Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogle Bam. Here, Let's face it, some
Speaker 1: canned vegetables are so very different from their fresh forms,
Speaker 1: think asparagus, that plenty of kids grow up swearing off
Speaker 1: otherwise delicious foods forever. So it's no surprise that canned
Speaker 1: foods have a bad rap. But the bad reputation goes
Speaker 1: beyond just the food that comes inside those cans. It's
Speaker 1: also because of things like the growth of farmers markets
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, and influencers like California's Alice
Speaker 1: Waters and Michael Pollen who have encouraged eating locally raised
Speaker 1: fresh foods over processed foods, and bp A linings and
Speaker 1: scary accounts of the dangers of dented cans told by
Speaker 1: well meaning grandparents. So is that bad reputation deserved? First,
Speaker 1: Let's back up and talk about canning foods as a whole.
Speaker 1: Canning was born out of a search for convenience and efficiency.
Speaker 1: A French candy maker and chef Nicholas A. Pear develop
Speaker 1: to the process. At the end of the eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: Napoleon was offering a huge prize to anyone who could
Speaker 1: help him feed his troops. A pair's original process isn't
Speaker 1: very different from the canning methods used today. A pair
Speaker 1: put food in bottles and jars, covered them with cork
Speaker 1: and wax, and processed the jars in boiling water. The
Speaker 1: French government paid a pair to make his process public,
Speaker 1: and that led to the first recipe book on canning.
Speaker 1: The Pair's process spread quickly. Not twenty years later, the
Speaker 1: British Navy fed soldiers the first meat, soups and vegetables
Speaker 1: that were canned in tin instead of jars. During World
Speaker 1: War Two, governments in a number of countries, including the
Speaker 1: U S and the UK, promoted home canning. The U
Speaker 1: S printed and distributed circulars and opened thousands of canning
Speaker 1: centers to help home cooks preserve food grown in home gardens.
Speaker 1: Canning became patriotic, supplementing bland and sometimes inadequate rations. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, commercially canned and other packaged foods were
Speaker 1: introduced as nutritious, time saving, modern convenient. A popular book,
Speaker 1: the can Opener cookbook Buy Food, editor Poppy Cannon promised
Speaker 1: readers they could open some cans and create a gourmet
Speaker 1: meal without really knowing how to cook. The recipes included
Speaker 1: roast canned chicken flombay with black cherries made with a
Speaker 1: whole canned chicken. Another meal was made of canned hamburger
Speaker 1: patties covered with fried onions and red wine, baked in
Speaker 1: a castrole dish for twenty minutes. Canned food was promoted
Speaker 1: and seen as better than fresh, especially as industrial agriculture
Speaker 1: began to incorporate more modern fertilizers and technologies. The author
Speaker 1: of the can Opener cookbook wrote the flavor of fresh
Speaker 1: tomatoes was bad and that for real tomato flavor, you
Speaker 1: should open a can. Fifty is years later, canned tomatoes
Speaker 1: are still an off season go to for tomato lovers
Speaker 1: and cooks, and I certainly can't deny the convenience of
Speaker 1: a can of beans already cooked and ready to go
Speaker 1: into a salad, soup, dip, or whatever other dish, no
Speaker 1: long soaking or par boiling required. From a nutrition standpoint,
Speaker 1: the canning process today is designed preserve as many nutrients
Speaker 1: as possible. Fruits and vegetables for canning are picked at
Speaker 1: the peak of their ripeness, as opposed to some produce
Speaker 1: picked for fresh sale, which may be underripe to prevent
Speaker 1: spoilage during transport from farmed store. Crops destined for canning
Speaker 1: are grown close to packing facilities and can be processed
Speaker 1: within four hours of harvest. The heat used during canning
Speaker 1: does decrease some of the water soluble vitamins in the
Speaker 1: finished food, like vitamins B and C, and often salt
Speaker 1: and sugar are added during the process. Experts suggest rinsing
Speaker 1: canned food to reduce some of the added sugar and salt,
Speaker 1: or buying low salt and low sugar products. And of
Speaker 1: course that heat also changes the texture of vegetables, regrettably
Speaker 1: so in the case of those canned asparagus. But that
Speaker 1: heat is a plus when it comes to food safety.
Speaker 1: The heat introduces pressure that helps seal the cans, but
Speaker 1: it can also kill or deactivate deadly germs. Remember when
Speaker 1: we mentioned our grandparents aversions to dented or swollen cans.
Speaker 1: Those fears are based in reality. Let's talk about my face.
Speaker 1: Its scary condition botuli um. It's caused by a bacterial
Speaker 1: toxin so deadly that just a million of a graham
Speaker 1: is enough to kill the United States and other countries
Speaker 1: even explored botulism as a biological weapon during World War Two.
Speaker 1: The bacteria that crete this toxin, clostradian batu linum, are everywhere,
Speaker 1: but people associate bauchuli ism with canned foods because the
Speaker 1: bacteria only reproduce in low oxygen environments like a poorly
Speaker 1: processed can. Today, commercial canned foods go through what's called
Speaker 1: a bochu linum cook. This is a high heat cook
Speaker 1: that dramatically lowers the chance that any Clustradiu bauchua linum
Speaker 1: spores or other organisms that can cause food born illness survive.
Speaker 1: For the record, you should discard any can that's puffed
Speaker 1: out or swollen that's caused by germs reproducing inside of it,
Speaker 1: and it is bad news. Cans that are dented are
Speaker 1: usually fine, as long as the dent is not along
Speaker 1: the cans scenes. The most recent concern about canned foods, though,
Speaker 1: isn't the food at all. It's the cans themselves and
Speaker 1: what they're lined with, including b p A. Over the
Speaker 1: past two decades, public attention has focused on bp A,
Speaker 1: the compound used to make polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, the US government's National Toxicology
Speaker 1: Program concluded that there was concern about its effects on
Speaker 1: the brains, behavior, and prostate glands of fetuses, infants, and children.
Speaker 1: Other studies have linked BPA to cardiovascular disease, obesity, asthma,
Speaker 1: and diabetes. B p A exposure is widespread. The Centers
Speaker 1: for Disease Control found b p A and of the
Speaker 1: urine samples of more than twenty five thousand people aged
Speaker 1: six and older. B p A can leach from containers,
Speaker 1: including cans, into foods and drinks, and so plastics and
Speaker 1: canning manufacturers have worked to develop replacement materials. The Canned
Speaker 1: Manufacturers Institute says more than of food cans today are
Speaker 1: lined with new b p A free materials such as polyesters, acrylics,
Speaker 1: and PVC. Though note that that figure just refers to
Speaker 1: food cans. It doesn't include canned drinks or bottle caps.
Speaker 1: And although replacing a known concern is great, the safety
Speaker 1: of some of those substitutes is still being researched. We
Speaker 1: spoke of Sarah Geller, a senior research and database analyst
Speaker 1: at the Environmental Working Group. She said, we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of data about how these materials are used
Speaker 1: because the formulas are protected by trade secrets, and even
Speaker 1: though cans with newer linings can help you avoid endocrine disruptors,
Speaker 1: they may not be good for the environment. Some materials
Speaker 1: don't degrade. If you're concerned about contamination from canned foods,
Speaker 1: Geller recommends using fresh, frozen, or dried food instead of canned,
Speaker 1: But if you simply can't get away from the convenience
Speaker 1: of canned foods, absolutely don't eat the food in the can. Finally,
Speaker 1: be aware that some compounds, including b p A, have
Speaker 1: become such pervasive contaminants in the environment that it's getting
Speaker 1: harder to avoid. No matter what your food is packaged in,
Speaker 1: Geller said, detectable amounts of b p A may make
Speaker 1: it into otherwise b p A free cans from other sources,
Speaker 1: including the food itself. To end on a slightly lighter note,
Speaker 1: even though food was first canned in metal cans around
Speaker 1: eighteen thirteen, it took about forty years for someone to
Speaker 1: invent a can opener, and can openers for home use
Speaker 1: didn't become popular until the eighteen sixties. Before then, you'd
Speaker 1: break out the hammer and chisel. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Sean Chavis and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other topics that
Speaker 1: we put in the can just for you, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet, how stuff Works dot com and from our
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