BPA’s Shiny Friend

It seems like everything we do is bad for us. Now that we have switched all of our bottles to glass we thought we could take a moment and be proud that toxic chemicals can’t leech into our child’s food. No such luck!

While we no longer have to worry about Bisphenal A from plastic bottles, we aren’t totally protected because whenever we prepare a can of formula concentrate we are dealing with a product that may contain a questionable dose of the chemical.

As mentioned earlier, Bisphenal A (BPA) is added to plastic products to increase their strength. A lesser known use is as a component of the liner within tin cans. In both instances, when the container is heated the BPA leeches into the food contents. For those not in the know, canned food is heated to kill any bacteria that may be present thereby increasing its shelf life.

What I want to know is – did our switch to glass bottles really make a difference? Is my son getting half the dose of this toxic chemical? How worried should I be?

Jarred Baby Food vs. Homemade

I was shopping at Wal-Mart with my sister-in-law the other day and stopped in the jarred baby food section. She looked at the price of the jar and asked what the point was in making your own food if you can conveniently purchase it at such a low price. While the cost is certainly appealing, I worry about my child’s health if I were to feed him such preservative-rich offerings.

Depending on the brand, for $0.47-$0.67 you can buy jars of chemically processed food with a shelf life of 5 to 10 years. Alternatively, you can spend 20 minutes a week making healthy chemical-free baby food. To me it is worth taking the brief time each week to make healthy food for my child food that can be frozen. In a small fridge-top freezer, fresh-made food can last for 3-4 months; in a deep freeze: up to six months.

Society has gotten lazy about their food and eating habits and there have been repercussions: children aren’t tolerating foods as much, allergies are on the rise, and babies are becoming fussier eaters. If you’ve ever tasted baby food you have my sympathies I wanted to try it before my son was due to start eating to explore the taste textures etc. As a trained chef my opinion is jarred baby food in general is totally unpalatable; the colors are off and you can’t even differentiate what the taste is. For fun I had my cousin close her eyes and sample some of the food she was going to feed her son and tell me what it was. She didn’t know what she was eating – how scary is that?

The Good News
For parents who really think they don’t have the time to cook for their child, there is now a great company (Sweet pea baby food) offering pre-measured food that is flash frozen and good for 3-6 months in your freezer. The food is made from organic vegetables and if you tell them the age of your child they can tell you which product they have for that age group. I tried their product at the baby boom show this spring and I can actually differentiate the flavors; it was like a party in my mouth. It was bland compared to what a grown up pallet is used to but to a baby exploring a flavor for the first time it would have been superb.

Bottled Doesn’t Mean Better

In today’s society, everyone is used to getting everything from the store. For example when we want a refreshing glass of cold water we no longer go to the tap and wait for the water get cold. Instead, we open the refrigerator and open a plastic bottle as if it were always there. Heaven forbid company should come over and you offer them tap water. I use to think drinking bottled water was better that drinking the tap water; that is, until I had my son.

On one of our adventurous trips to my in-laws we forgot to pack our jug of water to make the babies bottles. We knew he had some trouble tolerating water from other places so out came the bottle water which we thought would be the perfect solution. At the time we were using powdered formula so in the mornings we would boil water and keep it hot in a thermos. When it came to feeding time all we had to do was add the powder and hot water to the bottle, shake it, and let it cool. This takes much less time than heating a bottle up. After boiling the bottled water and leaving it in the thermos for his feeding we opened it and found a grainy deposit on the bottom. Whatever this stuff was, it was going into our child’s stomach. After a little bit of research and reading the label on the water bottles we realized that there was a huge amount of sodium and other minerals which was creating the deposits.

So is the bottle water better than our good old fashion tap water? If regularly tested and maintained I think not. Let’s stop using those plastic bottles and just open the tap for crying out loud.

Nighttime With Baby

The first time my baby slept through the night was both wonderful and terrifying. Wonderful because I’d lost all concept of what sleep was. Terrifying because I woke up with a start at 4am and panicked because the baby hadn’t cried. When I went over to the bassinet and saw him sleeping peacefully, there was a chorus line playing in my head.

Four months later the baby has moved out of our room and into his own crib. That was another big step and a story for another time but suffice it to say the nighttime routine in our house has changed often and dramatically over the past year.

Sometime between 4-7 months, children begin to develop a sense of object permanence – the idea that when something is out of sight, it still exists.  This is basically when your child learns there is only one of you – that when you leave the room you don’t disappear entirely. (What happens before that?  Perhaps the child believes you stop existing?  I wonder how that works on a practical level.)

Today, bed time involves realizing the baby is tired and putting them to bed at the right time.  If we do this too early we have to console a crying baby.  If we do it too late, the baby works himself into such a frenzy of tears he has no idea what’s going on.  As long as he goes to bed on time, the crying only lasts for a few minutes until he realizes he is tired and passes out. Usually.

Where to Find Product Recalls

We hear about new recalls every day – products of all kinds are found to be unsafe or flawed in some way are called back for repairs by their manufacturers.  Anyone who has ever bought a new car has certainly encountered this – the dealer phones you one morning to bring your vehicle in to fix a flaw that was discovered in [insert part here!].

Not all recalls are life-threatening, nor do they affect all items that were produced by the manufacturer.  Our car was called in once because the seal around the windshield on our model was found to wear too quickly.  Although we never had any problems with it, we were still able to have it replaced free of charge.

When the product recall is for family safety equipment, it is important to pay attention.  But how can a busy parent keep track of everything that may put their family in danger?  Fortunately there are many government-backed online sources that can help.

There are a few that we like:

CSA International – CSA tests products for conformance to and above national and international standards, and issues certification to qualified products.  When it comes to any safety equipment – bicycle helmets, electrical outlets, car seats – I will only buy products with the CSA label.  CSA also includes a useful RSS feed to keep abreast of new recalls.

Health Canada – The Canadian government is (generally) fanatical about safety, particularly for products relating to children and infants.  Canada has some of the strictest standards in the world when it comes to products for children and newborns.