How to start to eliminate canned foods from your cupboards (and BPA from your body)

I just e-mailed a friend some advice on how to start to eliminate canned foods from their diet, and I thought I'd post the same stuff here (because I am a lazy blogger! Hahahahaha) If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I have tons of links to to informative articles with the details on how bad for you BPA is (I am NOT a science person so I always refer to the articles for that kind of stuff - search BPA on my blog and there will be a number of posts with links to articles that come up). I started to put two and two together with regards to estrogen and 'girl problems' because it just seems like a lot more women are having some severe issues in the last 10 years, and it could just be that we are more open to talking about them, but I think it's also that there are more issues pushing us to be more open to talking about them - I AM NOT A DOCTOR or a scientist or any kind of health care professional, I'm just a regular schmuck who documents her adventures more for her own use than anything - but I'll never specifically mention how omitting BPA from my diet has helped me because I don't want to be sued for giving out medical advice on a public forum, but in conjunction with eliminating most soy from my diet (not that I was going out and eating mountains of tofu or anything, but I did drink soy milk, and there's soy or a soy by-product in TONS of our food and soy also replicates estrogen which messes with our bodies (male and female). And yes, you'll see once or twice that I have eaten tofu, but everything is fine in moderation!). You should note however, that eliminating BPA from my life has reaped TREMENDOUS benefits and I will ALWAYS stand behind that.

Moving BPA tainted packaging is a hard transition to make - that's for sure....EVERYTHING comes in cans or plastic!!!! Maybe you can start by eliminating most canned food (especially avoiding canned highly acidic foods like TOMATOES (which I love) - this is the hardest thing to avoid ever because have you ever seen tomato paste sold in anything BUT a can? Pasta sauces come in jars now so that's easy, and you can start by buying soups in tetra packs (although those also have some evil in their lining too!)) , then move on to sodas, and other things that come in cans. It's such a shame....even cans that are labelled as "BPA FREE" are not :( -and switch completely from canned veg to frozen....frozen is supposed to be better for you anyhow (some are even saying that frozen veg has more vitamins and minerals than fresh because it's flash frozen right at it's peak ripeness (usually in season), whereas fresh produce lies around and loses vital vitamins every day until it's eaten.)

Some things you'd never even think twice about coming in a can - because how else does it come (hello beets! hahahaha) I mean, like beans - I had never in my life bought dried beans, I mean, what the heck are you supposed to do with them? :) Well, I'll tell ya - you are supposed to cook the whole bag at once in a giant pot, then freeze them in "can sized" portions (2 1/3 cup = about 19 oz) to use in favorite recipes. I even go so far as to make my own tomato sauce (haven't figured out the paste yet! but I will) and freeze that too.

As an added bonus to eliminating canned foods,you'll also be eliminating a TON of salt and preservatives...TONS!