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Category Archives: Kitchenware

June 10, 2011

Airtight Glass Food Storage Containers from Life Without Plastic

Life Without Plastic sent me a few of their new airtight glass containers with stainless lids to review a few months ago, and the containers have been sitting in the pile beside my desk along with other cool plastic-free products that companies have sent me to test. So today, I finally unpacked them from their plastic-free mailing box (Jay doesn’t use plastic packaging materials or plastic tape) and gave them a try. My verdict: they are very, very cool.

(Disclosure: If you purchase products via links in this post, My Plastic-Free Life earns a small percentage to support my plastic-free mission.)

Now, before I get into my review, I have to say that you don’t have to buy new glass containers to store food without plastic. Repurposed jars from foods like spaghetti sauce or pickles or peanut butter work well. And you can sometimes find secondhand glass containers at thrift stores, yard sales, etc. We do all of that. Our refrigerator is gl… Read the rest

June 7, 2010

Switch to Stainless Steel Popsicle Molds Instead of Plastic

Every summer, moms write to me and ask how I would make popsicles without plastic. Until now, silicone popsicle molds were the only alternative to plastic. But is silicone safe? It is a synthetic polymer made from silicon (sand) which is commonly recognized to be inert. But my concern is not the polymer itself, but (as with plastics) the additives and fillers in the silicone and the question of whether or not they can leach out. What colorants are used to create those bright colors and what chemicals are they made from? I’m not saying that silicone popsicle molds are not safe. I’m saying that I don’t know and would rather err on the side of caution.

Stainless Steel Popsicle Option

… Read the rest

April 6, 2010

No More Toxic Plastic Food Containers, Please!

Plastic food containers: not so great. Even toxic. And yet, how many of us have a ton of them stashed away in our kitchens? I still do, actually, high above the ceramic bowls and plates. A reminder of the way I used to live.

What’s Wrong with Using Plastic Containers?

When I first started eliminating plastic from my life, I didn’t worry about the plastic I already had in my kitchen. I continued to use plastic food containers for eating and storage because I didn’t want to waste what I already had. But after learning so much about the chemicals that can leach from plastics, I eventually decided that eating from any kind of plastic was not worth the health risks.

Why? Because in addition to the chemicals we do know about and try to avoid: BPA, phthalates, antimony, and recently antibacterials, there are a whole host of additives in plastics we don’t know about at all. Plastics manufacturers are not required to disclose any of t… Read the rest

October 9, 2009

Would You Use A Stainless Steel Ice Cube Tray?

I can’t tell you the number of times since I started Fake Plastic Fish that people have asked me what I do for ice. The answer has always been that I just keep using the same plastic ice trays that I owned before I started Fake Plastic Fish. I know, I know. I don’t like to put food in plastic because of possible chemicals leaching. But it’s my understanding that chemicals leach more from plastic when it is heated and that plastic interacts more with fats in foods. So I figured freezing water in plastic was safe.

Is it? I honestly don’t know. And since so many people have asked about a plastic-free option for ice, I decided to try out the stainless steel ice cube tray sold by NoPlastic.Ca. (2018 Update: NoPlastic.CA seems to be out of business, but check out this stainless steel ice cube tray from Life Without Plastic.) I asked the owner Ramin to send me a tray to review, and here it is:

We had a metal ice tray like this when I was growing u… Read the rest

August 28, 2009

Music Festival Dilemma – Drinking Wine Without Plastic

Remember last year when I blogged about my difficulties filling up my Klean Kanteen at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival? If you haven’t read the post, be sure and check it out. It’s pretty outrageous.

Well, this year, Outside Lands is supposedly making a big change. They’ve announced they will provide water refill stations and encourage festival participants to bring their own bottles. I’ll let you know how this works out because I’m going to the festival this Saturday. By myself. Why? Because no one else I know is up for spending 100 frickin’ dollars to join me for Jason Mraz, Black Eyed Peas, TV on the Radio, and a whole host of other bands plus food and art and wine. I know it’s not Radiohead this year, but still fun, right? (Oh, and some guy named Dave Matthews who is the headliner. Meh. [Although I could be convinced otherwise.])

Anyway, the water situation seems to be covered, but … Read the rest

March 26, 2009

The Sweet Smell of Burning Plastic: Mindfulness Fail

I thought the smell was coming from my computer. I even turned the machine off and opened it up to make sure the fans were working properly. Then I remembered… Oh crap! I’d put water for pasta on the stove probably an hour before! Here’s what happened when I attempted to remove the lid:

The whole house smells toxic. My poor kitties. This is why I shouldn’t multi-task when one of the tasks involves fire. It’s not like this was the first time I’d ever put something on the stove and forgotten about it.

Sad. The melted knob will go into this week’s plastic collection… once it cools down and solidifies again. The metal lid? I’ll have to find a metal recycler to take it to. Either that, or maybe handy RobJ can figure out how to make a new knob for it. Preferably out of wood this time.

It’s a small amount of waste, certainly, but nevertheless avoidable if I had paid attention to what I was doing. Which i… Read the rest

February 19, 2009

Guilt, Gratitude, and Glass

Anchor glass refrigerator containers with glass lids

A couple of weeks ago, I bought ten brand new Anchor glass refrigerator containers, similar to the vintage variety mom had. I found them at my local Container Store for the lowest price, and if there had been more of them in stock, I might not have stopped at just ten.

(I believe the Container Store has stopped carrying them, but you can still find them on Amazon or eBay. A purchase via these links earns me a small percentage to support my plastic-free mission.)

The containers and lids are made of glass, packaged in cardboard, with zero plastic. Nada. And they are sturdy, able to survive freezer, oven, microwave, & dishwasher without complaint. Each holds exactly one day’s worth of homemade cat food for Soots and Arya, unlike the repurposed plastic containers I had been using which were all different sizes and shapes and generally a pain in the neck to fill and to stack.

So why the guilt?

Because I don’t buy new things unless they ar… Read the rest

February 4, 2009

What a crock!

As you know, I’m trying not to buy new plastic. But so many people have recommended crockpot cooking as a timesaving way to prepare healthy meals, that I finally decided to take the plunge. Still, I didn’t buy new plastic. I found a used crockpot for $10 on Craigslist! The seller lived within walking distance, so I picked it up this morning on my way to work.

Do you use a crockpot? Do you enjoy it? What are your favorite recipes? I’m looking for recipes using plastic-free ingredients (whole veggies, grains from the bulk bins, meat from the butcher that I buy using my own container, etc.) that I can throw into the pot and forget about for a few hours.

Do you use your crockpot for anything unusual? Let me know. I really want this thing to get some use and not just sit on the counter and look pretty.… Read the rest

December 30, 2008

Video Tour of My (Nearly) Plastic-Free Kitchen

scene from video of Beth's plastic-free kitchen

Here are some snippets from the market research video I referred to in yesterday’s post. A quick, rough, and unscripted tour through some of the green aspects of our kitchen. Future videos, should we choose to make them, will be much more polished. But this one is fun, if only for the appearance of a couple of curious cats halfway through.

You might need to turn your sound volume up to hear it.

… Read the rest

July 16, 2008

My happy penguin soda maker!

Back in October, I wrote about the Penguin soda maker from SodaStream. It seemed like a great way to have soda without all the plastic bottle waste. I won’t go into the full details again. Please read my original Penguin post here. At the time, there were two drawbacks to the machine: the price (over $200) and the disposable plastic flavor sample packs that came with it. So I put it out of my mind until a few weeks ago, when temperatures in Oakland hit the 90’s and all of us without air conditioning were melting. “Wow,” I thought. “I sure could use a cold one.” In fact, I went out and bought a bottle (glass) of Italian soda at Whole Foods, something I rarely do because I just don’t want to contribute to the environmental impacts of shipping water.

So I was thrilled and surprised a few days later to receive an email from Kristin Harp of SodaStream offering to send me one. She had read my blog post about the Penguin an… Read the rest