Potato-fennel omelet with bean sprouts

The aroma of onions filled the air and brought on a great sense of well-being and contentment. After a while, I wondered why I could smell the onions cooking, since I recalled having turned off the burner and left the skillet of onions sauteed in olive oil with leftover bits of potato-fennel stew chopped up. My attention had been taken, apparently, by reading some articles online.

One especially caught my eye, since we have been so curious lately about the chemical makeup of our bodies, by Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist I thought usually writes on political matters. His essay raises my consciousness about bisphenol A, or BPA.

It’s a synthetic estrogen that United States
factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies -- to the tune
of six pounds per American per year. That’s a lot of estrogen.

More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine,
and scientists have linked it -- though not conclusively -- to everything
from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to
genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike.

Now it turns out it’s in our food.

Maybe this is a sign that issues of health and industrial chemistry are becoming more and more political for the wider culture and not just for fringe characters (comme nous) who have been portrayed since the Sixties as cranks. Of course the chemical industry shrugs off the disturbing reports coming out of the research done by scientists outside Big Chemicals, saying that exposure to this stuff is okay for humans. The worst danger seems to be from canned foods and beverages, which can contain high levels of BPA.

The lesson for us is don't eat processed food or canned drinks. And if you do, choose glass containers.