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Loading...More Americans Drinking BPA in Canned Beer, Thanks to Pabst-Drinking Hipsters
Written by Lloyd Alter
Bisphenol A, or BPA is the gender-bending endocrine disruptor that has been variously blamed for contributing to heart disease, obesity, reduced penis size, even making girls mean and making you stupid and depressed.
It’s a hormone, and some studies show that the tiniest amounts can affect you. People threw away their polycarbonate bottles for metal to avoid it, and then the SIGG company was pretty much destroyed when it was discovered that it had sold bottles with an epoxy lining made with BPA. Consumers Reports confirmed that BPA leaches out of cans.
And yet the Consumerist, owned by Consumers Reports, blithely posts today that We Are Apparently In The Midst Of A Canned Beer Renaissance, based on a Bloomberg story that says “The frosty can of beer is making a comeback in the U.S. as the recession and proliferation of smaller breweries drives demand away from bottles and draft.”
The reason that beer doesn’t taste like the can anymore is that they are lined with epoxy and that epoxy is made with BPA. The brewers admit it; New Belgium even says ” we respect everyone’s right to choose their own level of acceptable risk.” One of the craft canners admitted in TriplePundit that ” Unfortunately all aluminum beverage cans use liners containing BPA, as well as most food product cans, so there’s no escaping it at the present time.”
Government of Canada/Public Domain
The Canadian Government studied it, and found BPA leached out of the cans into the beer. The amounts are small, but they are detectable. The study notes:
In view of uncertainties related to possible neurodevelopmental and behavioural effects that BPA may have in experimental animals, Health Canada’s Food Directorate has recommended that precaution be exerted on products consumed by the sensitive subset of the population, i.e. infants and newborns, by applying the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) principle to reduce their exposure to BPA through food packaging applications.
Now you might point out that infants and newborns don’t drink beer. But nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that it is probably good advice for anyone. The way to avoid BPA in beer or any canned food is to simply to avoid cans, since there is no effective and affordable substitute yet.
Lloyd Alter with info from Heather Rogers/CC BY 2.0
Ultimately, the real green answer is to start being like the rest of the world and using returnable and refillable bottles. But as I noted in an earlier rant on the same subject,
The dominance of the American beer can is a story of the victory of centralized mass production instead of local, big business destroying small, the change from a reusable container to a disposable one, the switch from short-range shipping of a locally consumed product to the logistics of nationwide diesel transport, from healthy glass to BPA epoxy lined aluminum cans.
It’s your choice.
This post was originally published by TreeHugger.
Related Stories:
New BPA Substitute May Be Equally Dangerous
Lipstick or Diabetes? Cosmetics and BPA
Read more: aluminum can, beer, BPA, recycle, treehugger
Photo: lindsayloveshermac/flickr
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34 comments
+ add your ownI don't ever drink canned beer. And all of the beers listed are fairly disgusting Lagers. Go out and drink properly-made craft beers sold on draught ('draft' in the USA) and you shouldn't have any problems!
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for posting!
Thanks for the article. I don't drink beer but there are people in my life who do.
Thanks for the update.
I once drank beer made with embalming fluid in Gabon, West Africa. Walked right off a container ship dock about a 40' drop into the water. No damage done but that way one long drop.
Hipsters ? I haven't heard that termed since they cancelled, "The Munsters!"
Thanks
I prefer bottles anyway. Better flavor. The milk I buy is delivered in bottles, hormone free. I pay a premium for it, but I love my family, I want them healthy. Its a very simple budget decision, save a couple of bucks and make my family members sick ? Or spend it anyway and try and keep them eating right ? Very easy answer there.
Luvenia, you can pop your popcorn the old fashioned way, but you can't get the pesticides bred into the corn by our friends at Monsanto. Of course, like BPA, their scientists will guarantee that it is perfectly safe. Glad I live in Ontario where 88% of beer is in bottles.
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