Approx 10 years ago I had a blood test that came back that I had too much tin in my system.
The doctor said that it was coming from the lack of the correct lining inside tins. Now that I am retired and cannot always get to the shops, I use a lot of tin food. But how do I know if the tins are safe? I have never been able to find out what the correct lining is and if they have it.
1 Like
I would be interested to know what is ‘too much’ and how your doctor came to test for it. Do you or did you have any symptoms that are related? Are we talking about a qualified MD who did blood tests here?
Perhaps you could get another blood test and find out if you still have elevated tin levels. You may have nothing to worry about now.
This seems to be a reference to a failure of lacquer inside tins that contain acidic foods. Acid foods like tomatoes can dissolve a little tin which can be ingested.
If you do have elevated tin then you need to find out where it comes from. Assuming that it comes from tin cans is not very useful. Ceasing using tin cans at some cost to you does nothing if it comes from elsewhere.
Given the use of tin cans worldwide this last century, if poor tin cans were common and if that resulted in clinically excessive amounts of tin that caused harm we would expect to see a pandemic of poisoning. We don’t.
Generalising about faulty tin cans isn’t going to help, you need to find out what is going on in your particular case. If you do have high tin levels and if the conclusion is that it can only come from tin cans then doing without acidic foods may be a better solution that giving up tins altogether.
2 Likes
