In Breaking the Vicious Cycle, Elaine stamps a big Illegal label on canned pumpkin. Unfortunately, most brand of canned pumpkin contain undisclosed sugar and starches added during processing. Elaine suggests baking your own pumpkin for pies, muffins, and cookies.
I’ve never cooked a pumpkin in my life. I guess I am just not in the habit of writing “Whole Pumpkin” on my grocery list. And while “cooking a pumpkin” is on my bucket list, I am happy to find a couple of SCD legal canned pumpkin options for convenience’s sake.
SCD Legal Canned Pumpkin: You Can’t Always Trust the Label
When it comes to canned pumpkin, you can’t always trust the label to tell the truth. Fortunately, Farmer’s Market Pumpkin contains only pumpkin
I avoid most canned foods, because the cans notoriously leach BPA into their contents. Thankfully, these two SCD legal canned pumpkin options are BPA free.
Option 1: Farmer’s Market Canned Pumpkin
In a personal email conversation with a Farmer’s Market marketing associate, I was told:
“We do not add anything to our pumpkins. It is 100% pure organic pumpkin. As the farmer and the processor, we are able to oversee our production from seed to smooth puree. We pushed the industry to change and I’m proud to say that a BPA-Free liner is now standard with all of our Farmer’s Market products. Look for cans with an expiration date of August 2013 or later to ensure that you have a BPA-Free can.”
You can often find Farmer’s Market products in natural foods stores. For a steep discount, I always order it from Vitacost.
Option 2: Trader Joe’s Canned Pumpkin
Trader Joe’s adherence to quality and purity makes their store brand products a great choice for those on carefully restricted diet. Again, I emailed Trader Joe’s to make sure their canned pumpkin was SCD legal. A customer service representative wrote back:
“We want to assure you that as a matter of standard, we will always clearly disclose any ingredients contained in our products where other suppliers may not. In other words, if this ingredient (sugar) is not listed in the ingredient panel, any sugar would only be what is naturally occurring and there would be no sugar added to the product.”
Trader Joe’s canned pumpkin is only available in stores seasonally. I am not positive that the cans are BPA free, but I assume so because their (SCD legal) coconut milk cans are BPA free.
Good to know about labeling, in THESE venues. So not true across the board.
I couldn’t agree more, Susie! We never know what manufacturers slip into processed and packaged foods unless we do thorough research. I hope that will change in the future–food labels should disclose ALL ingredients!
I’m excited to try this brand. I no longer buy any canned goods because of the BPA in the liners and my estrogen dominance issues. This is going to be great for me and my family! I love pumpkin! Thanks for sharing this info and for your giveaway!
Thanks for the great info. And wonderful recipes! My kids are loving your strawberry mousse. I have made strawberry blueberry and strawberry banana.
Just wanted to let you know I was at trader joes last week asking about bpa free cans. We are currently on gaps. And some of their items are bpa free and some not. Canned tomatoes are. Soups, sardines, shrimp, beans are not bpa free. Could not remember all of it since I was really interested in the tomatoes. Plus the employee said trader joes brand organic tomatoes 12 ounce cans are really Muir glen organic tomatoes.