The tests focused on popular Thanksgiving canned goods—green beans, cream of mushroom soup, turkey gravy, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, pumpkin, and evaporated milk— and showed that single servings of almost half of the products tested had levels of BPA comparable to those linked to adverse health effects in the lab.
Levels of BPA were highly variable throughout the samples. For example, the sample of Del Monte Fresh Cut Sweet Corn, Cream Style purchased in Minnesota contained 221 parts per billion (ppb) while the same product purchased in California only contained 4 ppb. This variability among cans of the same product, as the report points out, “means […] consumers have no way of knowing how much BPA is in the canned goods they’re buying and consuming.”
The products tested included four cans, each purchased in a different state (including California, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York), of:
- Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup
- Campbell’s Turkey Gravy
- Carnation Evaporated Milk (Nestlé)
- Del Monte Fresh Cut Sweet Corn, Cream Style
- Green Giant Cut Green Beans (General Mills)
- Libby’s Pumpkin (Nestlé)
- Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce
If this list is looking like your Thanksgiving shopping list, don’t fret, the Breast Cancer Fund has prepared a list of can-free recipes and inexpensive replacements. Find them, and the full report, here.
