I agree wholeheartedly with Sarah. To me, the biggest threats to our health are:

-stress
-over-eating/eating the wrong foods,
-lack of exercise (for your average American, not us ULers...).

Life expectancy has increased at an astronomical pace, due to better hygeine, 'better' nutrition (hey, over-nutrition is better than under-nutrition after all), and of course better medicine (which happens to include a lot of drugs/chemicals which also hurt a lot of folks as well as help many). A large part of these advances is due to having better storage of food, water and drugs. It seems clear to me that the pros outweigh the cons by a large margin. This doesn't mean I am complacent, and if there is a consumer based push for better packaging, I'm all for it.

I put stress at the top of my list, but it's just my personal opinion. When you're chronically stressed, you don't sleep as well, you don't eat as well, you are less inclined to exercise, plus all those stress hormones floating around HAVE to be worse for you than trace amounts of estrogenic chemicals in your water bottle or tin can.

I have a friend who was stressing over this issue, and wanted to know what was safe to drink out of. I looked at her dumbstruck, and said "You are taking HRT! I think you have better things to stress about" This is true even more for women taking, eg estrogenic contraceptives. Drinking alcohol will have more impact on your estrogen levels than drinking water out of a plastic bottle. So will obesity, and the list goes on...

I like to have a choice in the products I choose to buy and as long as the risks are on the label then I can at least make an informed decision (ie. any smokers out there?).

Aluminum contamination has been implicated in Alzheimer's Disease. So do I pick coated aluminum or uncoated aluminum containers? Many of the anti-perspirants we use contain aluminum but I sometimes use them anyway... my choice and it's on the label.

I don't like having my choices removed to save me from myself, I want proper labelling so I can decide. It still bugs me that MEC took the Nalgene bottles away. I'd be OK if they had just stuck up a warning sign.

Interestingly, my family worries more about BPA than I do and they just bought me a stanless steel water bottle the other day. Interestingly, the new SS water bottle weighs .1 oz less than the same size Nalgene. Now that's a good reason to switch!!

>>> Interestingly, the new SS water bottle weighs .1 oz less than the same size Nalgene.

Mike W,

What is the brand? I just did a search and did not find much.

A savings of .1oz and no lining! The choice is clear!


We can all go home now folks. Show's over. :)

(But do tell us the brand)

Edited by splproductions on 04/02/2008 19:39:43 MDT.

Oh, fellas....

The subject is toxicity of SS implants.

"Chemical elements from stainless steel were released into a physiological medium using an electrochemical method. This metallic solution was injected subcutaneously into male Charles River mice at 72 h intervals for 10 days. Electron microscopic observations of seminiferous tubule thin sections showed that the metallic suspension caused tissue vacuolation, cell degeneration, and multinucleated cell formation. This apparent tissue toxicity induced by stainless steel corrosion products suggests that long term implantation of such biomaterials may impair spermatogenesis."

From PubMed

So, as mentioned above, where do You draw the line?

Edited by greg23 on 04/02/2008 20:16:37 MDT.

Affecting spermatogenesis? That means a massive spermatoexodus!

"How about these:

Lower you consumption of sodium by a third to lower your risk of silent high blood pressure that is directly related to heart attacks, heart disease and kidney disease.

Eat a plant based diet high in fiber to significantly lower your risk of colon cancer.

Live outside a city in the country to lower your intake of heavy metals and other pollutants.

If on a well have your water tested twice a year for pollutants, disease and heavy metals.

If you live in an old house get tested for lead levels.

Keep your oral health in top shape. Not only will you have healthy teeth but you can prevent heart disease and other issues.

Abandon your car and walk everywhere. Not only will you get in good shape you won't sitting inside a box that spews toxins in and outside.

Lest us not forget, only wear natural clothing that was treated organically. So don't go buying all them fancy hiking clothes....

Oh yeah, throw out your toothbrush, your commercial toothpaste, shampoo, laundry detergent, dish soap - all which contain many interesting chemicals. If you cannot read the package or understand what the words mean start looking them up."

In addition to these things, I don't want to eat food cooked in a plastic container.

"dihydrogen monoxide"

Come on! Someone throw me a friggin' bone here, people.

I'm more than happy to turn this back into a gear related thread!

My new stainless bottle is made by Chinook Technical Outdoor
http://www.chinooktec.com

This was a gift, I don't know anything about this company or their products and I suspect this bottle will only get used on day trips or packed in the car because I prefer a smaller/lighter bottle when backpacking. That said, it appears to be really well made.

I'm obviously getting to my family because when they gave me the bottle they apologized for the weight. It actually seemed pretty light for stainless so I compared it to a Nalgene wide mouth and it's .1 oz lighter (and that includes the carabiner and split ring). A narrow top Nalgene may have the edge!

====
"dihydrogen monoxide"

Come on! Someone throw me a friggin' bone here, people.
====

I got it, I'm just late to the party.

PS - If you want a wide-mouthed stainless... check out Guyot Designs...

PPS - Okay, injecting colloidal SS into your body is way different than holding items in SS. The chemistry and temps are way different... that study was done to determine if SS implants were feasible (like permanent bone supports and such)

For all who fall into the camp of "I don't want to drink from water bottle A or eat my food out of a Ziplock bag" etc.

I realize the can and liner issue extends beyond backpacking, and some of this discussion is much broader in scope. But for backpacking, and the water bottles or bag-meals specifically:

Would you still refrain from using the product if you were only using it 3 days a month (the amount of time I actually am able to get out backpacking)? I might think twice if I was doing triple crown hikes every other year, but do you really think for the weekend-warrior the amount of contaminant is worth worrying over?

(This isn't a rhetorical bash, I am curious as to your thought).

I do a lot of things when I'm backpacking that I don't otherwise do, including wearing synthetic clothing, not washing my hands (or any other body part) as often as I should, drinking water of unknown purity, sometimes taking sleeping pills, and eating a lot less fresh fruits and veggies. I also use a Platypus on trips. It's all about balancing risks and benefits, and I feel the "perceived risks" of drinking out of my Platypus a few days a month is worth the benefits.

I don't eat a lot of canned foods either, so when I occassionally do, I don't worry too much about trace toxic chemicals. But I DO have a stockpile of foods stored in cans and plastic in my attic for emercencies. Again, in an emergency I wouldn't think twice about consuming them, but on a day-to-day basis I prefer to eat freshly prepared foods made with fresh ingredients. Fortunately, where I live the tap water is superb, so there's no need for me to expose my drinking water to plastics on a day-to-day basis.

> Lest us not forget, only wear natural clothing that was treated organically. So don't go buying all them fancy hiking clothes...

Two of the most destructive agricultural crops in the world are cotton (massive water consumption draining rivers and massive pesticide use) and wool (devastation of rangelands due to sheep eating plant roots as well as stalks, causing huge wind erosion soil loss).

Compared to those fibres, the production of synthetics is actually a relatively benign process. So much for 'folk wisdom'.

One must also consider that many of the synthetic insulation's being used today, by Patagonia and others, are derived largely from recycled plastics. A win win for hikers and the planet.

According to the FDA at least... you'd have to eat something like 500 pounds of canned for PER DAY in order to get the levels of BPA in your system above the "safe limit".

Particles of all kind enter your body, when you use a wooden spoon to cook soup, microscopic particles from that spoon end up in your soup. If you cook in copper pots or iron pots your body will absorb copper or iron molecules from the food you cook. Same with whatever you drink out of, be it plastic water bottles, aluminum bottles, or steel water bottles. The problem is however, that all these substances that end up in your body can be passed, except for plastic (and pesticides which is why you buy organic foods (health reason wise)). Plastic particles are stored in your body fat and can end up in different parts of your body depending on many variables, and possibly causing any number of health risks (mostly chemicals in your body end up in your lymph nodes and create tumors and/ or cancer). Granted you have to have a lot of these chemicals in your body to create health problems. These chemicals can also be ingested from the fat in other animals (fish in the ocean who are filled with toxic plastic particles and other pesticide particles - and other edible animals.)

The bottom line is you don't want these plastic particles - or any synthesized material - in your body.

I started this post originally questioning whether people knew about the plastic coated lining in the aluminum cans they use to boil water. Or if they had any opinions or knowledge about this, like if there was a method to remove it.

Thanks

Max,

In all of the posts here and all of the research I have done... I have not be able to find out if the plastic in the lining even contains BPA in the first place!! So this entire discussion may be moot anyway. The only thing I could find on Google is that pretty much ALL canned foods have a lining that contains BPA and "some" aluminum can linings also contain BPA. Some. Not all. As for finding out which ones do and don't... good luck! I had no luck finding any information on this at all.

Bottom line for me is... I very much appreciate the info you posted above. It is something to think about for sure. Good point. But personally, I'm not too worried about the dozen or so meals a year I might eat that are made from boiling 2 cups of water in my beer can stove.

As for removing the lining... I imagine it could be burned off... but then you're boiling water against raw aluminum... which might bring up other issues?

Anyway... the first real step would be to find out for sure is those Heineken can's even USE BPA in their lining in the first place.

I have to believe that the paint heating up on the outside of the can would pose a much much greater risk. And thats the thing - while I can not say that there is no risk, it is such a low risk compared to the rest of my living conditions that I have much bigger issues to take care of first.

For example, I live in Washington DC, with all sorts of nasties coming out of car tail pipes, buses, coal fired power plants, etc etc. These are much bigger carcinogen risks than a can I might cook out of a dozen nights a year.

Having said that, I choose not to drink out of Nalgenes on a daily basis (or for that matter on the trail, but that has a lot more to do with weight). I just reuse my old soda bottle that I get my diet coke out of for a couple of days, then recycle it (diet coke, which has nutrisweet, which will probably give me cancer, and there is probably something in PETE that will kill me too).

The sun is probably your biggest cancer risk while backpacking, but getting some sun to me is part of the fun.

Though not ultralight maybe we should all switch back to stainless steel or maybe even cast iron cookware. Or since those are metals and may also further expose us to health risks we should revert to the safest and most primitive options. Leather water bottles, and hand spun pottery for a cook pot. Sure it'll carry a weight penalty, but it will give you a peice of mind, and go with your new ultralight clothing: a loincloth.

I cant believe I just read this whole thread...

I think I refuse to live in fear.

That does not mean that I choose to live ignorantly. I prefer to be well informed, but I promise you that I willfully put myself at FAR greater risk solo camping 15 miles from the road for 3 days than I do when I take a sip out of my platypus.

I am quite certain that if you put stainless steel, aluminum, wood et all through the same rigors that polycarbonate has recently been exposed to you would be appaled at what you are ingesting into your body.