I am certainly not bringing up some breaking news to reflect on the whole BPA controversy with regard to plastics. It's all terribly confusing... what is correlation and what is 'causation'? It is a little like the ad campaign here that basically is trying to make people feel like criminals if they smoke cigarettes within the confines of their apartments--the smoke could travel through a duct and kill the adorable unsuspecting child two floors up from you, you BASTARD! While I do not doubt that it can and does travel in this way, what exactly is the rate of cigarette smoke-related illness when it is second hand and conveyed through light fixtures, anyway? I'm all for information, but I like it to be a little less hysterical.
So anyway, the BPA thing. Like anyone who lives in the present, and not a Unibomber cabin, or a select few towns in Pennsylvania, there is a LOT of plastic round these here parts. And a couple of weeks ago I learned that even canned foods have a lining of plasticized material that contains the evil anagram. I don't make a lot of convenience foods, but we do pop open canned tomatoes to make a soup, or the beloved canned mandarins my kids love, and mmmm... black olives. Oh, and tuna, probably to the tune of one can a week. It all adds up. Does it matter? Does the fact that we eat off mostly ceramic and I actually use the stove and oven for most of the cooking change the equation? What about cling wrap? I don't use it to reheat, but we use the new kind with the gluey stuff on it sometimes, like when my daughter drops the apple juice and manages to break the cap. Should I forgo the wonderful lock and lock containers that I use for her lunch--and the litterless juice box--and go retro with wax paper, a sigg bottle, and mini thermos? UGH!
Today I got an email from Real Simple with a link on How Dangerous Is Plastic? Get the Facts
I'm not sure I got any new information from the article, but I did find a good blog that attempts to list and quantify BPA in every-everything so you cna find out if a product it truly BPA free. See, apparently an item can be RIDDLED with BPA, but then have a *lining* that is BPA free, and since food doesn't touch the BPA, it's okay to say there is none. Now what happens with you scratch it? BPA, derrr. Does it matter? No one seems to really know.
All I know is I'd like my kids to not get all manner of weird crap ingested if I can help it. Oh, and I'd like for my husband and me to also live longer, healthier lives. I'm not the type to go hog wild prohibiting anything, but I do like to find a happy medium as far as these things go.
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