Campbells Soups Poisonous chemical is not the only problem

Campbell’s Soup is an iconic brand. Not only has it been feeding humans since 1869, the infamous Andy Warhol took the brand to a new level with his Pop Art paintings in the early 1960s. The red and white can is a globally recognised package, and trusted by many as an affordable way to feed a family. However, like most canned goods, it hides a poisonous chemical in it’s packaging.

Bisphenol-A, or BPA is a chemical found in some plastics, and in the epoxy resin of cans. BPA is known to leach into food and liquid, and is an endocrine disrupter linked to different types of cancer, ADHD, infertility, early puberty, obesity and Type-2 Diabetes.

My concern is not only the BPA that is in the can, which shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud Campbell’s for phasing it out, but I don’t want to deflect from the ingredients that are in the actual soup. When I read this article, my first thought was ‘this is great, a HUGE iconic brand will hopefully lead the way with other brands, to get RID of BPA from all packaging’. This chemical should be illegal in any type of packaging, whether it for ingestibles or topicals.

So off I went to the Campbell’s website to see what information I could find out about their plan and their products. At first glance, this brand looks healthy, and this is the concern with consumers who think they are doing the right thing by their family by feeding them healthy soup. Who would’ve thought that the soup giant would package their soup in poisonous cans.

The packaging boasts vibrant images of vegetables, and when you click on the products you can even download the ‘nutritional information’. To my disappointment, when I downloaded this, it doesn’t show me any of the nutritional information that I really want to see. It lists a ‘Health Star Rating’ which I’m interested in finding out how Campbell’s rate this, and the basics of Energy, Protein, Fat, Carb, Sugars, etc per 100g and per serve, as in line with the food label guidelines.

But, I want to see the ingredients! This is where we’ve gone wrong, we are looking at ‘Nutritional Information’ like it’s a formula for health. Where the health is, and has always been in the real food!

Then I googled ‘Campbells Soup Ingredients List’ to see what I could come up with. And I came across another of their websites, Campbell’s Kitchen. Which offers recipes and inspiration for using Campbell’s as a base soup and how consumers can add to it. This is a great concept, it’s getting people back in the kitchen, and thinking about preparing food fresh. The product list still doesn’t give the information that we really need, but the concept is good.

In the end, I know if we go to a supermarket, be it Woolworth’s or Coles, head to the canned soup isle and are presented with countless number of flavours, we can pick up each individual can and read the ingredient list, to see if it’s healthy for our family. My main concerns with Campbell’s ingredients are in the sugar content, the additives, flavours, thickeners, and if there are any GMOs in our Australian range?

The maze to get to this information is too much for the general public. They really don’t know that they’re looking for. We see the vibrant vegetables on the package, and flip over to see it has low calories and fat, and think it’s good for us. And I feel like it will get to a point, where there is another news headline saying Campbell’s is phasing out something else because of it’s known harmful effects on our health, for consumers to know it was there in the first place. We need to be ahead of the game.

What else do we as consumers need to be looking out for, like the Bisphenol-A? Brands we trust are still a brand, they’re a business, and we are the ones who have our families best interest at heart. We need to take the control back, read between the lines, be able to recognise packaging tricks and health claims for what they truly are.

This is not the first time Campbell’s has been in the news in 2016, with positive moves towards consumer rights and health. In January, in the United States, Campbells announced they will move towards GM (Genetically Modified) labeling. Making it clear if their products contain GMO ingredients. In Australia it’s still unclear if Campbell’s will label our products.

Again I applaud Campbell’s for making the move to phase out BPA from their canned goods and I implore them to also look at other ingredients in their product. Help educate Australians on how to truly recognise when something is healthy for us.