Stews, tuna, coconut milk, tomatoes: almost everyone has these canned foods in the house. Stiftung Warentest now found the harmful chemical BPA in almost all doses tested. Two products were particularly contaminated.
They last a long time and are quickly ready to hand: canned food is practical. But many of them have a pollution problem, as a study by Stiftung Warentest shows. It's about the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), which can transfer from the coating of the cans to their contents.
Stiftung Warentest tested 58 canned foods for bisphenol A - namely coconut milk, condensed milk, peas and carrots, tomatoes, stews, soups and tuna. They were able to detect the chemical in 51 foods (“test” issue 5/2024).
“Eating contaminated products once is not a problem. “But in the long run it is a risk,” the testers summarize. BPA has a hormone-like effect and can impair fertility.
Animal experiments also showed an increased incidence of liver and kidney damage as well as damage to the immune system, writes “Stiftung Warentest”. At what quantities does it become critical? Expert opinions differ on this.
This is also reflected in the guidelines that authorities use to classify the health risk of bisphenol A content in foods. The current guideline value of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a thousand times higher than the guideline value of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
According to the lower and therefore stricter Efsa guideline value, all 51 products in which Stiftung Warentest was able to detect bisphenol A are heavily contaminated. According to the higher BfR value, 14 products from the study were significantly or heavily contaminated.
Stiftung Warentest discovered relatively high BPA levels in soups and stews. Additional problem: You usually eat larger portions of them, which means you consume even more bisphenol A if the products are contaminated. Tomatoes and mixed vegetables tend to be less contaminated, according to the product testers.
Bright spot: No BPA was found in all six condensed milk products in the study, and a can of peas and carrots was also completely uncontaminated.
But how does the chemical get into the food? According to Stiftung Warentest, many manufacturers state that they use BPA-free interior paints for their cans or interior paints in which the chemical is not intentionally used. However, BPA-containing paints would still be used on the outside of the cans. It is possible that during the production of the cans, traces transfer from the outside to the inside.
A ban on bisphenol A food packaging is currently being discussed at EU level. The chemical is already banned in receipt paper, for example. Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical. With their help, the hard and transparent plastic polycarbonate and epoxy resins are produced. It can also be found in smartphones, storage boxes and bottles for food, but the substance enters the body primarily through food, explains “Stiftung Warentest”.
If you want to be on the safe side when it comes to bisphenol A, replace canned goods with products in glass jars or composite boxes or switch to frozen goods, advises Stiftung Warentest. According to the BfR, there is no risk of bisphenol A migrating into food with this packaging.