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Common comfort food causes BPA levels in your body to skyrocket – but it’s not that scary
How many cans of soup are there in your cupboard? If youre like me, youll always have a couple tucked away somewhere for a rainy day.
More fool us, according to one nutrition podcaster. You could get your soup from Paneras new fall menu, or give your $1 can of soup a makeover. Regardless of how you take it, its well and truly soup season. What better time of year to have a measured discussion about how much goodness is in a can of prepared soup?
Canned soup contains small amounts of Bisphenol A
Better known as BPA, Bisphenol A is an industrial chemical used in the linings of some metal food and drink cans. Its also used to make rigid plastics like refillable drink bottles.
A lot of manufacturers have stopped using it, but some products still contain BPA. They should have Proposition 65 warnings on the label.
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Fitness and health influencer Dr Rhonda Patrick recently published a series of videos about the potential health risks of having too much BPA in your body.
Consuming one serving of canned soup daily for just five days caused a staggering 1000% increase in urinary BPA levels, she wrote in the caption of one video. Thats one of the highest concentrations seen outside of industrial settings.
In others, she cites studies that have linked BPA to female fertility problems and lower levels of testosterone. The Daily Mail reported on her video series, describing the effects of consuming just one can of soup as frightening.
But is it worth getting into a fuss over just one can of soup ?
Reading between the headlines
Dr Patrick makes reference to a 2011 study in which participants ate a can of soup every day for five days. True enough, it led to a 1000% increase in urinary BPA.
A Chinese study from 2023 investigated the effects on ovarian reserve, i.e. the amount and health of a womans egg cells, of higher levels of BPA and its cousin BPS.
It concluded that among reproductive-aged women, exposure to BPA has adverse effects on egg number and health.
Finally, another piece of research from 2023 leads with the headline that high-level BPA exposure may affect male fertility, too, by reducing sperm quality.
However, it clarifies that there is no association between BPA exposure and male infertility in cases where the exposure is low-level environmental. It adds that ingested BPA, such as the BPA that enters our bodies when we eat canned soup, is 99% excreted.
It’s harder to excrete it when it enters via the lungs or skin, but you’re not rubbing tomato soup all over your skin… are you?
In 2016, CNN quoted a statement from the FDA saying that it had performed extensive research and reviewed hundreds of studies about BPAs safety, and determined that current authorized uses of BPA in food packaging are safe.
In other words, a can of soup wont harm you. Fresh soup is better, but you can do a lot worse than a tin of cream and mushroom.
