What chemicals are in the food plastics we use in 2019? How toxic are the chemicals in food plastics? And how to avoid food plastic chemical hazards?

How much food are you eating out of cans these days? Ever wonder about the plastic linings in those cans, or about the impact plastic is having in your food chain?

Could easily write a PhD on this, but let us go Out on a Limb once more, summarise where we are at in 2019 and suggest how to avoid some potentially major health problems, but first

         

      Thought for the day

   There is no need for temples; 
   No need for complicated philosophy. 

   Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; 
   My philosophy is kindness.

                     His Holiness, the Dalai Lama




Well I remember way back in the mid 80s and my old friend Michael Lerner from Commonweal in California shared evidence linking chemicals in plastics with breast cancer particularly, and other health problems in general.

Michael’s research was compelling so most will know I have recommended doing all possible to keep plastics out of your food chain since then.

Decades have passed and slowly the risks have become better known. BPA (bisphenol A) emerged as one of the main culprits and public opinion has driven legislation to limit its use and seek substitutes.

So in 2019 does this mean some food plastics are OK to use? 

Please note I have limited time and resources for this. It is written as if writing to one of the family and the hope is that you find it helpful… So while I did read and use many sources, I am not documenting what is written. It may well be incomplete, but it has been written with due diligence and represents the best I can offer on the subject. Let us examine the facts and the issues, and then attempt to reach some conclusions; starting with BPA itself.

What is BPA?
BPA is an industrial chemical used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins.

In the ‘30s it was identified as a synthetic oestrogen and considered for pharmaceutical use but BPA-based plastics were first manufactured in the ‘60s.

Currently, millions of tonnes are produced each year, to make polycarbonates - for CDs, spectacles lenses, water bottles and other clear plastics, and resins - used to line food cans.

What risks are associated with BPA?
Basically, BPA is a hormone disruptor that mimics oestrogen and interferes with its healthy activity. Widely researched now, it has been associated with

i) Cancer
Particularly hormonally related cancers like breast and prostate cancers.

ii) Sexual function and anatomical issues
The oestrogen-like effects in women are associated with early onset of puberty in females, infertility, miscarriage, premature delivery and polycystic ovaries.

Then, as oestrogen can supress testosterone in males, it is associated with male genital defects, reduced sperm counts and reduced male sexual function.


iii) Obesity
In children and adults through stimulating the formation of extra fat cells.

iv) Behavioural problems in children
Including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, aggressiveness and impaired learning.

 v) Other conditions
Altered thyroid and immune function, diabetes, heart disease, chronic respiratory and kidney diseases.

What a list!!!

How do we become exposed to BPA? A list of major sources…
i) Can linings (it is in both aluminium and steel based cans).

ii) Polycarbonate food containers and bottles (both re-useable and especially single use bottles), plus
food wraps. Heat, scratching and cleaning can all increase exposure. Fast foods with the packaging used are a major source.


iii) Thermal papers - these are those all so common supermarket receipts, movie tickets, lottery
tickets and the like.

Using hand moisturisers or handling receipts with wet hands increases the risks of absorption greatly.




iv) Microplastics - BPA tends to aggregate on the surface of microplastics. Given it is estimated average current US ingestion is a staggering 50 - 90,000 pieces of microplastic per person per year, this is another major source.

v) Children’s plastic toys remain a real concern, especially when you consider how young children put everything into their mouths. BPA has been banned for years from use in children’s bottles and dummies (where it was a major source of this chemical and affecting young children for decades).

vi) Dust also builds up BPA residues.

vii) Some toiletries and women’s hygiene products

viii) Many plastic eyeglasses

So what is the biggest source? 
It is claimed 90% comes through our food chain. Fast and levels drop 10 fold in 10 days. Once clear, eat one can of food lined with PBA and levels go up hugely.

What level of exposure is common?
Based on testing, virtually everyone has some BPA in their body; in the US, 93% of all over 6 years - and disturbingly it is commonly found even in babies prior to birth.

Are there safe limits for BPA?
Authorities in both Australia and the US claim our exposure levels are safe. France has banned BPA in plastics for food use. So if safe levels are not being exceeded, why are there so many problems associated with BPA?

What about low dose effects of BPA?
It is well know chemicals that mimic hormones and hormone disruptors can have significant impacts at low dose while not being so bad or having different effects at high doses. While the science is debated, and not surprisingly rejected by Industry sources, many researchers claim a low dose of BPA could well be worse than a high dose and that these low dose effects are yet to be fully researched and evaluated.

What about BPA substitutes?

BPA is associated with many problems but at least it has been studied extensively and those problems are reasonably well understood. When BPA is taken out of plastics, it needs to be replaced with another chemical, and here is the rub.

When you see “BPA free” touted on some plastic bottle or metal can, the implication we often take is
it is now safe.

Unfortunately this may well be far from the truth.

The substitute chemicals invariably are less studied, less known and while some substitutes may well be safer, others are clearly implicated with worse issues than BPA.

This is what is known as a “regrettable substitution”.

However, to be balanced, it is worth pointing out there may be a trade off here. Through the TGA and the CMI, the remarkable safety record of canned foods is observed: “More than 3,000 people die and more than 40,000 are hospitalized from foodborne illnesses every year, yet there has not been a single reported incidence of foodborne illness from the failure of metal packaging in more than 40 years and the consumption of trillions of cans of food.”

However, there are still major concerns that do need addressing…

Next blog we shall cover other chemicals in food plastics, and what solutions are available to us.

Please do consider sharing this post with others; it feels like one of the more important ones for some time…

And comments welcome - click on the tab below…

Dr Ainslie Meares, Shivapuri Baba and meditation

How many people would you say you owe your life to? Interesting question… Mother first and foremost. Father naturally. But after that???

One of the people I owe my own life to is Dr Ainslie Meares. He taught me meditation in a way that made it possible for me to endure all that cancer threw at me, and even more, to overcome it altogether.

But Ainslie’e knowledge of meditation had its genesis in a 3 day meeting in Katmandu with the venerable and ancient Hindu yogi Shivapuri Baba. This little known figure was truly remarkable, truly extra -ordinary. Recently I met up with Cliff Woodward who has been studying the life and works of Shivapuri Baba for many years and actually visited his ashram in Katmandu.

As part of this guest blog, Cliff has kindly shared some of the key points of Shivapuri Baba’s life and teachings. Enjoy, plus a reminder my new meditation book Blue Sky Mind is now available, but first




       Thought for the day

          If you can see your path 
          Laid out in front of you step by step, 
          You know it is not your path. 

          Your own path 
          You make with every step you take. 
          That is why it is your path.

                        Joseph Campbell





From Cliff Woodward…
Shivapuri Baba’s remarkable life spanned an astounding 137 years from 1826 to 1963. (This is based on British records - and they were meticulous!) Probably one of the greatest human beings of recent times, Shivapuri Baba remains one of the least known and least celebrated.

This slight, little man who lived a life of ascetic, utter simplicity, was a giant of the spiritual life, sharing a teaching that is absolutely relevant to our lives right now, and could rightfully be seen as the antidote to the path of blind, egotistical self –destruction that our species has got itself onto. He called his teaching Right Life.



The external facts of his long life are indeed remarkable and worthy of a full-length movie film, although I sincerely hope it is never made!

The fact that he walked every continent [except Antarctica] on his world pilgrimage beginning at around 60 years of age, lasting over 30 years; he met many of the great men and women of the early 20th century [such as Einstein, the Curies, Marconi, Tolstoy], had eighteen audiences with Queen Victoria – but about all that he wanted nothing said, no publicity at all.

He consented to only one book being written about him towards the end of his lifetime, by the great English philosopher and spiritual seeker, J.G. Bennett, called “Long Pilgrimage,” which was published in 1965.


And his unambiguous instruction to Bennett was “You must write a book about my Teaching, not my life.” He himself, though seeming to have read everything of significance, wrote no books. He shares this in common with some other teachers of universal significance like Socrates and Jesus of Nazareth.

So what is the essence of this Teaching, Right Life? The first thing to say is that S.B. never suggested that this Teaching was his invention or his ‘intellectual property’, only that he had made accessible, to the contemporary mind, what was at the core of all the great Teachings of mankind, since time immemorial. Why would this be so?

Because the fundamental challenges that face how we live our lives as human beings have never been any different and never will be. All of the great spiritual traditions can be seen as different attempts to guide us into the solutions to these challenges, with greater or lesser success as we manage to despoil them.

It is interesting to note that there are many accounts of people from different spiritual/religious backgrounds meeting S.B., and each of them thought that he was the most perfected Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim - whatever background they were coming from - that they had ever met!

This was surely because S.B. could go to the core of any of these Teachings and speak its Truth.

He was completely free of dogmatism or any narrowness of perspective – a Universal Man.

Right Life is structured around three fundamental Duties.

With the First Duty, Right Life begins by acknowledging the fundamentals of our human life.


We have certain inescapable obligations or duties: the need to maintain our physical body, feed it, clothe it, keep it in health; and the need to earn a living in some way. This is a baseline that none are exempt from. We could see the First Duty as centred on the fundamental ‘Laws’, physical, moral and societal, that we have to obey. If we neglect them our lives end up in a mess of one kind or another.

The Second Duty focuses on our inner or moral life. It is about removing or overcoming our ‘defects in character’, our anger, resentment, jealousy etc. These things have to be seen, accepted and gradually eliminated from our lives. Further, we can consciously cultivate the positive qualities that may be missing from our lives, or at least not playing a strong enough role. So things like forgiveness, humility, empathy, kindness, need to be deliberately cultivated in our lives, must manifest in our lives – not just be ‘good ideas’ to aspire to.

These positive virtues can be found spelled out in any of the great spiritual teachings, for example The Sermon on the Mount in the Christian tradition, in Chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita in the Hindu tradition.



These Duties, according to Right Life, are not just to be acknowledged/accepted, they are to be perfected.

They have to be mindfully engaged with and worked on with perseverance.

We need to be consciously directing our lives in these directions, even down to the most basic practical tasks; for example, if I am failing to pay my bills on time, how do I get better at this?

If I can’t remember where I put things, how do I improve on this?

We do not accept or indulge our failings or weaknesses in little things or big.


Our constant aim is to make small, achievable changes that we can build on; like radical, sudden-weight-loss diets, attempting too much change too soon, will just rebound on us.

Of course we are going to fail, especially in the beginning, but we are enjoined to learn from our mistakes and keep at it – this is a life-long process! Ask yourself, what is the alternative to this? Surely the answer is to keep making the same errors and not evolving.

Shivapuri Baba described Right Life as “Your self-promised life”, meaning the life that you have set for yourself. So, for example, if I recognize that anger plays too strong a role in my life {at home or at work} and I have set myself to make some changes around this, this is my promise to myself.

It does not require the approbation {or the condemnation} of anyone or anything else – not THE church or THE faith or THE dogma. It is my deal, my promise, with myself. This places the teaching of Right Life in a very different space than we are accustomed to. It is not immediately obvious to most of us just how unique this is – it dawns over time!

But there is more!

The Third Duty is concerned with our Spiritual or Soul life, our deepest connection with ourselves, the Universe, God; express it as we will. S.B. said that eventually, to any sane human being looking at the basic facts of Life, there must arise a question such as:

What is the source of all this?

What is my significance in all this?

Does it all die with me?


The satisfactory answer to such a question, for you or I, is the basis for our deepest sense of peace or fulfilment – my answer, or anybody else’s answer, will not cut it, it must be YOUR answer. S.B. taught, again in line with all the great traditions, this is what we are here for on planet earth, to find such an answer – nothing, absolutely nothing, material success or power, will suffice. We can fill our lives with all sorts of things, all sorts of distractions, but the fundamental question will never go away.

So clearly the Third Duty relates to our practice of Meditation and Prayer. Note that S.B. never taught that there was one way into this: he encouraged people to follow their Christian way or Buddhist way, whatever they are connected to, but follow it with the correct understanding of its foundation in Right Life.

We need to attend correctly to all Three Duties, not any one of them, in order to succeed – truly a three-legged stool. Can you see how important this is? This Teaching is telling us, insisting, that, for example, you cannot just plunge into Meditation or diverse religious observances, leaving your practical life and moral life a total mess, and expect any success. It just does not work.

The other clear implication of this Right Life Teaching is that it encompasses the whole of your life. The very living of your life, on a day by day, minute by minute basis, is your Spiritual practice, is your life’s significance.

This is not a Teaching for the spiritually immature, for the ‘spiritual thrill seeker’; this is a Teaching that asks everything of you, but delivers Everything in its place.



AND A REMINDER

Blue Sky Mind, my new meditation book is now published and coming into bookstores and on-line stores everywhere.

If you do go into a store that does not have it, please ask for it as booksellers these days respond very directly to feedback.

Signed copies of the book are available through the Foundation - and you support their work …

CLICK HERE 

Enjoy deepening your meditation