BPA- Free Canning Jar Lids
These aren’t they, but next year...
I’m not sure I’m really all that worried about it. Between the bacon and the barbeque we’re no doubt consuming enough carcinogenic material to make it a bit bogus to get all het up about the lids on the catsup – especially since after the jars are opened I switch to one of my favorite products: plastic reusable caps like the one on the strawberry jam (reasonably easy to find although not, for reasons that elude me, available wherever canning supplies are sold).
Where was I?
About to say something about “better safe,” no doubt. BPA – free canning supplies do exist.
And now that I know about them, our next batch of lids and rings will come from Tattler company. Lids and rings are all we need, alas, thanks to the lifetime supply of perfectly good jars we bought for use as wine glasses at a garden party.
I say “alas” because otherwise I’d probably go for the far handsomer models from Weck, even though their plastic snap-on lids fit fewer other jars; the rings are the old-fashioned, single use sort, and the whole assemblage is a bit pricier than standard jars.
So what? It’s not a lot more if you’re starting from scratch and have to buy jars anyway. Given the time and love invested (to say nothing of having to look at the damn things sitting expectantly on the shelf), home-canned pickles and preserves deserve the prettiest presentation consistent with food safety.
(Home canned string beans not so much; but I don’t know anyone who is still putting up major amounts of unseasoned produce to use a full jar at a time in everyday meals.)
Photo note: The canned goods lined up at the last and very dark it’s raining minute so this would have an illustration are all pretty readable except maybe the little jar of Brandywine Tomato paste.
BPA avoidance notes:
1. We don’t have any children in the house. Keeping the stuff away from them seems well worth any hassle and expense.
2. I realize the reusable screw-on lids may themselves be loaded with BPA and have a call in to the manufacturer about it. Update when the call is returned.
Update, 10/28/10: no BPA in the lids, which are available online from Ball if you strike out locally.
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I have NO idea whether this is true or not, but I read in some book recently that a pathologist in med school said that bodies used to decompose quickly 40 yrs ago, but now we’re so full of chemicals that it takes much longer. A morbid fact, but even if untrue it shows the possibility that our bodies are full of stuff we didn’t intentionally put there and all the substances are super hard to avoid. I’m all for removing as much as we can, but every year there’s a new substance I’ve never even heard of making waves.
Slightly off the BPA topic, but useful nonetheless: Cains (and probably other brands)mayo and Marie’s salad dressing jar lids perfectly fit small mouthed canning jars.
I’m with you on the Weck jars — lovely, but too lovely to give away, and with all the jars I already have, probably not worth it. But they are pretty pretty pretty!
I do wonder about the Tattle lids — I’ll have to check with my environmental toxicologist friend about the polymer they are made from for her take on their safety.
Hi Ali –
Thanks for the mayo-lid reminder. We used them for years before I found the storage caps and still do. I once had the fantasy I’d use the (blue) mayo lids for savory preserves and the purchased white lids for sweet, but I’m sure you can imagine how well we did with that.
Dearly hope you do check in with your e.t. friend about the Tattler lids and report back to us all – or put the results on your own great blog! While you’re at it, would you also ask about the mayo lids, which feel like slightly different plastic…
and I guess the rubber in the rubber rings and where does it end? Confess I’m beginning to fear that too much knowledge is as dangerous as too little. Paralysis may be better than foolhardiness, but maybe not by much.
When I was much younger I also read that what preserves the food also preserves the body, so to speak. As these days most of our food is processed, and is loaded with preservatives, so that they may sit longer on the shelves and improve overhead.
Due to that we are also filling ourselves with these chemicals. I am currently switching my family to home grown and from scratch meals. And I have already noticed a difference in the health of my son.
Hi Michelle,
Would that the preservatives DID preserve our bodies! No way to avoid all of them, but every little bit of homegrown/homemade helps, as you point out. Keep up the good work!
Leslie