My Plastic Paranoia
For years now, friends and co-workers have rolled their eyes at my paranoia over plastic. Particularly, over heating things in plastic. I often bring a Lean Cuisine to work for my lunch, but I always bring china from home to use in the microwave: I refuse to microwave any plastic. Also, I won't boil plastic; that's dangerous too. Also-also, no nonstick pans above medium heat. OK, medium-high.
My plastic paranoia naturally extended to baby products once I became pregnant. There is a chemical called BPA which has been proven to leach out of some types of plastic and into whatever is contained in the plastic. It is absolutely shocking to me that so many BABY BOTTLES are made with this plastic.
The baby-industrial-complex doesn't really want word of this to get out, and I haven't seen any major media coverage about the dangers and ubiquity of BPA, but there are plenty of studies available online. I forget where I found this, but this pdf from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy is a good summary of what's going on with plastics.
Some of the baby blogs I read have done some research, particularly:
Baby Toolkit
Daddy Types
Z Recommends
I'm guessing that posting this won't make a difference to my readers, especially because I sound like the kind of crappy alarmist email forward your aunt keeps sending everyone, but to twist a phrase,
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't putting dangerous chemicals in baby bottle plastics.
4 comments:
Babies are toxic.
Yeah, I have a slight plastic-thing too, such that Husband freaked when I bought Splig a $20 food-grade metal water bottle thingy to replace (one of those) those darn plastic sippy cups.
The Cat used to gnaw on his sippies. Makes me cringe 'cause it is a bunch of color-stuff as well as the plastic-stuff.
Considering the shit-grade plastic the water bottle companies are allowed to use, none of us should be drinking from that stuff. I'm thinking about looking into alumnium water bottles for myself as soon as I have time/energy to focus on me.
Given that aluminum may have ties to alzheimers (http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/Facts_about_dementia/Risk_factors/info_aluminium.htm (nothing causal has been proven, but there are some potentially scary indicators) and that some aluminum bottles have a plastic liner, choose carefully.
Stainless steel may be the way to go.
I wish Thermos made stainless steel baby bottles. More durable than glass and safer than plastic.
The aluminum thing has been entirely and definitively debunked by the scientific community. While it was a big concern for a while, it is no longer.
Sigg is a great option. Snazzy, too.
Oh, and on the plastic thing- the clear Nalgene plastic=bad, while the matte finish foggy plastic=good.
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