Bisphenol A chemical commonly found in canned soup and food storage plastics

Before you decide to chew on the cap of your water bottle because you're nervous, make sure the plastic you are chewing on isn't full of carcinogens and chemicals -- even though lobbyists for the plastics industry argue that any traces of the toxic substance bisphenol A are low and therefore, insubstantial.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is found most commonly in polycarbonate plastics. According to the Bisphenol-A.org website, "Bisphenol A is an industrial chemical used primarily to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins, both of which are used in countless applications that make our lives easier, healthier and safer, each and every day."

But the Environmental Working Group states, "BPA is an ingredient in plastics and the epoxy resins that line food cans. Low doses of BPA lead to a range of health problems, including birth defects of the male and female reproductive systems in laboratory animals. Despite the growing evidence of risk to human health, there are no limits on the amount of BPA allowed in canned food.

The tests found that pregnant women and infants who eat even a single serving of some canned foods are exposed to unsafe doses of BPA. Of the foods [recently tested for BPA contamination] -- which included many of the canned foods eaten most often by women of childbearing age -- BPA levels were highest in canned pasta and soup. Canned infant formula also had high levels. Just one to three servings of food with these BPA levels could expose a pregnant woman or infant to harmful doses of the chemical."

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit organization that uses the power of information to protect public health and the environment. They recently completed a study of the toxic chemical and its presence in name-brand canned goods, finding that 50% of those canned goods contained bisphenol A. To make matters worse, the FDA states about 20 percent of the U.S. diet comes from this form of food packaging. Even so, there are no current government safety standards that regulate how much BPA is allowed in canned foods. The burden of proof lies with government and lobbyists, who say the doses found in canned goods and plastics are very low. But what dose of this toxic chemical is really safe? No one seems to know.