Shandi
04-23-2016, 06:28 AM
BPA-FREE? Not so fast…by Lara Adler
https://www.laraadler.com/coaches/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/BPAfreebottles-590x250.jpg
A few weeks back I posted about Bisphenol-A (https://www.laraadler.com/coaches/how-whats-in-your-vitamix-fat) – the chemical plasticizer that also has the misfortune of being a synthetic estrogen. (That just doesn’t sound good). This is a chemical that’s used, among a number of other places, in clear, hard polycarbonate plastics. Think: Brita Water Pitchers, food processor bowls, and yes, your fancy and much loved VitaMix or Blendtec blenders.
BPA’s history as a synthetic estrogen goes way back to the 1930’s where it was actually used as pharmaceutical hormone before being replaced with the more potent and way more horribly devastating chemical DES (https://www.desaction.org/aboutdes.htm). But BPA found a new purpose in the 1940’s & 50’s in the manufacture of a new type of plastic – polycarbonate. Fast forward a bunch of decades, and look – we’ve got polycarbonate everywhere!
In the late 1990’s it was determined that BPA was leaching from plastic baby bottles, yet thanks to industry pressure and government inaction, nothing was done. It wasn’t until the spring of 2008 that the shit hit the fan, so to speak, for the BPA/polycarbonate plastic industry, and since then state governments have been pushing for partial and outright bans of BPA in children’s products, including baby bottles, and the public has been demanding safer, non-toxic options.
In an attempt to appease a justifiably pissed off public, makers of polycarbonate plastic products rushed to create BPA-Free versions. And they did. Hundreds of hard, polycarbonate plastic containers started bearing stickers proclaiming they were BPA-FREE! And everyone bought them (and still are). People were tossing out their trusty Nalgene bottles and buying new ones – this time BPA-FREE.
But we may have pushed too hard, too fast in our desire to be rid of this chemical and it’s hormone disrupting effects, because what we’re left with after the BPA-FREE parade left town, is a big public-perception mess to clean up. The BPA-FREE claim makes people feel good, safe, protected – even if they don’t know what BPA is to begin with. “If the label is promoting that’s it’s “free” of something… I guess that something must have been bad, right? So now it’s better!”, the logic seems to flow.
Turns out Bisphenol-A isn’t the only Bisphenol in the family… there are apparently 15 (bisphenol-F, bisphenol b/c/e/f/g, and so on). In the rush to be rid of BPA, many manufacturers simply swapped one bisphenol chemical for another, so rather than use BPA, they’re now using BPS, or BPF. These bisphenols, as well as other chemicals used in the production of plastics can exhibit what is called “estrogenic activity” – this is the indicator that it being a hormone disruptor, and this is what we want to test for – not whether it just has levels of BPA in it.
Continues here (https://www.laraadler.com/coaches/bpa-free-not-so-fast)
https://www.laraadler.com/coaches/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/BPAfreebottles-590x250.jpg
A few weeks back I posted about Bisphenol-A (https://www.laraadler.com/coaches/how-whats-in-your-vitamix-fat) – the chemical plasticizer that also has the misfortune of being a synthetic estrogen. (That just doesn’t sound good). This is a chemical that’s used, among a number of other places, in clear, hard polycarbonate plastics. Think: Brita Water Pitchers, food processor bowls, and yes, your fancy and much loved VitaMix or Blendtec blenders.
BPA’s history as a synthetic estrogen goes way back to the 1930’s where it was actually used as pharmaceutical hormone before being replaced with the more potent and way more horribly devastating chemical DES (https://www.desaction.org/aboutdes.htm). But BPA found a new purpose in the 1940’s & 50’s in the manufacture of a new type of plastic – polycarbonate. Fast forward a bunch of decades, and look – we’ve got polycarbonate everywhere!
In the late 1990’s it was determined that BPA was leaching from plastic baby bottles, yet thanks to industry pressure and government inaction, nothing was done. It wasn’t until the spring of 2008 that the shit hit the fan, so to speak, for the BPA/polycarbonate plastic industry, and since then state governments have been pushing for partial and outright bans of BPA in children’s products, including baby bottles, and the public has been demanding safer, non-toxic options.
In an attempt to appease a justifiably pissed off public, makers of polycarbonate plastic products rushed to create BPA-Free versions. And they did. Hundreds of hard, polycarbonate plastic containers started bearing stickers proclaiming they were BPA-FREE! And everyone bought them (and still are). People were tossing out their trusty Nalgene bottles and buying new ones – this time BPA-FREE.
But we may have pushed too hard, too fast in our desire to be rid of this chemical and it’s hormone disrupting effects, because what we’re left with after the BPA-FREE parade left town, is a big public-perception mess to clean up. The BPA-FREE claim makes people feel good, safe, protected – even if they don’t know what BPA is to begin with. “If the label is promoting that’s it’s “free” of something… I guess that something must have been bad, right? So now it’s better!”, the logic seems to flow.
Turns out Bisphenol-A isn’t the only Bisphenol in the family… there are apparently 15 (bisphenol-F, bisphenol b/c/e/f/g, and so on). In the rush to be rid of BPA, many manufacturers simply swapped one bisphenol chemical for another, so rather than use BPA, they’re now using BPS, or BPF. These bisphenols, as well as other chemicals used in the production of plastics can exhibit what is called “estrogenic activity” – this is the indicator that it being a hormone disruptor, and this is what we want to test for – not whether it just has levels of BPA in it.
Continues here (https://www.laraadler.com/coaches/bpa-free-not-so-fast)