Canned foods are accessible and affordable
Canned foods provide safe, quality and affordable food that’s convenient and readily available.
Highlights include:
Save Time and Money
- Canned vegetables can cost up to 50% less than frozen and 20% less than fresh with virtually no sacrifice to the nutrition profile.
- Cooking with canned foods cuts down on meal prep time, so you can spend less time in the kitchen and more time with your family.
- Access to affordable nutrition is vital for the 1 in 7 Americans that live in food insecure households, including 29.1 million adults and 13.1 million children.
Provide Safe, Shelf-Stable, Accessible, Quality Food
- The canning process provides safe, quality, nutritious food with a long shelf life.
- The high-heat canning process is one of the safest processes for preserving food, preventing the growth of microorganisms that cause foodborne illnesses.
- Canned food is easily stored, which is important for those living in food deserts.
Play an Important Role in Supplemental Food Programs
- Canned foods play an important role in supplemental food programs, such as WIC, SNAP and snack programs for school.
- Inclusion of canned legumes can increase intake of priority nutrients for WIC participants, including fiber, potassium, and folate.
- As some canned vegetables and fruit options are more economical than fresh, canned produce can increase the purchasing power of Cash Value Vouchers for WIC participants.
- Canned fruits and vegetables improve the availability of a variety of fruits and vegetables across the seasons
Canned foods are nutritious
Ever wonder where exactly the food in your pantry comes from? That’s what influencers from across the country were challenged to discover. Touring farms and nearby canning facilities, influencers witnessed the sprawling fields of produce, met the farmers, and watched produce be inspected for high-quality standards.
Canned foods are a good source of essential nutrients and under-consumed proteins, such as fish and legumes, and help all Americans meet dietary recommendations.
Highlights include:
Provide Essential Nutrients
- Canned foods can help provide a healthy and nutritionally adequate diet when following the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
- Canned foods – like canned spinach, pears, tuna and salmon – provide important nutrients lacking in American diets, like potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium. The DGA also recommend eating foods rich in these nutrients.
- Nutrient-rich canned foods include: canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, canned tomato paste, canned lentils, canned clams, canned salmon, canned beans, and canned spinach.
- Good sources of vitamin D are found in canned fish: tuna, salmon, and sardines.
- Good sources of dietary fiber come in cans: canned chickpeas, northern beans, white beans, baked beans, green peas, refried beans, and pumpkin.
- Protein, including canned proteins, such as fish and beans, deliver a number of important benefits such as satiety and energy.
To learn more, explore this infographic: Quality Protein – It’s in the Can.
Contribute Nutrients, not Sodium and Sugar, to the Diet
- Canned foods provide essential nutrients, and canned fruits and vegetables do not contribute high amounts of sodium and sugar to the diet.
- Canned foods support healthy eating patterns including the Healthy Mediterranean-Style, Healthy Vegetarian, and Healthy U.S.-Style patterns.
To learn more, check out this infographic: 10 Tips for Healthy, Homemade Meals and Snacks.
Round Out Meal Patterns and Improves Diet Quality
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) recognize that fresh, canned, dried, and frozen foods can all contribute to a healthy eating pattern, particularly when they are nutrient-dense and contain little or no added sugar.
- Canned foods have similar (or better) nutritional profiles than their fresh or frozen counterparts. For example, canned tomatoes generally have more lycopene and beta carotene than fresh tomatoes.
- To learn more, check out this fact sheet: The Proof is in the Pantry: Canned Foods are Associated with Healthier Eating Habits
To learn more, check out this infographic: My Cantry Inspired by MyPlate
Belong in Nutrition Guidance
- It’s important to include canned fruit and vegetable options in nutrition guidance to improve public health perception of all fruit and vegetable forms and increase consumption.
- Given food access issues, it is more important, now than ever, to emphasize benefits of all forms of fruits and vegetables,
Support Overall Fruit and Vegetable Consumption
- Inclusive language – language that reinforces the healthfulness of all forms of fruits and vegetables – increases consumers’ intent to purchase packaged produce without decreasing their intent to purchase fresh.
- Limiting language in nutrition guidance detracts from the perceived healthfulness of packaged produce and inhibits consumption and intent to purchase packaged produce.
- Vulnerable consumers feel that limiting language recommendations would most likely cause a decrease in their intake of packaged fruits and vegetables.
To learn more, explore this infographic: Impact of Limiting Language in Government Recommendations on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.
Canned foods are environmentally friendly
Steel Food Cans Are the Eco-friendly Packaging Choice
- The recycling rate for steel food cans is 44%.
- In the United States, over 16,000 steel food cans are recycled every minute and 8.8 billion steel food cans are recycled every year.
- The steel in food cans recycles forever. In contrast, other food containers can be made up of multiple materials or not accepted at curbside recycling, making them hard to recycle and/or have significantly lower recycling rates.
Canned food is food that isn’t wasted. Steel food cans…
Extend Shelf Life
Canned food retains quality and taste.
- The long shelf-life of canned foods helps Americans reduce the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables they purchase and then throw away each week.
- In the grocery store, fresh produce is discarded more than canned and other shelf-stable items (6% versus under 2% in 2021).
Lock in Freshmess
Steel food cans seal in the good and lock out the bad.
- In fact, canned food has an almost indefinite shelf life at moderate temperatures (75°F and below).
- Canning destroys a variety of pathogens and deactivates enzymes that might otherwise cause continued deterioration of the food.
- Canned fruits and vegetables are picked and packed within hours locking in the freshness and quality.
Protect Food
Steel food cans provide a durable metal exterior combined with an airtight seal, which protects products throughout the supply chain without the need for refrigeration.
- Dietitians have said in a survey that canned produce can be a better value than fresh because it doesn’t spoil and is easy to store, which is important because fresh fruits and vegetables accounted for 27% of surplus food discarded by households in the U.S.
- Metal packaging protects products against physical damage and product tampering.
Address Food Loss
Canning offers a solution to surplus food in the supply chain, preserving food for future consumption that otherwise would be wasted.
- Canned food is food that isn’t wasted. If the entire U.S. fruit and vegetable supply were canned, rather than packed for refrigeration or freezing, the estimated savings would be ~22 million metric tons of CO2. To put this into perspective, a typical car produces approximately 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year, so it would be similar to removing over 4.7 million cars from the roads.” Food
- Canned fruits and vegetables are often blanched and chopped, which means there is less produce rejected in the supply chain due to cosmetic imperfections.
CMI Steel Food Can Programs
Canned Good tells the amazing sustainability story of the steel food can and raises awareness about all the good things that steel food cans can do for people and the planet.
From recipes to tips, Cans Get You Cooking showcases the nutrition, freshness and flavor canned foods offer, helping you prepare wholesome homemade meals.
Steel Food Can Resources
