A few weeks ago, in order to further my goals re: weight loss, I re-read my favorite diet book "The Abs Diet". Immediately began making breakfast smoothies for myself and my husband. I wanted to be able to sip away during the morning commute in order to 1) assure actual consumption of breakfast, which I'm known to blow off and 2) assure that breakfast is consumed less than 3 hours after I get up. Unfortunately my kitchen equipment didn't include the right vessel. So I was off to BB&B.
DH and I still have about $100 left in gift cards from our wedding a year ago. I won't know what to do with myself when this is gone.
Anyway a wonderful employee of BB&B in Studio City directed me right to these: a wonderful Jamba Juice replica cup which works perfectly for transport and consumption of said healthy ingredient smoothies. Yay!
Yay until in my green research I read all kinds of terrible things about plastics. I'm still a novice when it comes to the entire green movement, as you know, but I'm trying. These Copco cups are BPA free which is the most dangerous chemical we know of when it comes to the reusable plastic vessel, but overall less plastics is better. There is some evidence that shows that regular juice, water, and soda bottles can leach DHEP when they are in less than perfect condition. This was shocking information for me as I've always re-used water bottles. In fact, the last 4 weeks I've used the same water bottle over and over each time I went to the gym. Scary.
But, now we know and as GI Joe would say, knowing is half the battle. The other half of the battle is finding a new water bottle. I started shopping on Amazon.com as is my usual custom. There is a whole section of reusable water bottles, which is great. Now I had to take a detour out into the world of Google to try to understand if I should go with a bottle that's similar to the Copco plastic cup or look at aluminum or stainless steel varieties.
First, the obvious upsides to the plastic seem to be price and weight. Plastic bottles come in plenty of sizes and iterations, with decent ratings by the Amazon buyers.
Downsides include other concerns about plastics and overall human health. While I couldn't easily (Google) find any conclusive studies that indicate specific concerns, there does some to be some general unrest about plastics especially for bottles like these which will get reused often and will tend to get dinged up. I read through a long list of chemicals used in plastics production and different reasons why they are BAD. Overall I felt it would be awfully difficult to figure out what plastics were used in what products. Easier to avoid plastic altogether. It's also a lot tougher to recycle plastics than I thought. Plus, plastic is made from petroleum and buying plastics supports the demand for this finite resource. I read that not all plastics are made with petroleum, but it seems safer to stay away from them altogether since it's difficult to know from amazon.com what's in these plastics.
Ok, so on the other hand we have stainless steel bottles.
Upside, it's durable and eco-friendly. Downsides (the opposite of the up sides to platics) are cost and weight. I focused right in on Klean Kanteen and began reading their website. Klean Kanteen's are dishwasher safe which is also a big deal for me.
I did consider Aluminum briefly because it is 1) not plastic and 2) lightweight. However, I understand that aluminum can leach into the water if the bottle's liner becomes compromised. I read some material that Sigg put out about this, and while they do seem to have given that issue a lot of thought, I again figured, if there's an alternative, why bother.
So I ended up on this Klean Kanteen, 18oz in red. Phillies red.
Now, when I decided to work on greening my life, my chief concern was could I afford to do so. Organic foods, clothes, and general replacing of a bunch of my current STUFF could really add up. This first purchase is certainly leading me to believe that I'll have to be all kinds of careful if I'm going to make this a true life style change. One good thing is that this water bottle should last many years and if I can remember to keep it with me, I should be presented with opportunities to re-fill instead of buying a disposable bottle of water. Hopefully that will help me even the score. Klean Kanteen makes a child's "sippy cup" which costs as little as $13 for each 12oz bottle. For a BPA free plastic sippy cup, Amazon shows costs of as little as $2-$3 each (when you buy multiples). I can remember a time when my nieces were small that they'd easily go through 4 cups in a day (2 kids, 2 milk cups, 2 juice cups) so going without plastic would take a commitment. Just something to think about.
DH and I still have about $100 left in gift cards from our wedding a year ago. I won't know what to do with myself when this is gone.
Anyway a wonderful employee of BB&B in Studio City directed me right to these: a wonderful Jamba Juice replica cup which works perfectly for transport and consumption of said healthy ingredient smoothies. Yay!
Yay until in my green research I read all kinds of terrible things about plastics. I'm still a novice when it comes to the entire green movement, as you know, but I'm trying. These Copco cups are BPA free which is the most dangerous chemical we know of when it comes to the reusable plastic vessel, but overall less plastics is better. There is some evidence that shows that regular juice, water, and soda bottles can leach DHEP when they are in less than perfect condition. This was shocking information for me as I've always re-used water bottles. In fact, the last 4 weeks I've used the same water bottle over and over each time I went to the gym. Scary.
But, now we know and as GI Joe would say, knowing is half the battle. The other half of the battle is finding a new water bottle. I started shopping on Amazon.com as is my usual custom. There is a whole section of reusable water bottles, which is great. Now I had to take a detour out into the world of Google to try to understand if I should go with a bottle that's similar to the Copco plastic cup or look at aluminum or stainless steel varieties.
First, the obvious upsides to the plastic seem to be price and weight. Plastic bottles come in plenty of sizes and iterations, with decent ratings by the Amazon buyers.
Downsides include other concerns about plastics and overall human health. While I couldn't easily (Google) find any conclusive studies that indicate specific concerns, there does some to be some general unrest about plastics especially for bottles like these which will get reused often and will tend to get dinged up. I read through a long list of chemicals used in plastics production and different reasons why they are BAD. Overall I felt it would be awfully difficult to figure out what plastics were used in what products. Easier to avoid plastic altogether. It's also a lot tougher to recycle plastics than I thought. Plus, plastic is made from petroleum and buying plastics supports the demand for this finite resource. I read that not all plastics are made with petroleum, but it seems safer to stay away from them altogether since it's difficult to know from amazon.com what's in these plastics.
Ok, so on the other hand we have stainless steel bottles.
Upside, it's durable and eco-friendly. Downsides (the opposite of the up sides to platics) are cost and weight. I focused right in on Klean Kanteen and began reading their website. Klean Kanteen's are dishwasher safe which is also a big deal for me.
I did consider Aluminum briefly because it is 1) not plastic and 2) lightweight. However, I understand that aluminum can leach into the water if the bottle's liner becomes compromised. I read some material that Sigg put out about this, and while they do seem to have given that issue a lot of thought, I again figured, if there's an alternative, why bother.
So I ended up on this Klean Kanteen, 18oz in red. Phillies red.
Now, when I decided to work on greening my life, my chief concern was could I afford to do so. Organic foods, clothes, and general replacing of a bunch of my current STUFF could really add up. This first purchase is certainly leading me to believe that I'll have to be all kinds of careful if I'm going to make this a true life style change. One good thing is that this water bottle should last many years and if I can remember to keep it with me, I should be presented with opportunities to re-fill instead of buying a disposable bottle of water. Hopefully that will help me even the score. Klean Kanteen makes a child's "sippy cup" which costs as little as $13 for each 12oz bottle. For a BPA free plastic sippy cup, Amazon shows costs of as little as $2-$3 each (when you buy multiples). I can remember a time when my nieces were small that they'd easily go through 4 cups in a day (2 kids, 2 milk cups, 2 juice cups) so going without plastic would take a commitment. Just something to think about.
Here's some websites I read:
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