Eating out of Cans?

A recent study, published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has shown that people who eat canned (tinned) foods are actually ingesting more of a hormone-disrupting chemical than was previously thought. It's bad enough that Big Ag is chemically manipulating the genetic structure of our foodstuffs and that they're then growing our food in chemical-laden soils devoid of nutrients. We can't stop them from overloading feed animals with hormones, antibiotics, and other substances that contribute nothing to our nutritional health. They seem content to bathe us in a killer cocktail of elements that have nowhere been studied for their cumulative effect.

Now we find out that the migration of BPA (Bisphenol A), a key ingredient in epoxy resins and used for the last 40 years to coat the interior of metal cans to prevent corrosion of the can and contamination of food and beverages with dissolved metals, may actually present in greater amounts in the human body than earlier studies have shown.

BPA is used in thousands of products, from coating the metal cans food is stored in, to baby bottles, to DVD cases, and soda cans. It's quite the industrial "do-all" chemical additive. This chemical is linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and abnormal liver enzymes in adults, and health and development problems in fetuses, infants, and children.

This chemical is literally all around us. A Danish study found this estrogen-based hormone disrupter to be present even in the toilet paper we use (because toilet paper uses a lot of recycled paper products, and credit card receipts and point-of-sale receipts are commonly coated with a thin layer of chemical which contains BPA). The researchers concluded that "because of the distinct contamination with xenoestrogens, both paper waste and recycled paper products should not be mixed with biological waste e.g. for co-composting or co-fermentation in order to derive organic fertilisers."

So, do we resort to outhouses once again?

Look, no one is advocating we hang up the toilet paper and opt for the bidets. I personally don't want to give up my Charmin. But when you look at the list of products that contain BPA, there is really a lot that we can do to avoid the exposure that we have to this product.

We all know we shouldn't be drinking as much soda as we do, so cut out the amount of soda in cans and plastic bottles you consume. If we want water, let's get it from the tap and filter it. And let's use glass bottles for our babies.

Take a look when you walk up and down the grocery aisles that contain canned food and see if there isn't much of anything that you can't put up in jars. Is there really any vegetable or meat that you can't purchase fresh from the grocery store (or hunt or raise yourself) and personally can it?

Not really.

And that's where taking responsibility for our own health comes in. it's up to us to make the choices that limits us to exposure to the chemicals that modern society seems intent on foisting upon us.

Some will say that it's the advances in chemical additives in general and their application in particular that have allowed us to live longer, healthier lives, but to that I say "bull feathers." Natural News, in a March 22, 2011 article, showed that the Amish population of the United States is actually healthier than the rest of Americans. Not only do they grow their own food and work like the dickens, they avoid the chemical onslaught that we the in modern world subject ourselves to each day, whether that is through vaccinations, toilet paper... or food.

Before you think that you'll have to wait until next year to get started, understand that canning is a year-round endeavor. Hunting season comes after gardening season. If you raise your own food, you can have animals ready for slaughter at any time of the year. There are many cold-weather crops that you can take advantage of and grow to put up in your pantry.

If you're new to this whole "putting food by" experience, then Solutions From Science has the perfect product for you--their instructional canning DVD, Food Storage Secrets. For example, these videos will show you:

• How to be up and running overnight
• How to store your canning equipment
• The #1 most popular food for canning--and how to can it!
• The one meat you can't put in a quart jar
• How to process and prepare almost any type of food
• How to create your own basement or pantry supermarket

Absolutely everything you need to know is on these food storage teaching DVDs. Someone once said that these videos are the ultimate "all you need to know" private lessons on preparedness. (And if there ever was a time to learn all you can on preparing for hard times, it's now!)

For instance, did you know:

• You can process meat even with the bones?
• That meat is as safe to can as vegetables?
• You can process combinations of meat and vegetables for things like soups and stews?
• That there are a couple of ingredients you DON'T want to can... but you can add them later on when you heat up your jarred goods?
• Canning is the ultimate in environmental-friendly practices... you reuse your jars over and over.

Not only is the Food Storage Secrets DVD set a wonderful instructional canning video, it also provides you an introduction to dehydrating foods as well. That's right, putting up food is done in a myriad of ways, and dehydrating meat and vegetables is just another food storage solution.

But what if you're already a seasoned canner? What if you feel you already know all there is to know about canning foods? What if you're well-versed in all the ways to safely store food? Well then, these make excellent Christmas gifts for friends and loved ones who may not be as savvy as you are! Buy several copies and give them to friends and neighbors. Drop one in a stocking or two. The Food Storage Secrets DVD setis the gift that continues to give, generation after generation.