10 Ways to Remove Carcinogens from Your Food and Water
Hey guys, this Top 10 list comes from the producers of the documentary film Tapped the Movie, a critical examination of the bottled water industry:
1. Write to your U.S. Senator now . . . Email your U.S. Senator to voice support for the proposed federal ban on BPA in food and drink containers.
2. Donate to the Breast Cancer Fund.
3. Skip bottled water and use your own unlined stainless steel water bottles. Carefully choose a stainless steel water bottle, and make sure it’s unlined — some metal water bottles contain a plastic liner that may contain BPA.
4. Limit canned foods and beverages. The epoxy liners of metal food and beverage cans most likely contain BPA. Especially avoid canned foods that are acidic (e.g., tomatoes, citrus products, and acidic beverages, like colas) and canned alcoholic beverages, since acids and alcohols can exacerbate the leaching of BPA.
5. Skip the water cooler. Those hard plastic jugs that many companies use to provide their employees and customers with “pure” water are usually made with BPA. Drink filtered tap water instead.
(You can also ask your employer to invest in an eco-friendly bottle-less water cooler for your office.)
6. Store foods in glass. Just be sure to wash the lids, if made of plastic, by hand and not in the dishwasher.
(Glass bottles are also safer than plastic when it comes to storing beverages, especially acidic beverages like many juices.)
7. Use your own unlined stainless steel travel mug. Heat helps toxins from leach into your beverage. Instead of accepting a polystyrene “to-go” cup for your hot beverage purchases, use a unlined stainless steel travel mug.I use a good ol’ cast iron skillet along with stainless steel cookware!
8. Avoid Cooking in Non-Stick Pans and Eating Foods Packaged with Non-Stick Plastics. Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are carcinogenic chemicals that make materials stain and stick resistant and persist in our bodies long after the packaging from such products like microwave popcorn or pizza is disposed or the non-stick pan is put away.
(I use a good ol’ cast iron skillet along with stainless steel cookware.)
9. Minimize hard plastics in your kitchen. Hard plastic stirring spoons, pancake flippers, blenders, plastic cutting boards, measuring cups, and colanders regularly come into contact with both food and heat. Replace these items with wooden, metal, or glass alternatives.
10. Join an advocacy group. Food & Water Watch and Environmental Working Group will keep you up-to-date with current research and legislation regarding plastics and food and water safety.
Thanks to the work of people like the folks who produced Tapped the Movie, the bottled water industry is losing ground. One popular bottled water company recently reported a 24 percent loss in annual revenue. Keep up the good work, people!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Bottled Water, Water and Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.