Which Plastics Are Safe and Unsafe to Use?

My 12 year old has a rhyme to remember what is good and bad palstic. SHe did a whole recyling safety home study on it...

"4, 5, 1 and 2, all the rest aren't good for you."

Hope this helps.

B.

There is no conclusive evidence that proves those plastics are unsafe to use. However, I would avoid microwaving food in it. Some of the studies suggested that when the plastics are exposed to high temperatures, the dioxins leak into the food. Then there are studies that could not prove that. If you feel like it's something you want to avoid, go with tempered glass. Storing things in plastic won't hurt anything. But I never have been one to microwave my baby food anyway so it doesn't apply.

Hi Jeanine,

I don't trust Gerber ANYTHING because they use Quaternium-15 in their baby consumables. Gerber's Grins and Giggles is the first product that comes to mind. Q-15 is a cheap preservative that releases formaldehyde and that is a KNOWN cancer causing agent. Johnson and Johnson is just as bad. The manufacturers are aware of this!

We try not to use any more plastics than we have to. Like Faith mentioned, we have gone to tempered glass. You still have to be careful there too, as there are so many products from China. There are lead testers at Publix and Home Depot and probably other stores. They work like crayons, you wipe them on the item and they turn a certain color if there is lead present.

I'm sorry I didn't exactly answer your question but I hope I helped!

Regards,

M.

Here is a great website that should give you all the information that you need. Whole foods sells a great bottle and sippy cup called Born Free if you are interested. I believe that drinking my coffee out of plastic cups for years has caused my thyroid nodules and hormone problems so I am right with you in making changes for our children. http://www.bisphenolafree.org/
A.

We use a sippy bottle from Sigg, a swiss company. We bought it on reusablebags.com. We also had our daughter experimenting with drinking out of a little wooden cup at a very young age and she soon progressed to a small glass. We fed her out of wooden salad bowls a lot. We have a little bit of plastic dishes from the inlaws. she likes those but I usually serve her in ceramic, glass, or wood unless she requests her Pooh or Green Bay Packers dishes. We don't consume conventional grocery store baby and toddler foods, so I don't know what Gerber stage 2 is but I know the health food store has stuff from a company called Earth's Best Orgnaic. Comes in glass jars. It is my undertsanding that many plastics contain phthaltes which are bad for you. Other plastics may contain things that have not yet been proven bad for us. By the way, (I hate to be a bummer but do want to inform people) the cosmetics industry is unregulated so there are all kinds of questionable substances in shampoos, soaps, bubble baths, diapers, pads and tampons, lotions, etc. I try to stick to things with no chemcicals in the ingredients. You usually have to find them at health food stores and still read labels because some things are better than others.

Recycle coded #7 plastics are among the group of BPA or Bisphenol-A. These plastics supposedly leak a chemical similar to estrogen into that foods and beverages they contain. I am choosing to not re-use containers with a high BPA content but I am not going to stop buying water bottles for road trips. I am also not using BPA plastics for storage or bottles. It really is a personal decision because much of the science is unfortunately still out. A good resource I found for more information on what the science does say is an editorial found in Journal of Endocrinology.
http://endo.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/138/5/1777
I hope this helps you make the decision on plastic # 7. Also some other plastics that have high BPA content are 3 and 6. The other numbers are considered "safe" by Anti-BPA consumers. Another plastic concern that I have heard raised is the debate on phthalates. I am personally more concerned about phthalate content as the EU has banned this chemical for use in its plastics. I hope this information was helpful.