About 4 months ago, I learned that the Advent bottles that I thought were so "cute" were made with the hard plastic (labeled 7 on the bottom) that can leach a chemical called BPA into the milk. I looked on their website and they assured me that many studies show it's safe and it's only dangerous if you heat it with boiling water...blah blah blah. They have to take that stance - since they don't want people to stop buying their product.
I continued to use them thinking, I don't overheat the bottle so it's fine. A week or so later, one of the bottles got melted while it was being heated up. That was my wake up call. Including Josh and me, Micah has 5 regular care givers each week (and that doesn't count church nursery time). I couldn't be sure that each time the bottle his milk was in wasn't being heated too hot, so I drove to Babies R Us and bought a $10 Born Free Glass bottle. A lot of people gave me grief about it. I tried to explain about the chemicals and they would just stare at me asking what if the glass bottle breaks. I stuck to my guns though, and my little family all liked our glass bottle. It didn't leak at all, I knew it was safe, and I liked the shape of it.
Imagine my joy this week when the today show did a segment on plastic drinking bottles. Turns out I was ahead of the curve for my son's drinking habits, but not for my husbands or mine. Turns out those Nalgene bottles I've been drinking out of for 6 years are a big no no. For the last 3 days at work I've had to drink out of a plastic disposable water bottle. If you know me, I drink a ton of water, so it's not wise for me to use those disposable water bottles everyday. Today, I ordered two new water bottles from Klean Kanteen. They don't leach any chemicals into my water and they are reusable.
If you want to know more about plastics and food safety, go to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (www.iatp.org) . They have a very easy to read guide about plastics. That way you can decide for yourself what you and your family eat and drink out of. I can tell you that my family will be using a lot more glass.