Meatless Monday: Kicking BPA from Cans

By now most of us know to avoid cans when we can. But cooking without canned ingredients is pretty hard to do, particularly during winter and spring in New England. I finally found barramundi in my store’s freezer case, and three of the ingredients for the recipe I’ll be preparing tonight come in cans! More on barramundi sometime soon.

But there is good news on the can front. Early in March, Campbell’s Soup added their name to the growing list of companies pledging to remove BPA from their can linings. Campbell’s products showed some of the highest-ranked levels of BPA in studies conducted by Consumer Reports in 2009. Organizers for the Breast Cancer Fund’s  “Cans Not Cancer” campaign claim that over 70,000 letters were sent to Campbell’s urging them to make this change. 

According to information in the April edition of The Voice, the email newsletter of Women’s Voices for the Earth, the list of companies with BPA-free cans includes: including Eden Foods, Muir Glen, Trader Joe's, Heinz, Hain Celestial Group, ConAgra, and now Campbell’s. Consumers do have the power!

Consumer groups had called upon the FDA to issue a ban on BPA in cans, similar to the one it issued for  infant bottles.  But late in March, the FDA made the announcement that it will continue to study BPA. 

Earth Day is coming. What’s on your agenda? I’ll be biking in Rock to Rock, New Haven’s Earth Day Ride. [Note the link goes to my fundraising page. ;) ] It’s been sunny and dry here, but there is rain in the forecast. Here’s hoping it arrives a day early. We could use it. Brush fires in Connecticut in April? Really. Check out these weather tables for 2012 and 2011.

Happy Monday. Have a great week.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Cleaning Up/Cleaning Green

1 cup white vinegar + 1 cup hot water + 1 teaspoon borax + 10 drops essential peppermint oil, mixed well and poured into a spray bottle. This variation of a recipe I had downloaded from Women’s Voices for the Earth really works! I put this formula to the test yesterday on a really dirty wooden floor, finished with polyurethane.  So dirty that I rinsed afterward.

I have empirical evidence to back up the Women’s claim that vinegar would cut through the accumulated mineral deposits and grease. When I was finished with my task, the floor was shiny and without film or residue, and the room had a wonderfully pleasant smell. (I had added the peppermint at  the suggestion of a friend who told me that Dr. Oz had added it to his brew on Oprah.) The cost — less than 15¢/ batch, with generic vinegar bought by the gallon. Sold for aromatherapy, the optional oil is the biggest investment. Choose your fragrance, and it will run you about $4/.5 oz. At 10 drops a batch, .5 oz. will last a long time.

The book I mentioned a few posts ago, Green Cleaning for Dummies, is a great resource. It offers many safe, home-brewed alternatives for brightening laundry, washing windows, removing stains — virtually any cleaning task — as well as many other suggestions for running a Green home. The main required ingredients are vinegar, baking soda, and borax — all available at the supermarket. I’m not sure I’m ready to make my own laundry detergent; the machine is too expensive for me to take such a chance. But I am ready to try almost anything else.

If you want to make your own cleaners, but are not ready to purchase a book just yet, you can find many recipes at the Women’s Voices for the Earth site. Just be sure to invest in an industrial strength spray bottle, not a plant mister. It is worth the extra change to get one with strong walls, and a durable spray trigger.

And if you want to embrace the concept of cleaning Green, but aren’t ready to make your own, the Consumer Reports site can help you verify the environmental claims, as well as the effectiveness, of most commercially available products.

For real savings, follow the advice in Green Cleaning for Dummies. You will be rewarded for being Green by getting some extra green for your wallet. A perk for doing a good thing. Who can argue with that?