthalates – known as hormone disruptors. Not only did Andrea have herself tested for detectable levels of these chemicals in her body via urine tests, but she also had her three young children tested as well.

There isn’t much on TV that I care to watch anymore, as I would much rather spend my free time reading books that teach me something of real value, but pure coincidence had me watching Dateline’s show about synthetic hormone disrupting chemicals with Andrea Canning, and I’m glad I did.
Read more »

In a study published last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers put five San Francisco families on a three-day diet of food that hadn’t been in contact with plastic. When they compared urine samples before and after the diet, the scientists were stunned to see what a difference a few days could make: The participants’ levels of bisphenol A (BPA), which is used to harden polycarbonate plastic, plunged — by two-thirds, on average — while those of the phthalate DEHP, which imparts flexibility to plastics, dropped by more than half.

The findings seemed to confirm what many experts suspected: Plastic food packaging is a major source of these potentially harmful chemicals, which most Americans harbor in their bodies. Other studies have shown phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) passing into food from processing equipment and food-prep gloves, gaskets and seals on non-plastic containers, inks used on labels — which can permeate packaging — and even the plastic film used in agriculture.
Read more »

Dateline NBC on Hormone Disruptors, BPA, Triclosan and Phthalates – Chemicals in the Body

If the food’s in plastic, what’s in the food?