Is canned food bad for you?

coffeehound

You see people in the supermarket whose trolley is mostly filled with canned goods, and it's clear that it forms the mainstay of their diet.  Canned food is pretty inexpensive and convenient so is appealing.  But in the past there was a lot of hubbub about bad chemicals in the lining of the cans being bad for health.  Is this still the case today?  Was it ever true?  Appreciate any info

redfox

we move threads if we think they’ll get more help elsewhere (please read the forum rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board. If you have any questions about this policy please email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com.

Brie

I think part of the problems that the Franklin expedition ran into was that they had a lot of tinned goods and there was lead solder used in sealing the tins.  So when the Erebus and Terror were locked in the frozen ice lead poisoning was in part to blame for everyone's death.   That was in 1845 and things have improved since then.

I do know that less than 100 years back (I was born a bit after that....) that there still was a fear of the preservation process that made buying dented tins a bit of an issue.  I think it had something to do with the layers of material in the sides of the tins that might be breached if a tin was dropped and dented.  That said I also remember hearing about a chap whose fortune was based on buying dented tins cheap and selling them for a penny more at the local market so they couldn't have been too dangerous.

Frankly the biggest issue is the things that are actually contained in the tins.  Nothing the matter with fruit or beans or whatever.  It's the salt and sugar that often are used in the preserving process that are a danger.  Relatively.

maman

Canned vegetables can be even healthier for you than 'fresh' as they are sealed into the tins immediately after harvesting. The same applies to frozen vegetables. As you said, they can be very economical and a really good standby as they have a very good shelf life. 

I mainly use canned tomatoes and pulses although it's often more economical to cook and freeze pulses (like butter beans) myself. 

Elisheba

I think modern thought is more based around the fact that some goodness can be lost in canning.  In actual fact, not very much is lost as is explained here https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/canned-food-good-or-bad  In the past as @Brie explained above, the canning process could be a bit hit and miss and could lead to food poisoning and all sorts, but that isn't the case anymore..

Modern chefs talk about eating fresh food, and this has really affected the way we eat.  Post war a huge amount of convenience foods entered our diet.  They were quick and easy, and as more women went out work they made balancing everything more manageable. However, by turning food into powder and potions - just add water! - a lot of salt and sugar was added to our diets, and a lot of fibre lost.  I think the move away from overly processed, unhealthy foods has unfairly focused on canned goods.  Yes, a tin of something processed e.g. spagetti hoops, probably doesn't have much good going on in there, but tinned fruits and vegetable which are in juice/water are very convenient, don't go off and still have most of their goodness.  I imagine will probably be a lot more nutritious than a microwave meal.

Brie

@Elisheba
 turning food into powder and potions - just add water!
I remember hearing about the early days of packaged cake mixes in the US - the company Betty Crocker had devised a cake powder that contained everything to make a cake.  All you needed to do was add water.  But the product flopped.  They tweaked the recipe and included the line on the box "just add water & 1 egg!" and the product flew off the shelves.  Because that egg made it proper baking!

Rosa_Damascena

Canned food is bad for you when it causes botulism (almost never, but it can be a killer). I think a lot of snobbishness exists around tinned food; IMO life is too short to boil your own kidney beans.

mumf

We use a lot of tinned food. As mentioned above,vegetables particularly have a fair bit of nutrition in there. Tinned beans are good too,and as said,life is too short for boiling beans! Especially with fuel prices as they are. There are a lot of websites out there to inspire you.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/canned-food-recipes

goldfinches

@Rosa_Damascena - I do think you're absolutely right about the snobbishness surrounding canned food. I think that the design of the label tells you a great deal about the producer's understanding of their potential customers. That said, it does very much depend on what the food is, Gentlemen's Relish and caviar are both tinned foods that many people would be pleased to display on the checkout belt. 

I sometimes try to look at labels and presentation and packaging generally when I'm shopping in order to try to keep an eye on whether I'm buying for real taste and quality or just being beguiled with an appearance of those criteria. It can be a bit of dent to one's ego to find that you're choosing products by colour and font but it is an interesting exercise.

I buy quite a lot of canned pulses because they are so easy to use straight from the tin and they are already cooked which can cut your preparation time right down and makes a saving on time and fuel. I also buy a fair amount of tinned fruit in juice as well as things like mango and tomato purees and coconut or condensed milk all in tins because they're easy to store and recipes often specify a whole tin which means you can have several store cupboard meals readily to hand.
I do remember being cautioned against purchasing dented, rusty or bulging tins for fear of botulism when I was a teenager so I think there might have been some kind of public education campaign at the time.

Annie1612

I would be one of those trolleys in the supermarket full of tins. I went to Aldi yesterday for my fortnightly big shop, though I had actually eked things out for 3 weeks. It must have looked as if I ate no fresh food at all as apart from milk, cheese, butter, plain yogurt and some apples and bananas, everything else was tins and packets. But the this was to stock up my pantry so, stacks of tinned tomatoes, black beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, butter beans, sweetcorn, green lentils, chick peas, garden peas, tuna, mackerel, sardines, anchovies (and a few soups and baked beans for partner though I don’t like them personally). I shop for fresh stuff practically every day and see all these tins as the basis of many healthy meals.
 

carrotstick_2

We buy a lot of tinned beans, lentils, chick peas etc... however we don't purchase the meals that you can buy in tins. Such as tinned chilli or curry. If I'm honest I've always been under the impression that they are unhealthy / high in sugar and salt, however I actually have no idea if they are!