Plastic

Because I was having this conversation with my mother-in-law the other day, I thought I'd post about it.

For years my mom has been telling me not to drink out of plastic bottles, put plastic in the microwave, or store highly acidic foods in plastic. I kind of paid attention but not really. Well, in the past year or so, the studies have really been showing what my mom has been saying is true. Besides the fact that throwing away plastic is bad for the environment, certain types of plastic can leach into your food and cause all different types of problems with the most serious being cancer. Babies are at a higher risk. BPA (Bisphenol-A) is found in polycarbonate plastic bottles (baby bottles and Nalgene bottles - anything that contains a #7 in the little triangle on the bottom of the bottle) and is particularly harmful. #1 is used for regular bottled water and is not quite as harmful. #3 is also apparently bad. Because I'm not a scientist and can't possibly do a very good job of explaining it, please do the reasearch yourself. You can search for:

• BPA and plastic
• Bisphenol-A and plastic
• Polycarbonate and plastic

You get the idea. In the meantime, here's a list of the plastics and which ones are good, bad and in-between:

http://www.cure-guide.com/Natural_Health_Newsletter/Plastic_Bottles/plastic_bottles.html


Here's an article on baby bottles:

http://www.babiestoday.com/articles/4858/1


So, what do you use instead? Aluminum is the best solution I've come across. My mother-in-law claims that aluminum is linked to Alzheimer's. However, I did a bit of research and found that thus far there's really no link. So, where can you buy aluminum bottles?

• Whole Foods
• REI
• http://www.mysigg.com/

I realize that not everybody believes this stuff. So, all I ask is to please do the research yourself and make an informed decision.