The disguise
A steel or aluminium can reads as the most plastic-free thing in the supermarket — metal, sealed, older than the plastics industry.
The plastic
Nearly every food and drink can is spray-coated inside with a polymer lacquer. Historically that meant epoxy resin made from BPA. “BPA-free” cans swapped in acrylic, polyester, non-BPA epoxies or PVC copolymers — mostly undisclosed, and less studied than the thing they replaced (CEH review).
The evidence
EFSA’s 2023 re-evaluation cut BPA’s tolerable daily intake ~20,000-fold to 0.2 ng/kg/day and concluded dietary exposure exceeds it across all age groups (EFSA Journal, 2023) agency, resting on immune effects in animals animal plus human observational associations human obs.. The EU followed with Regulation 2024/3190: BPA banned in food-contact varnishes and coatings — can linings included — with the main transition period ending 20 July 2026, weeks ago (EUR-Lex). Meanwhile the US FDA and FSANZ still assess dietary BPA as safe at current levels agency — the regulatory split is genuine, and Australian shelves follow the FSANZ side of it.
Acidic (tomatoes) and fatty contents extract the most from any lining — that’s plain migration chemistry lab.
The tell — and the fix
The tell is universal: if it’s a can, it’s lined; the shiny gold or white interior is the coating. The fix is dose management, not panic: glass jars where the option exists (minding the lid), dried beans instead of tinned as the default, fresh or aseptic-carton tomatoes for the everyday sauce — cans demoted to occasional convenience. That’s precisely the 2011 fresh-food crossover logic: three days off packaged food cut urinary BPA by ~66% (EHP, 2011) human trial.