The Environmental Working Group posted a great little cheat sheet with helpful links to more information.
Their key points in limiting exposure are:
- Limit canned foods. BPA leaches into canned food from the lining. When possible, and especially when pregnant or breastfeeding, limit the amount of canned food your family eats. Particularly avoid canned soup, pasta, and infant formula.
- Avoid polycarbonate plastic. Hard, translucent plastic marked #7 is probably polycarbonate, which leaches BPA, especially when heated. Ditch your polycarbonate water bottles in favor of a stainless steel bottle. Don’t microwave plastic — use ceramic or glass instead.
- If you’re formula feeding your infant, consider using powdered formulas packaged in non-steel cans. Also, choose baby bottles made from glass or specially-marked plastics that don’t leach BPA (like polypropylene or polyethylene).
Related articles:
- BPA Free Bottles and Sippy Cups
- US Government says BPA is harmful
- Pregnant women told to avoid BPA
- Today Show report on BPA & plastic safety
- Canned foods and BPA
- BPA is found in infant formula
- BPA and other plastic safety
- Z Recommends: The Z Report on BPA In Infant Care Products, Third Edition
- Environmental Working Group: Guide to Baby Safe Bottles & Formula
- Environmental Working Groups Report on BPA in Baby Formula
- Breastmilk contains stem cells
- Breastmilk cures
- Can breastmilk cure cancer?
Great Tips.
I hope many parents come here and read them.
Ronit
The Happiness Coach
Family Matters
Nothing seems to be safe anymore! Thanks for posting all this great information. I will definitely be coming around more often to see what else you have!
Does anyone know if Melamine plates are safe? I know that they are not supposed to microwaved but other than that, I can’t find any info on it. And not all of the plates have numbers on the bottom.
DS,
I was just looking into this. It looks like they are not the safest.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-melamine.htm
http://sarahscucinabella.com/2007/05/02/are-melamine-plates-safe/
You cannot heat them, such as in a microwave, because that’s wear the melamine can break down and leach toxins. (My question is, if I reheat something on this plate for 20 seconds, it does not get that hot, so why is it safe to put these in a dishwasher where I know for a fact it gets heated more than my microwave???)
Melamine plates are often a combination of melanine and formaldehyde. Melamine is also suspected to be what contaminated pet food and caused kidney failure in so many pets last year. So, it’s not looking so good for melamine. And formaldehyde?? Not good if that leaches.
Looks like I will be looking for new dishware, as we do use melamine plates for our 2 year old. *sigh* It just never ends. I likely will just get a few small correlle plates — all glass and hard to break. Plus you can run them through the dishwasher, microwave, etc.
Hope that helps!
Hi there,
Being a new Dad, our boy just turned 1 – still feels new – I find that not a day goes by that I’m not worried about something. I consider myself fairly well informed about most things but didn’t hear anything about BPA until earlier this year. We switched over to glass bottles a few months ago and it feels great. My brother swears by Dr. Brown’s Bottles, either are great.