We here at Back to the Mother have been very aware of big industry's lack of concern over the chemicals they are willing to expose you to in order to save a penny or create a product, package, liner, ect that perform as they need it to. These products, package liners, and preservatives might just might leach or off gas harmful chemicals into our foods and body products. If you dig deep enough you will find that many scents and preservatives in laundry soap and shampoo can disrupt your endocrine system and therefore throw off your body's ability to naturally keep your hormones in balance. How is this acceptable on any level? It's all about the money. These are very controversial topics, but it's about time we talk about it! Please do your own research, but we do encourage you to dig deep. There are lobbyists and firms the world over that are working within these same industries that push regulations and say that the levels of exposure to things like plastics and these endocrine disrupting compounds are safe in the amounts that are present in many of the products you can easily acquire at your local grocery store. All of us have been exposed to these things, whether we like it or not. Our consumerism influenced society has gone off the rails and unless we educate ourselves we will continue the slow build of body toxicity that these things cause.
Back to the focus of this blog post. We are here specifically to talk about "BPA free'' plastic lined cans. We had a canning company contact us here at Back to the Mother, encouraging us to switch our bottling line to a canning line. I explained that we use bottles because of their purity and superiority as a beverage package. For us it's no brainier! The kind woman on the phone swiftly reassured me that the plastic liners in cans now are BPA free. I said, "great, but what are these cans lined with?" She replied, "It's now called BPA-ni." I asked her to explain what that was to me. She had very little information, but she explained that the "ni" that has been tacked onto the end of BPA means "Non Intent." Meaning that the companies that make the liners in cans or any other "BPA-free" plastic does not intend to use BPA. It's not even a guarantee. It's an intent. I then asked, "Why is the industry more focused on telling me what the can liner isn't, instead of what it actually is?" At this point she put me on hold, so I could speak with a manager as she was growing uncomfortable with my questions. The manager that got on the phone reassured me that the new plastic liners in cans have superior leach-ablity protection and are totally safe for food liners, even on a product like kombucha that is quite acidic. We asked them to take us off their list and informed them that we would never switch to cans.
We didn't stop there. We started to dig and to learn what we could about these miraculous new can liners that have supposedly become 100% safe for consumers. We found out that just like BPA, the new polymer/monomer acrylic epoxy being used now is still a petroleum based plastic. The industry has put out studies that read quite nicely about the leach-ablity of these new liners, but their research still shows that they do in fact have leach-ability. This means that no matter how they dress it up, these liners when in contact with food are exposing us to chemicals that aren't doing any of us any favors when it comes to living vibrantly healthy lives. In the study we will attach below, you will see that they admit that the industry, because of the high cost of developing an alternative to BPA, has had to find a way to fast track testing on these new liners. Here's a direct quote from the paper, "Given the cost, complexity, and time involved in qualifying new coatings, reducing qualification time has the potential to accelerate development cycles." This only reassures us that these industries are more focused on saving money than creating a solution that is safe for the public. The real solution is already here. Spoiler alert, it's glass.
This research paper goes on to talk about the testing methods by which they have fast tracked the development of these new liners. They use a technique called Electrochemical impedance spec- troscopy. The paper goes on to elaborate that through their studies, they have proven that these new liners are "less leach-able" than BPA and therefor they are safe. They boast in their graph data that this new liner is 5 times less leach-able! What great news! So, what are they telling us without telling us? We have to think critically here, but it's not hard to see. PLASTIC LINERS ARE LEACH-ABLE. End of story. There will never be a petroleum based plastic or other derived plastic that doesn't leach something into the food product it becomes a package for. Are these compounds safe to ingest? We cant say for sure, because we have no idea. We do, however, highly doubt it. The dominate company in the market that makes these can liners is a paint company. If you think for one second that they care more about your health than selling a product to a massive industry.....well, we think you can figure it out.
Below is a link to the research article we got this information from. All the signs point to the fact that there is leach-ability. We don't know what these chemicals are, but they are likely just as bad as what BPA was offering in our food chains. We aren't claiming to know the true impacts of these things and ultimately cant say whether it's good or bad. That's for you to decide. We here at Back to the Mother can't even get away from these "BPA Free" liners. No one can! For our packaging, we are talking about the caps on our kimchi and sauerkraut jars, as well as the bottle caps on our kombucha. Both are considered this BPAni. We can at least say that our products aren't constantly in contact with these liners and they are stored on their bottoms from production all the way to the grocery store shelves. We encourage you to let our products travel home to your dinner table or refrigerator the same way...right side up! We hope you appreciate this transparent look into the world of plastic liners and food packaging. It's up to each of us make the decisions that will positively impact our health. The more we learn and understand and talk about these things, the more informed we can be when making these decisions. Thanks for taking the time to read this article. It's means a lot to us to spend this time on this subject.
With much gratitude,
-The Brew Crew