2y ago

Is eating a lot of canned food bad?

I recently gave up eating takeout every night, but I'm too lazy to cook, which led to me replacing it with basically nothing but canned food. Like I'll mix a can of beans and a can of mixed vegetables together, put half in a bowl and put the other half in a container for tomorrow, put salad dressing on it, and then that's my dinner. I also eat a half can of fruit per day, because I found the shelf life and inconsistencies with produce to be too annoying.

On the one hand, I think I'm eating better than I was when I was doing nothing but takeout. My salt consumption has plummeted, and in general, I think the nutritional facts for my canned meal are better across the board than the takeout meals I was doing.

On the other hand, if there's some long term issue with eating too much canned food, then I'm definitely going to be affected by it. I was thinking cats lead pretty good lives with nothing but canned food, so maybe I'll be ok.

Anyway, am I going to die a horrible canned food death, or am I ok?

48 comments

Canned fruits are often placed in a ton of syrup and sugar. So they aren't all that great for you. Even if you don't drink the syrup.
Canned vegetables on the other hand are perfectly fine and no different from frozen vegetables. There are rarely preservatives added since the heat and vacuum is enough to keep them from spoiling.
It's important to buy just vegetables. If you buy pre-made canned food then the quality drops significantly due to the amount of sugar, salt, and fats added. So canned peas are fine, canned pea soup not so much.
Canned vegetables have a worse reputation than deserved and it mostly comes from taste rather than health issues.
But mixing up your diet is never a bad idea. So instead of just going canned goods you can consider dried goods. Dried fruits don't have the same issue as canned fruits while still having a long shelf life. There are dried apple or banana chips, dried plums, mangos, apricots, also nuts and seeds are great alternatives.
And even dried vegetables are an option. They require a little bit more planning because some of them need to be soaked over night. And beans usually need to be cooked in addition to the soaking as they are poisonous otherwise. But not all dried vegetables need soaking, lentils can be cooked immediately. And offers, such as dried peas can even be eaten as snack in dried form.
- Haha yeah, the canned fruit is loaded with sugar from that extra syrup they add. I've been rationalizing it as at least I'm not drinking soda anymore, but I need to fix that too.
  This is great info, though. Dried fruit is a good idea about ditching that sugary syrup. Plus, it's easier than canned fruit anyway. I have been avoiding the premixed canned stuff and I do eat a lot of nuts and seeds, but I don't do any dried vegetables. I'll start looking into trying those. They do sound like they'd be a good way to get more variety.
  
  With some dried fruits you just need to be a bit careful as they can really speed up your digestive system if you eat too many of them. Dried plums and apricots are the main culprits for me. They are so delicious and I could eat 10 or more in one go. Treat them as fresh fruit and eat 1-3 at a time and you will be fine.
  Also get non sulfured variants. They don't look as nice and don't last as long but the taste is so much better.
- no different from frozen vegetables
  Canning frequently requires processing and heating. These have consequences for some vitamin levels, so they're not exactly the same. Vitamin C is one of the bigger losses in canned food, often 60% or more because it hates oxygen and heat. Frozen fruit and vegetables are typically better for that reason, but canned is still fine if you account for it and your cans are also BPA free.
  Assuming both canned and frozen foods are manufactured in ideal circumstances otherwise.
- Canned veggies often have a lot of salt in them which is the main issue with them healthwise. Canned fruits you can reduce the sugar content by draining the liquid and washing them gently with tap water but like most fruits, theres still going to be a fair amount of sugar in them even if you manage to remove the sugars added to canned fruits.

Theoretically canned food is fine, if you account for nutritional loss during canning process (vit c hates heat, some other vitamins too) and ingredients added (sugar and salt content can be huge).
There is one practical problem with canned food I didn't see anyone mention. Bisphenol A or BPA consumption can have neurological consequences in diets with a lot of tinned food. Most manufacturers now (location dependent) use BPA-free cans, but not all.
This is why I added more frozen food to my diet. Chopped Frozen broccoli, frozen spinach, peas, beans, carrots etc. Are really quick to thaw and reheat without needing much time and can be dumped into most meals without ruining them. Split red lentils also take maybe 7 mins from dry, no soaking required.
- Thanks, this thread has been highly informative for me. I now know there's a little bit of vitamin loss from the canning process, so I should look into that.
  
  No problem! I had the same questions for the same reasons once, so I'm just glad my research can benefit someone other than me.
  Here's a good article with more info on how processing affects food, including a list of vitamins you want to watch for, the tl;dr is water soluble vitamins (B-group and C) https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/food-processing-and-nutrition
  Thankfully they're very common and easy to compensate for. Low levels of vitamins can cascade into a bunch of different issues too, so it's definitely something to watch.

You are probably consuming more salt then you should, but you won't get cancer or anything like that. A good alternative would be peanut butter and white bread. You could add something like peanut butter sandwiches to reduce the amount of canned food, or could move to frozen veggies instead. But as a direct response to your question, usually canned food's biggest issue the salt content and just being overcooked.
- I forgot to mention that I also eat a sandwich or something with the canned food meal. Like peanut butter and jelly or something. And about the salt content, I rinse both the beans and vegetables off before I mix them. I'm pretty sure there's little to no salt left at that point, because I don't taste any.
  
  First of all, you're making great steps by changing your diet and asking questions like this! Small steps are sustainable steps.
  Canned beans and veggies will definitely retain a lot of their salt regardless of rinsing because of osmosis. You should be able to find low salt/no salt added versions of more common items like tomatoes and black beans - try tasting the difference for yourself! Properly salted things don't taste salty, because salt will boost other flavors before you taste it. I'll also echo the recommendation of frozen veggies, and if you have the time and patience for it, dried beans are super cheap and easy to make. But the most important thing is knowing what you can handle as a routine, so if canned is what works for you, then don't be ashamed.
  
  Fair enough. If you do want some easy suggestions for meals, here is one of my go to's (I'm also lazy and only cook one decent meal a week really so I have a lot of things like this that takes about 5 mins start to finish.)
  Mexican Street Corn in a Cup. INGREDIENTS 1 Package of Steam In Bag Yellow Whole Kernel Corn. 1/2 TSP Salt 1/2 TSP Pepper 1/4 TSP Sugar 1/2 TSP Chili Powder 1/4 TSP Or To Taste - Cheyenne Pepper 2-4 TBSP Good Quality Mayo 1 TSP Lime Juice 1 TBSP finely shredded Cotija cheese (Can sub Parm but won't be exact) 1 TBSP finely chopped Cilantro (Optional)
  INSTRUCTIONS Cook corn as instructed.
  While corn cooks, combine rest of the ingredients.
  When corn is done, combine with mayo and cheese mix and make sure corn gets well coated. Eat it hot.

Canned beans are Lemmy’s favorite food

Steamable-in-the-bag, frozen vegetables were a game changer for me eating healthier while still being incredibly convenient.

Depends on the canned food.

No, canned food is perfectly healthy, there are no short or long term consequences from eating a heavily canned diet.

Frozen vegetables and frozen fruit in smoothies are considerable replacements. Alternatives include looking into sandwiches or wraps using stuff you can reasonably expect to consume in a reasonable amount of time. Could also consider throwing stuff into the oven (oven roasted root vegetables or broccoli/cauliflower and a rice cooker can make a decent meal with very little active cooking and more just watching the clock).
A pressure cooker is also a nice idea along that vein (dump everything in, leave it and come back to some chilli in a few hours).
- Thanks for the alternatives ideas. I should try to mix up my "cooking" game a little, just to get a little more variety in my diet.
  
  I'm 100% sympathetic to the "I want to not eat out but it's a chore to cook".
  Ovens, pressure cookers, and rice cookers are absolutely wonderful because of how set and check back later they are.
  Dressing up even simple foods like ramen with blanched leafy vegetables, poached eggs and some ham is fun.
  Furikake is a great way to add a bit of flavoring to white rice. Alternatively some soy sauce and sesame oil are both good pairings for rice and ramen as appropriate.
  Wraps can be fun too and may be a nice alternative to bread.
- I would definitely consider frozen veggies as an alternative to canned veggies. To keep things as simple as possible, you can microwave them and they are ready in under 2 minutes. They taste significantly more fresh, and have way less salt content.
  If you are looking for other options with long shelf life, pickled/lacto fermented mixed veggies could also be a great option!

"Healthier" is a fuzzy, difficult to define concept in food, but there's minimal nutritional differences between canned, frozen, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Avoid cans with BPA lining and anything with lots of added salt or sugar, but otherwise don't worry about it.
The practical answer is whatever helps you not eat takeout all the time is what you should stick with. If you are worried, prewashed salad lettuce packs are pretty cheap and are a manageable two meals. I really hate juggling the shelf life of produce as well.
- Thanks cool, that's good to know that I'm ok with the cans. I just have to start buying the low/no salt versions from now on, it sounds like. I'll probably try to start mixing it up with the other lazy healthy options too, though. If only for a little more variety.
- Lmao, "avoid cans with bpa lining". Ya bro, you looking up whether you're getting a Ball can with a Valspar coating?

We've come a long way regarding canning and food safety, I don't think you'll have any issues like the crews of the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus had.
tldr; a short summary about the demise of John Franklin's 1845 Arctic expedition. Many of the tinned rations were poorly sealed and contaminated with lead, leading to sickness, starvation and general tragedy for all involved. (If you think that sounds interesting there's a 10-episode AMC dramatization called The Terror, which is how I learned about it)

I have bad childhood memories of being forced to eat canned vegetables but this was before flash-frozen vegetables. I refuse to eat canned green beans.
Generally, the less processing a food has the healthier it is for you. After fresh fruits/veggies flash frozen is best. Then comes canned items due to heating.
I suggest visiting c/cooking. Post your go-to recipe and ask for info on making it healthier while still easy. They may say it is already good or suggest tweaks. Either way there is lots of cooking knowledge there.
- Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !cooking@lemmy.world
  
  good bot

Microplastics are a concern, if you're eating out of metal cans rather than glass. However there are microplastics in rainwater now, so it's not like you can avoid them...
- Yeah, that's the type of thing I was wondering about. Some weird chemical type thing or something that does damage over time. I haven't been worrying about it too much, but figured I should probably at least check before I knock too many canned meals back.
  And yeah, this is metal cans I'm talking about.
  For the microplastics, I guess I'm not too concerned with this if I can't avoid them anyway.

I would definitely consider frozen veggies as an alternative to canned veggies. To keep things as simple as possible, you can microwave them and they are ready in under 2 minutes. They taste significantly more fresh, and have way less salt content.
If you are looking for other options with long shelf life, pickled/lacto fermented mixed veggies could also be a great option!
- Thanks! Yeah, I'll start trying to introduce frozen veggies into my routine. Never considered the pickled section of the grocery store, but I'll take a look there too.

Humble can of plain chopped tomatoes is the one thing that keeps my diet interesting and relatively nutritious. It's the base of my little cooking framework that allows my lazy ass to eat warm meals on a quasi regular basis.
The only fresh produce you need are onions, but you can buy a lot of them at once and they won't spoil too quickly. Just brown chopped onions on olive or vegetable oil, pour a can of tomatoes, add salt, pepper and some italian style dried herbs and you have the most basic pasta sauce that took maybe 10 or 15 minutes to make and you have sth for dinner for the next 2-4 days depending on the size of the can. But its true strength comes from its versatility. You can add any random thing you have in your pantry and it still tastes good. You have broccoli in your freezer? Just add it and wait until its soft. Same with anything else frozen. Everything canned goes as well: green peas, corn, string beans, chickpeas, beans... Want something heavier? Add fried minced pork or beef. You can also poach eggs in that sauce. Want to keep it vegan? Fried or baked tofu. Frozen or dried mushrooms? Of course! If you are not sure about some ingredient just add it anyway. It will still taste like a tomato sauce. It only tastes better with fresh produce but you can keep it 100% canned + that inital onion and it's still a solid option that keeps your morale high and your body nourished enough to avoid unnecessary long term problems. Just keep it simple and it's foolproof.
As far as safety of canned food is concerned, I haven't seen any hard evidence against it. It's not a new thing. If it was fundamentally harmful we would already know about it. Just don't exclusively eat readymade canned meals or WW1 western front rations. Also mandatory ~~reddit~~ lemmy style sorry for bad english.
- There was a time when I tried getting into cooking (mostly variations of rice and beans) and I ended up leaning pretty heavily on canned chopped/diced tomatoes too. I liked the different flavors you could buy, in terms of the seasoning that's put in the can, and you're right, you could put anything in it and it would taste good.

Canned food will give you a lot more gas.
It usually has higher sodium than fresh/frozen options. Frequently other things as well (especially canned “dinners” or fruit.)
I’m more concerned about the apparent lack of variety. Animal protein is basically complete. Vegetable protein isn’t and you need to mix up types of veggie protein, as well as micros from an apparent lack of fruit.
Also, the lack of variation in general. I’m reminded of a guy I know who had low-t. Started eating “simple” like this and eventually got to the point where he was just eating. Bread with mayo (and subsequently went to the doctor because of lack of nutrition. And he was nagged into that- no motivation.) not a doctor… but…

Yea is bad, guess you can remove 20 to 25 years to your natural life spawn by keep eating food from cans.

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