Monday, March 29, 2010

Information!

An obvious perk to being back in school is access to information. I like information, especially health-related information. And I like receiving health-related information in a classroom, as opposed to the fear inducing media. I don't like watching the news. In fact, I think if our professors told us information the way CNN (or ABC or FOX - really, I'm not picking on any particular channel here...) does than he would enter the classroom and scream "THIS JUST IN! YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES!" And then break for a commercial. Okay, I'm exaggerating (a little).


http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/msh0017l.jpg


Anway, today I learned about a freaky little chemical called BPa or Bisphenol A. BPa is in most plastics: plastic water bottles, plastic baby bottles, plastic food packages and it is also in canned food (think: Progresso Soup). The reason you should care is that it may or may not cause hormone changes within the endocrine system which may or may not lead to premature puberty in your children or cancer within yourself.

There isn't enough scientific proof (yet) to accuse this pesky chemical of causing either premature maturity or cancer - but then again it took scientists several light years to get around to fessing up about cigarettes and we're all better safe than sorry (thankyouverymuch lobbyists!).

So that's reason number x million to stop buying food in those pretty little plastic packages (or at least, be warier). Which is kind of a bummer because there's nothing I love more than a can of Campbell's Chicken N Stars and a bottle of Ginger Ale when I'm infiltrated with the flu.

I highly recommend reading about BPa HERE, HERE and HERE and then watching this video here in addition to passing on the information to everyone you know.



Then go eat your greens.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's funny that you put up this post about the subject. I had a post about it a few weeks ago. I saw it on tv and couldn't help but write a post about it. There are so many things that are dangerous to our lives and I know that we can't avoid them all. But I thinks if we can stay away from some of them, it's already better than not at all. The human beeing is destroying themself. So sad.

Stephanie Pons said...

My friend started storing everything in jars. Looks pretty cool! http://tinkmakesart.com/2010/02/23/from-plastic-to-glass/
Miss you Annie, friend!

Donn said...

Annie,

The internet's been lonely without you. Welcome back!

This is so righteous. Honestly, it's criminal the stuff that is allowed to be put in our food and food receptacles. Why even cut it close? If there's any possibility that a chemical could be an endocrine disruptor, then don't allow it. Our regulations seem to be concerned about business first, people second.

I'm running away from BPa and all things aluminum as fast as possible. Ashley said one of her friends had an an x-ray, and there were dark spots on her underarm. The cause: aluminum deodorant residue.

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