SAFE HOME CANNING

Do you know if the coating on metal lids on some types of canning jars contains bisphenol-A?

By : Dan Lawton ~ Organic Gardening

Canning jar lids from the brands Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest, and Bernandin are coated with bisphenol-A (BPA) - an industrial chemical used to make polycarbonate plastics and the epoxy resins that line many food containers. BPA is an estrogenic chemical - meaning it can mimic the hormone estrogen - and a wide body of research links it to an increased risk for reproductive and development problems, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Most human exposure to BPA comes through the diet, because the chemical can leach into canned foods that come into contact with the epoxy resin coating.

"If the lid doesn't contact the food, it's not a problem," says Frederick Saal, Ph.D., a Curators' professor of biological sciences who studies endocrine disruptors at the University of Missouri, Columbia. But in food preserving, that's unlikely to be the case, so vom Saal says it's best to use a BPA-free product.  For example, German-made Weck canning jars use glass lids, rubber rings, and metal clasps to seal the jars, rather than metal lids.

Your Weck supplies are available online at www.weckcanning.com. Glass Weck jars are FREE of bisphenol-A and safe to use!

(all information in this article came from the magazine Organic Gardening, pg. 16 issue Nov-Jan 2009/10.)