Important Health Advice

I've blogged before about my concern that baby bottles should be glass wherever possible, rather than plastic. I've felt this way for years, even before studies raised concerns about certain chemicals in plastic containers. The LA Times had an article on this recently.

To be honest, I've been worried about the use of plastic for beverages for years. Think about it. Soda and fruit juices are acidic in nature. Plastic is soft. There is going to be some dissolving of plastic into your beverage. There is too much plastic in human ecosystem to be healthy. I grew up in the healthiest generation ever and they all drank from glasses. We also drank more milk (another of my continual health tips) but today I want to urge people to follow my example and use glass bottles and containers wherever possible. When I was a kid we enjoyed saving jam and jelly jars and using them as drinking cups. I still do that. Glass is hard and clean and it does not emit into your beverage. If you must buy plastic containers of beverage, transfer the contents to your own glass jars in your refrigerator. I save glass containers and use them for beverages once I have bought them and brought them home. My mother actually does the same thing, but for a different reason. With arthritis she has trouble handing large milk and orange juice containers. So after shopping at the store, she returns home and pours the large plastic container contents into medium to small sized glass jars with lids that she has collected and are the right size for her. I do it for health reasons. I know darn well that plastic gunk is dissolving (especially in hot warehouses) into our beverages. Don't even get me started about sippy cups for children, made of plastic, and containing acidic fruit juice. While I'm not trying to panic people, I have to share my deep concern that I have had about plastic containers for our beverages for decades now. People read stupid astrology charts to wonder why someone in their family gets cancer, but don't think about how in twenty years people have gone from clean and pure glass bottles to plastic everywhere. I buy Welch's 100% Grape Juice (my favorite juice) in a 24 ounce glass bottle. I pay more but I'd rather not have more plastic injected into my body than necessary. Beverages taste better from glass containers too. Sometimes I have a 10 ounce serving of the Grape Juice (in one of my Smucker's Simply Fruit glass jars I use for everyday drinking) straight and sometimes I mix the Grape Juice half and half with spring water. Yum! Children drink too much beverages sweetened with corn syrup, and that includes "fruit juice," which is not pure, but only usually 10 percent fruit. Buy pure fruit juice in glass containers if possible, and if not transfer it when you get home, and wean children off of too much fruit juice by doing a half and half with water as I do. I urge manufacturers to think about moving away from plastic, or at least offering one product in your line in glass.

Blackburn's line of jelly comes in a wonderful handled glass mug that is 18 ounce in size. I use that size for each serving of milk that I drink. I try to drink milk twice a day, and I'm an adult. One never outgrows the great benefit of milk. There is nothing like cold milk in a clean safe glass mug. Today I bought Shurfine Peach preserves, which I look forward to eating, both for the great product but also because it comes in a great glass, with a pressed quilt pattern design, 18 ounce size. In the 1950's we kids used to love saving the jam and jelly jars and using them as our cups. Manufacturers used to make them with different designs for that purpose. I think my mother still has one with a Roadrunner design on it ha ha. Anyway, I never knew a kid to be unable to handle a small glass (especially if it has a handle), of the right size at the age appropriate time, so safety is really not an issue. Using a glass became a "big girl" or "big boy" rite of passage. So my advice is to try to move away from the ocean of plastic that is enveloping our food and beverages and going along for the ride right into our bodies and systems, compromising our health.

I also always use a glass casserole dish in the microwave. I hate microwaving in the plastic containers for the same reason I mentioned above. Are you serious in believing that those plastic containers when put under the microwave, often containing acidic foods like tomato sauce, do not transfer some plastic molecules into you and your family's bodies? I recommend getting a made in the USA Corning or Hockware glass casserole dish and transferring your microwave food into it before cooking. For years I did all of my cooking in one of those covered glass casseroles.

Yeah, I buy pretty plastic beverage "glasses" (made in China) and know what I use them for? Decorative flowers or holding my paint brushes or colored pencils. Trust me, start to move away from plastic and use more glass. We knew what we were doing in the 1950's and early 1960's.

(By the way, I feel so strongly about this that I buy Coca Cola in the original bottles six pack and pay through the nose as a result. I allow myself one 8 ounce bottle a day. It's a healthy amount, tastes better in those glass bottles, and I'm not thinking about Coke dissolving micro amounts of aluminum cans or plastic bottles from the inside out while waiting to be drank. I wash the bottles and save them. They are great for ice tea and also pretty for modern art display ha ha).