Plastic is all around us. It forms much of the packaging for our food and drink. For many, it can be found in every room of our homes, from clothing, toys, computers, phones, appliances, and so forth. It is a useful, versatile, lightweight, durable invention. But there remain several harmful consequences to the unleashing of every form of plastic. Most plastics are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource extracted and processed using energy-intensive techniques. Plastic packaging – especially the ubiquitous plastic bag and plastic water bottle– is an enormous source of landfill waste.
But it really hits home when plastic can impact the health of our family. Chemicals leach from plastics used in cooking and food/drink storage are harmful for human health. Bisphenol A (BPA) is known to be a hormone (endocrine) disruptor, and exposure at a young age can cause genetic damage. This is found in strong plastics (#7) that make up baby bottles, water bottles, pacifiers, children’s plates, bowls, etc. Studies showing these harmful effects have been around for a few years now, and yet the FDA is only now finally saying there could be a problem. The health risks of plastic are significantly amplified in children, whose immune and organ systems are developing and are more vulnerable.
As one who wants to keep a proper balance in my pursuit of natural living, I did not throw out all my plastic products at the first hearing of this news. I want to be wise and not wasteful in the process or subject myself to fear. I had a set of plastic children’s tableware that has served us well, but when it started to chip, get extensively scratched (all within two years of use), and ready for a replacement, I determined it would be an appropriate time to replace with a more sustainable and safe alternative. It has been a slow weeding process. I have been on the lookout for some good solid stainless steel or wooden alternatives for quite some time now, but did not want to spend an insane amount. There are many BPA free plastic tableware sets on the market, but plastic still tends to break down rather quickly with such use. I am excited to announce my findings!
Silverware
NUK Gerber BPA Free Graduates Kiddy Cutlery Forks or Spoons or Kiddy Cutlery Spoons – For just $3.95, you can get this three pack set of spoons or forks. They are excellent quality, comfortable in hand, and the kiddos love them! They are supposedly “graduate” size for the child that is learning to feed themselves, but we use them for both our little ones (ages 1 & almost 3) without any problems. They also do not give you the option of color choices, but we purchased two sets and got yellow both time, so I was perfectly happy. They are perfect!
Munchkin All Natural Wood Infant Feeding Spoons – 4 Pack – BPA Free – this is another nice set of wooden spoons, although smaller in size. Perfect if you are spoon feeding a younger infant and desire a smaller surface. 4 for $15.
Bambu Kids Utensil Set – An organically grown bamboo kids utensil set. Each kid’s utensil set contains a solid bamboo fork and spoon designed specifically for small hands and small mouths.
Bowls/Plates
There are a few new stainless steel sets on the market lately. The Untangle set (pictured at top of post -5 piece set, $40) is certainly cute but rather small; more suitable, according to reviews, for young infants. The Think Baby set (6 piece set, $40) is another option if you like “think baby” plastered all over it.
I have recently stumbled upon Life Without Plastic, a company dedicated to providing plastic alternatives. I love these new sets of children’s stainless steel tableware that they offer for a reasonable price.
Children’s Stainless Steel 3 piece set – For $23.95, you get this classic 3 piece set, including a 7.5” diameter plate, 8 oz mug, and 14 oz bowl, all made from quality food grade steel. You can also buy each piece separately. Dishwasher safe.
Cereal Bowl Set – These bowls have stainless steel interiors with a exterior made of stable and
durable polypropylene plastic (#5). These are simply adorable! They also sell matching mugs. These are priced slightly cheaper than the plain stainless steel set, but also include a note that they are not dishwasher safe (not sure why?).
Munchkin Wood Bowl & Spoon Set – If you prefer wood, check out this wood bowl & spoon set for $16 made from all natural renewable wood.
Enamel Cup, Plate & Spoon Set – another good alternative is enameled tableware. Check out the cute sets offered through Nova Naturals. Enamel is an combination of steel and food safe paint that is a favorite especially among campers.
Life Without Plastic also sells a high quality wood tableware set, but priced at $50.
Bambu 4-1/2-Inch Mini Me Bowls – these adorable mini bowls are made out of sustainable organic bamboo in a variety of cute colors. Priced between $12-14 a piece. Bambu also offers a set of Bambu 7-Inch All Occasion Veneerware Plates in bamboo which can be used as a compostable disposable or reusable option.
Lunchboxes
For those with children in school or who send a husband with lunch to work, there are many stainless steel lunchboxes on the market now.
Oval Stainless Steel Lunch Box System – we purchased this stainless steel lunch box for my hubby. It is rather small but does the job for us. It is a snug fit for one sandwich. The companion container is good for a few veggies, dressing, or dip. We use this in a small insulated cooler that has room for fruit or other snacks.
To- Go Ware 2-Tier Stainless Lunch Box – another solid option.
We also use the Foogo Food thermos, which is excellent for transporting hot soups, or baby food on the go. Another cute waste free lunch set for kids is the Kids Konserve Lunch Set.
For help in finding safe alternatives for your family, check out Safe Mama and The Soft Landing.
Have you found any safe alternatives to recommend?
We grew up eating off of the salad size plates of my mom’s everyday dishes, and small “juice” size glasses were what we drank from. Honestly, there are more broken dishes now that we are grown up than when we were babies! I don’t remember anything being broken during the toddler age.
We eliminated our plasticware at the suggestion of our holistic doctor — after our son had brain surgery last year (he was 2 1/2 at the time). My kids love their tempered glass plates, cups, and bowls from http://www.zoeborganic.com and their “Safe Sippys” and “Klean Kanteens” (we use the sports cap instead of the sippy). The baby (19 months) has launched the glass bowls/plates/cups from his high chair and NO broken dishes so far!
I'm also using LunchBots for the kids' lunches on-the-go as well as stainless steel ice cube trays — both from http://www.thesoftlanding.com .
Products I don't recommend: 1.) glass baby bottles from WeeGo — the plastic ring is very fragile and broke after only a few short months 2.) “stainless steel mini containers” from http://www.greenfeet.com — the lid is near-impossible to remove!
Thanks for all your research! Love your website!
I would like to replace some plastic dishes I bought from Walmart – they’re starting to melt/scratch and I think it’s safe to say they’re leeching.
Do you think Corelle is a safe, cheap alternative? I’ve read it’s not melamine, but glass.
Exactly. And it’s so difficult to break, that it is safer for children to pick up themselves. I love that it is microwave and dishwasher safe, too, which is something that cannot be said of melamine. I have had the same set for ten years now, and it looks exactly the same as day one!
I am in total agreement with you, I am slowly weeding out our harmful plastics. I live in Australia, and actually posted about this subject recently myself, as I believe in sourcing BPA free products on a budget. I’m using more plastic items than steel or glass for now, because two of my kids are little, and it just suits us better at the moment. Sistema is a New Zealand brand that I can get easily in Australia at a very reasonable price. They do great plastic containers, kids’ lunch products and drink bottles.
Also, like you, I’m loathe to waste the plastic I have that do contain BPA. My solution is to use those containers for the storage of non-food items, such as laundry powder, and craft items. I imagine old plastic containers would also be fantastic in a workshed for nails, screws and the like, too.
Thank you for sharing these with us! I have often wondered if there was a reasonable alternative. Such cute ideas for keeping our kids healthy!
Thanks again!
Lindsey, I saw a lot of really great cups, however I was wondering if a standard sippy cup cover will fit over them? My little (ok, so she’s almost two and getting more and more not-so-little, every day)Sophia isn’t ready for non-sippy cup cups, and neither are my floors. I’d like to get rid of (recycle) a lot of her plastic cups, but I need to keep the lids, thus my question.
Thank you for your time.
Are you asking if the pics of products in the post could be used with a plastic sippy cover? I honestly have no idea. We don’t use sippys at the table at our house as we haven’t felt the need, but you could try a Kleen Kanteen that comes with a sippy spout.
I wonder what you think of bamboo? I keep seeing bamboo bowls and plates in the grocery store. They look really durable. And they are pretty. But does anybody know how it rates for safety issues? (Does it leach anything?)
Bamboo is another wonderful option, it is just usually more expensive than stainless steel. It is completely natural and sustainable. I updated the post to include a few recommendations for children’s bamboo sets. The only caution is with the glazes because these can often have chemicals, so that is why you want to do some research and not just buy any bamboo set. The above recommendations from Bambu are organic with food safe oil.
Along the same lines, what about making your own baby food, frugally? I thought about just using ice cube trays, but since those are not specifically considered “baby gear”, they’re not required to be BPA-free. Is it better to make them in designated baby food trays? And then, how do you store them after that (because I’d like to make several trays worth at a time, but use the same trays to make each batch, rather than buy a bunch of them)?
I have discussed this more extensively here. Stainless steel ice cube trays (BPA free) have been recently released on the market and would be an excellent option for making baby food.
I swear by Corelle. It is affordable, attractive, and very hard to break. And, always a nice bonus, microwave and dishwasher safe!
These sets are all so beautiful! If I had known about them before, I probably would have bought some.
I purchased a few BPA free items for our 2 1/2 year old son, but never really used them because… they’re still plastic! Now he just uses our regular dinnerware. He’s never unattended during meals, so it’s safe. I also like the idea of teaching young children to handle real dishes properly. He’s been drinking from a real glass (made of glass) for a year now.
We never used a pacifier because we did not want to ever try to break that habit. He sucked his thumb when falling asleep for about a year and a half (with a nice callous on his thumb to prove it). He’s done with that now.
I guess my motto is, make due with what you have. Kids don’t really need many “special” items. Our son loves to do what we do, and imitate us. It’s so precious! What better way to include him than allowing him use the same dishes and silverware that we use?
Lindsay,
In 2 weeks the carnival at KS is covering “alternatives to plastic storage containers” – Beth of Fake Plastic Fish is hosting, and I know she’ll have some incredible ideas in this area. I also get to give away some goodies from Life Without Plastic – would love it you would link up this post. It’s perfect, and VERY helpful as a resource!
The sippy cups are always tricky, too – we love our Klean Kanteen in the smallest size with an adapter that fits an Avent sippy spout!
Katie
I love these tempered glass dishes by kidishes… http://mightynest.com/shop/brands/kidishes
We had a few infant/toddler size sets of stainless steel silverware given to us when our children were babies. Once they got to age 2-3 they started using our regular stainless steel silverware (from Target) – the teaspoons and the smaller size forks. We’re still using some hand-me-down plates, maybe melanine? I’ve gotten wooden salad bowls from Goodwill, and also small stainless steel bowls from a local discount store. We have Klean Kanteen water bottles and one sippy cup and then they use plastic cups (recycling numbers 1,2,4 or 5 only) that I’ve found at Goodwill, Target etc. Would like to go to regular breakable dishes soon, but the plates and cups are holding up well and my kids are squirmy and have a lot of drops and spills when they’re eating.
They also sell the Gerber forks and spoons at Target for less than $3.95, I think. Plus there are usually coupons (if you register with Gerber) to pair with it to make it even less. I have two sets that I got for a little over $1.00.
Great post! We’ve been doing this search recently too, and decided to go with mostly stainless, and some glass. I looked at the wood munchkin sets but decided against them because they are finished with mineral oil (another petroleum by-product)and the wood items I found that were finished with beeswax, etc were too spendy. We ended up finding a set of stainless utensils in the play section at ikea (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60130169) and we’ve been picking these up on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/lot-3-cafeteria-tray-metal-stainless-steel-mess-hall_W0QQitemZ330412201128QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item4cee1a14a8 because I like to buy second hand when I can, but I was inspired by this blog to have sections: http://www.greenandcrunchy.org/ We also picked up a couple small stainless bowls at ikea (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30081467) and we’ve picked up a bunch of pyrex ramekins at goodwill… the combination is working great for us! And I love that it can all go in the dishwasher! (we plan to get a KK sippy, right now she just has two of the born free bottles with sippy spouts/handles)
Wanted to add- for those interested in enamel dishes, there are cheap ones here:
https://secure.armysurplusforless.com/products.php?sub_id=84
We give our girls the plates, bowls and glasses that we use. I have to say that we’ve never had one break from falling off the table and we have a 4, 2 and 1 year old. The older two also just use our regular cutlery too… we think it averts another cost and teaches them to be careful. We do have some gerber forks and spoons too…thanks for the post!
We use LunchBots for all four kids lunches and they work very well, especially when you pack bento style. At home all our kids 3-11 use our family set of Fiesta dishes that have been a yearly gift from my mother-in-law. They use regular spoons and salad forks work well, we start them using regular silverware when they start feeding themselves. Fiesta is very heavy and we have had more than one survive being dropped. Yes, we have lost a dish and a bowl or two, but I agree, nothing is a faster learned lesson than having something like that break because they are goofing around while setting the table.
I have thought about switching to something like this too, but do not want to spend the money. Our children just eat from our regular ceramic tableware. In fact my daughter uses an adorable ceramic “Bunnykins” set that someone gave to her. We haven’t had any breaks yet!!!
Those are some beautiful options that I’ll have to keep in mind for gift giving.
In our own home, we have and enjoy Oneida child sized flatware. There are several different cute patterns. http://www.oneida.com/flatware_child-and-baby/
We started our kids off with our regular dishes and they’ve done fine. We’ve only lost one plate to breakage in almost three years of solid foods with two kiddos. I also started them on regular glasses for drinking at the table pretty early on. I found some nice smaller sized ones at Ikea.
I appreciate hearing about your balanced approach to replacing plastics! I get overwhelmed with having to overhaul my whole kitchen and I just don’t have the money to replace everything. I like that you are okay with continuing to use some products until they wear out – I have less mommy-guilt now
Someone else commented on using kid-sized adult utensils. This is what I grew up doing also. When I needed to buy something for my firstborn I looked everywhere for these and could not find them! I ended up finding stainless steel utensils with plastic handles at the dollar spot at Target. This was before the BPA scare, but I love them so much for their price and utility. I am not sure if they have BPA in them, but I figure that part doesn’t go in their mouths, so we will keep using them for now.
Thanks for the resources in this post!
I wondered if you had a “runner-up” in the cutlery section…my little girl is learning to use a spoon and fork right now. But I don’t like to buy Gerber because they are Nestle owned now. So we currently have 2 spoons and 1 fork passed down to me from my grandmother. It would be nice to not have to wash them EVERY meal. Thanks for the reviews!
Trembimi has a few stainless steel sets but they are more expensive, or another Bamboo option is the Bambu Kids utensil set.
Oh, you can get durable childsize silverware at http://www.montessoriservices.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4423_113_222_1737 They’re a little pricey (in my opinion at $10.95 for one fork, one spoon, and one knife. But they’re entiredly stainless steel, so you don’t have to worry about the plastic handle breaking or something.
I have my eye on the wooden and metal sets available at Nova Naturals http://www.novanatural.com/baby/kitchenware Once my daughters plastic plates get more unservicable, I’ll be getting her the flowered enamel set. Cup, bowl and plate for $25. It’s compareable to the LWP Children’s Stainless Steel 3 piece set you have mentioned I think.
Awesome – thanks for the post. On a more ‘vain’ note, I love the look of the metal and wood much more than the plastic too. Bonus!
We have one of the LWP cereal bowls and have been using it with my now 2yo for about a year. I didn’t see the note that it was not dishwasher safe, so it has gone in the dishwasher probably a couple hundred times with no problems. I am wondering if it is either that the design will wear off (which ours is) or if it is because they don’t guarantee with dishwashing that water won’t get in between the layer of plastic and steel. Our bowl has certainly been completely fine, so I’m kind of glad I didn’t know.
Hello! Thanks for the great tips! I’m expecting our first baby in 6 weeks, and we just had our baby shower. Quick question – I received some BPA-free pacifiers. Have you found anything about those in your research? And do you use anything different for bottles (glass, etc?) Thank you for the great work on your blog; I find it so helpful
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BPA free pacifiers are a great alternative. My kids refused pacifiers but they are nice to have. We use glass baby bottles from Evenflo. You can find them very reasonably through amazon.
Thank you, Lindsay! This has really been on my list of things to get more info on for a while. This really helps!! Thank you for taking the time to put the info together!
I have a question. Have you came across any info on freezing uncooked meats in plastic. Just curious. Our farm raises pastured meats and can only find butchers in our area that wrap our meat in plastic wrap before vacuum sealing it- its raw when wrapped and frozen. This process is amazing for keeping our meats longer, but we’ve had a few concerns from customers who want us to wrap in paper instead. They don’t keep near as long so our farm ends up losing a lot of money. Just curious if you’ve personally had hesitations buying good meats wrapped and frozen in plastic or have read any info about this. Thanks for the help!!!
I do not have much knowledge in this area. I have purchased most of my meat from local farms that package in freezer paper.
It is my understanding from research (and from my sister, who is a chemist) that plastics don’t transfer chemicals below 40 degrees. I use glass and stainless steel for my children and for cooking, but I do use some plastic in the freezer.
Oh I LOVE that 3 piece dish set! I have never seen anything like these before. We use regular silver ware and stainless steel drinking containers; but I have never seen these before.
Don’t forget about enamelware. It can be very attractive, and no BPA. http://www.goldenrabbit.com/babyware.aspx
I love the gerber silverware you pictured. I bought two place settings (fork, spoon, knife combo) two years ago and they still look new after constant use. I will need to order more spoons & forks soon, as right now I either have to wash them multiple times a day or give in to the urge to use the plastic ones I still have hiding in the back of the drawer.
Stainless steel has nickle and something else that is not healthy also – I’m sure you could google it. If you already carry a high metal toxic load its not good for you either. I swear sometimes I feel like I just cant win!! It’s not like we can use glass for babies on all things!!!!
As a Montessori teacher, I also believe it is really wonderful to expose young children to real, beautiful, and breakable tableware. Yes, some of it will break, but the feedback this gives children is hard to replicate. Teach them to carry breakable dishes and cups properly and you set them up for success. Buy beautiful dishes at thrift stores so you don’t cry when your grandmother’s china is in pieces on the floor.
We did buy each of our kids a kleen kanteen. I love how they have the sippy cup option. As for plates, I just went to Goodwill and bought a set of glass plates (10?) for $6. They use our silverware and cups to drink out of. We have only had one casualty, and it was when I forgot to take the glass plate away from my 1 yr old once the food was gone and we were just chatting at the table. He threw it, and it broke. But we have been using them for months, so only 1 broken is not bad! I have a 5, 4, 3, and 1 yr old, and after teaching them how to treat the plates, we have been fine! I love the look of those bowls though, very cute!
Euphoria Baby has some great tempered glass dishware – you can buy each element (plates, bowls, etc) in a set of 4, and it’s not a bad price. http://www.euphoriababy.com/store/pc/Tableware-c6.htm they also carry the Santus Mundo Stainless steel sets you mention above and organic bamboo bowls!
Great idea–so many kids things are made of weird, suspicious plastic!
We’ve always just used ‘regular’ cutlery and tableware for our daughter. The only difference with ours was that it was smaller.. I really don’t see why kids can’t just use small stainless steel forks and blunt knives.. To make this story even more environmental-friendly…. the cutlery was mine when I was an infant. Now, that’s durable
Those are great especially when they’re learning to feed themselves.. I never understood those bulky, plastic (melamine) eating sets.. I mean, it’s hard for US to pick something up with one of those forks, and we have very well trained hands.. how do we expect a little one to work with it?
I agree with the wooden babyspoons though.. when they’re soooooo little, maybe steel can cause some harm..
Greetings from the Netherlands!