Z Recommends: February 2008

Friday, February 29, 2008

A BPA-Free Week

As our long-term readers know and our recently new readers should know, ZRecs is not all-BPA, all the time. We pinky swear! It's been a hot topic around here because we've just published our updated Z Report and just launched a free text-messaging service for consumers. We will continue to keep up with company news and reviews of BPA-free products, as well as adding somewhere in the neighborhood of ten additional companies to our database in the next week or so.

But we also review a lot of stuff that will help enrich your life with your child - great toys and games, kids' music and DVDs, DIY and craft projects, and more. In fact, that's what we do the most. So next week you'll see the return of a lot more of that "fun" stuff. We'll also have another major product "Showdown" running the week after that, and we're batting around ideas for other investigative pieces, some on BPA, some on other safety and chemical issues, and some that involve investigative journalism on completely non-safety-related topics.

In the meantime, we'll be watching text requests that come in through our new service to see what people are requesting and not getting, and all of our readers are welcome to follow discussions in our "Recent Comments" thread on the lefthand, which our reversion to Blogger comments has enabled. It's a handy way for those with knowledge to jump in and share it with those asking questions about specific brands or about BPA in general.

Stay tuned and have a great weekend.

Use the Z Report. At the Store. With Text Messaging.

Have you read and reread the Z Report on BPA, but have trouble remembering which brands are which when you get to the store?

Have you been meaning to replace some bottles or a sippy cup, but have a hard time deciding when you're staring at all those products on the shelf?

Now you can keep the Z Report at your fingertips, with information that doesn't go out-of-date, updated with new products at the same time they arrive on store shelves. Thanks to a partnership between ZRecs and Mobile Commons, our comprehensive directory of BPA in children's feeding products is now available via text message.

How It Works
Text "zrecs" plus a company name and/or a product category to 69866. You'll get a text back (or occasionally two) providing the BPA status of products by that company and/or in that category. Current categories are bottles, sippys, pacifiers, and tableware.

Requirements: Every request sent to this service requires the first word to be "zrecs" to access our BPA database, and must be sent to the number 69866.

Charges/Access fees: This service is currently offered free of any charge except whatever it costs you to send and receive text messages (based on your cell phone plan). This free service is made possible by a partnership between Z Recommends and Mobile Commons, a company that designs and serves mobile applications. We'll invite you to contribute to this project at the foot of this post.

Here are some specific ways you can access our BPA info through this service.

Check all of one company's products: Text "zrecs" and then the company name. Example: "zrecs boon" returns, at the time of this writing:

Reported BPA-Free: Fluid, Benders, Modware, Catch Bowl, Groovy, Snack Ball. W/BPA: Squirt. More at zrecs.com | StdOthrChrgsMayApply. Powered by mCommons

Product category status and recommendations: For this text service products are covered in the following categories:

bottles
sippys
pacifiers
tableware

You can check on a company's products in a particular category by texting "zrecs" + company name + category (no plusses!). Example: "zrecs avent pacifiers" returns, at the time of this writing:

All current Avent pacifiers have BPA. Alternatives: txt pacifier. More at zrecs.com | StdOthrChrgsMayApply. Powered by mCommons

Whenever we find a company's BPA-free offerings in a product area lacking, we'll point you to the alternative: requesting info for the product category overall. In the above case, we wanted to remind you that you can text "zrecs pacifiers," which will return:

BPA-Free pacifiers: all First Years+Playtex, some Evenflo (txt company name + pacifier for specs). More at zrecs.com | StdOthrChrgsMayApply. Powered by mCommons

As we add new companies to the Z Report, you'll see more companies' products popping up in some of these categories. We have very few listings that run into two messages, and if we run out of space we are more likely to drop companies which are unlikely to be seen in brick-and-mortar stores; when you're shopping online, just check the Z Report.

Get general recommendations or info: There are a few other texts you can send.

zrecs BPAFree: Basic instructions for checking on companies, plus a list of recommended BPA-Free companies from the Z Report.
zrecs info: Reminds you that we canvassed companies, rather than lab-testing, to get the information in our report.
zrecs disclaimer: We do our best, all the time.

The BPA Wallet Card
We have created a double-sided wallet card you can take with you that has basic BPA-free recommendations and instructions for querying the Z Report using text messages. Learn more and get it here.

Why?
Our goal in confronting the issue of BPA in children's products has always been to arm parents with information to use in their own decision-making. That's why we created the Z Report, and why we work so hard to keep it updated.

By providing BPA product information via text message, you now have our Z Report at your fingertips. See a nice new sippy cup on the grocery store shelf you'd like to try, but don't know if it's BPA-free? Text ZRecs. Want to replace those baby bottles on the shopping trip you're already on, but can't remember which brands we recommend? Text ZRecs.

How You Can Help
Neither ZRecs nor Mobile Commons receives any money from your cellular phone company to provide this service. Mobile Commons is generously subsidizing the service, and we're paying the rest out-of-pocket, which we are thankful to be able to do in the short term thanks to the advertising that runs on our blog and the purchases readers make through our Amazon.com search box or links. We won't be too specific, but these fees are bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a refrigerator box, and unsustainable for us to pay over the long term. Along with generous support from Mobile Commons, ZRecs is footing the bill now and offering this service for free in order to see what the uptake is, how consumers use it, and whether others are willing to help sustain it.

That's where you come in.

If you appreciate what we are doing with this service and with the Z Report in general to help bring accurate, timely BPA information to consumers when and where they need it; if you appreciate the pressure we are putting on companies to listen to parents' concerns about BPA and change the way they do business; if want to see this text-based service continue, we encourage you to donate now to a fund we have established for this purpose.

Money donated to this fund is not tax-deductible (we are not a charity) but will be used specifically to pay the ongoing costs of this text-messaging project, unless you specify in comments in the donation form that you would like it to be used for other, future ZRecs services or features.

Give the service a try and see what you think - just text "zrecs" and a company name and/or product category to 69866 and see what you get back from ZRecs and Mobile Commons.

Since this post is intended as a tutorial, please share your comments or questions here.

Comments or Questions About Our BPA-TXT Service

Have comments about our BPA text-message service? We'd love to hear what you think of the service or how it has helped you. Have a suggestion? You have the floor. Have a question about how to use the service? Please read our how-to post; if it doesn't answer your question, feel free to ask it here.

Donate to the project.

ZRecs Verifies BPA Status of Tupperware Kids' Tableware, Cups, and Other Feeding Items

Note: The contents of this post have been superseded by additional information received from Tupperware, which you can read here. This post is preserved here for historical purposes.

Whenever we publish the Z Report on BPA, we get questions from readers about whether a few of our more surprising findings are accurate.

Readers and company officials always send in a few corrections; given the breadth of information the report covers, we consider this a feature, not a bug, an invaluable part of our process. We try to follow up on reader questions and make any needed changes as quickly as possible, and thankfully, there are never more than a few. Since we're treating our new directory listings as permanent locations for the most up-to-date information about these companies, we have also started logging major edits in the post comments, so there is a record as we move forward.

This time there was a lot of concern about our statements about Tupperware. There are several sources online that state that Tupperware is BPA-free, and readers were quick to point to some of these. The origin of much of the existing reporting seems to be a 2001 report by CHECNET (Creating Healthy Environments for Children), better known now as Healthy Child, Healthy World. CHECNET is a stellar organization with a great pedigree, so it was the report's date, not its source, that raised a red flag for us. A lot can change in seven years.

You can download the PDF report here, but it doesn't make a very good product guide anymore. Half the products on it have been discontinued, half the ones that exist now aren't on it, and some companies were either inaccurately cited at the time or have changed the plastics used in their products. Tupperware is an example of this.

So how do we know?

All of the information for the Z Report is collected directly from company websites or company employees (usually customer service representatives). In other words, while we love tips from readers, we don't publish them as fact without checking them out ourselves. We don't collect information from message boards or other blogs, attempt to guess at products' plastic types by looking at them, or even rely on published reports by other major organizations. We want to be able to personally answer for every finding we publish.

But we have and do make mistakes, and in the case of Tupperware, our statements about the beloved company were spurring some pretty alarmed responses among our readers, many of whom had discarded other plastic food storage or tableware items in favor of Tupperware precisely because of the BPA issue. So we hurried to make follow-up calls to check our notes from our initial calls to their 800 number.

We received our first comment questioning our reporting on Tupperware on Thursday, Feb. 21, the day the new edition of the Z Report was published. Between Friday, Feb. 22 and Wednesday, Feb. 27, we called Tupperware three different times and asked the same question:

Are any items from this list of Tupperware's kids' products made with polycarbonate plastic?

Three times, we were told that they do. That they all do. Throughout this period, we continued to get emails and blog comments from concerned parents who relied on Tupperware to provide products they believed to be safe. Most of them were convinced that the company did not use polycarbonate plastic. The Tupperware website, which provides no information about plastics used in their products and lacks a single reference to Bisphenol-A (see search results above) essentially allowed consumers to make assumptions based on outdated information or on the company's reputation.

On two of these calls, after collecting the corroborating statements, I explained what we were going to do with this information and that our initial findings were already online. In the first of these cases the customer service rep began a process that Tupperware CSRs call a "trouble ticket," by which they mean that our PR-related inquiry was treated as a form of customer complaint. I was told that my request for additional information would be "forwarded to the appropriate department," and on Feb. 22 and then again earlier this week I was assured that someone from this department would get back to me with an "answer" within 24 hours.

Today (Thursday) I called the customer service line and informed the representative that I needed to speak to a supervisor. When I got one on the line, I explained that we had published a report based on information given to us by customer service representatives, which had now been confirmed on multiple occasions by other customer service reps without prompting, and that we were now confident in the facts of the case and would no longer await a response from Tupperware management. The woman assured me that the "trouble ticket" was active and that she would expedite the request to get them to respond today. I told her she had three hours. We gave her a day. No response.

Tupperware Canada recently published a statement on their website asserting the safety of their products and confessing to the use of polycarbonate plastics. "Certain Tupperware products are made from polycarbonate, including serving products and Rock-N-Serve storage and cooking containers," they write. "However, polycarbonate is NOT used in Tupperware baby bottles or toys." Note the absence of a mention of kids' tableware and cups.

Based on information routinely provided to us by Tupperware customer service representatives, we are confident beyond any reasonable doubt that the majority, if not all, of Tupperware's line of kids' servingware contains Bisphenol-A.

As always, we do not wish to tell parents what they should be prepared to do with such information. Our goal is to provide facts that empower parents to use their own judgment in providing for the health and safety of their families. If you would like to attempt to corroborate our findings for yourself or tell Tupperware how you feel about their plastics policy, call them at 1-800-366-3800.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Twenty-Four

We will be posting two major stories on BPA in the next 24 hours. One is a new initiative led by ZRecs in partnership with a cutting-edge technology provider. The other is a major addition to our reporting on BPA. We wish we could tell on ourselves right now, but that would just suck. Stay tuned.

Photo shared via Flickr by Jesse Gardner

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Britax Car Seats On Sale For 20-25% Off

For info on the spring 2009 Britax sale, click here.

Britax exerts strict control over online prices and only allows sales on their car seats a couple of times a year. This week is one of those times! Britax car seats are currently on sale at significant discounts on Amazon.com with free shipping to boot. They are advertising the sale as "up to 20% off" but we have seen a few model/style combos that are selling for 25-26% off.

We had the Britax Roundabout for Z when she was little and we loved it. You can read our review of it here.

Several months ago we replaced Z's Roundabout with a Britax Regent. This car seat safely harnesses children 20-80 pounds and 19-53" tall, so it should last her until she is both mature enough and old enough to sit properly using a standard seat belt with no booster.

The Regent has the one of the highest harness straps of all five-point harnesses on the market, which means that our $270 car seat investment (currently on sale at Amazon.com for just over $200) will last Z from now (at age 3) until she's 8 or 9 years old. Z thinks her Regent car seat is quiet cozy and we like that it provides her with the five-point harness safety, installs easily in the car and that we'll get our money's worth for the seat since she'll be able to use it for the next 6 years. The only disadvantage to the Regent is its size (it's quite large) which makes it difficult to travel with. We purchased a Sunshine Kids Radian 80 for our second car because it folds for easy use while traveling.

Amazon's significantly discounted prices for Britax car seats put their $270-$300 car seats down into the $175-$215 range. If you're looking for a good car seat that is easy to install and has an excellent safety rating, Amazon's sale on Britax car seats ends on Sunday, March 2.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Non-Random Links: The Learning Tower On ZRecs

Several readers have written in or commented with questions about the Learning Tower, which guest reviewer Sylvia Fallon mentioned in today's post about Boon feeding ware. We have discussed the Learning Tower many times, and highly recommend it; it made our 2007 Gift Guide, and in addition to a review we wrote for the great blog Eco Child's Play, readers might be interested in:

ZRecs' Twenty Tips For Engaging Young Children In the Kitchen (the Learning Tower is one of the few tips that is product-based)
How we use our Learning Tower to kill time
Our entry into a debate on Parenthacks about whether such a thing is useful or is just "excessive safety" thinking
How the Learning Tower helps us share kitchen responsibilities in an "apprentice" format
The time we gave one away on Z Recommends

Guidecraft has a related item called the Kitchen Helper. We haven't had a chance to test one, although we have inquired. It's a little cheaper and folds up, which might be beneficial as the Learning Tower does have a decent footprint. But the LT is very sturdy and we really love it. Z has been using it ever since she could stand up.

Greatest Hits and Near-Misses In Boon's Feeding Line

By guest reviewer Sylvia Fallon

Eating with our son is a bit of an adventure. At 14 months he is still in the Isaac Newton phase of testing out the laws of gravity with anything, but mostly food. So when our review shipment of infant/toddler feeding products arrived from Boon just before L’s first birthday we looked at each other and thought, "This is never going to work."

We tested the Catch Bowl, Benders (a spoon and spork), Snack Ball, and the Groovy interlocking plate and bowl set. All of the Boon-ware discussed here is dishwasher safe and made with plastics which do not contain Bisphenol-A; the sole exception in the company's feeding line is the Squirt, a clever spoon feeding device that unfortunately is made of polycarbonate plastic, and which we did not ask to review.

Overall, the Boon set certainly hasn't civilized him - our floor still looks like a Jackson Pollock painting after every meal. But we have come to appreciate some of the innovations in Boon's inventive feeding line, and a couple of its elements have become mainstays in our home. Find out which products wowed us below.

Benders
Boon's Benders utensils are ergonomically designed to bend at an angle that facilitates eating for little ones. As your child gets older and refines his motor skills, you can straighten the benders. The handles have a soft, easy grip and are indeed attractive and well designed for little hands.

L does pretty well trying to eat with the Benders, but then he will occasionally switch hands, which means the Bender is suddenly bent in the wrong direction. The utensils are easy to bend, unbend or bend the other way, but it takes an adult to understand and perform the action, and young children learning to use utensils may frequently behave ambidextrously when attempting to eat. This limits the Benders' utility somewhat for the very audience they are designed to assist. Boon advertises that these utensils are appropriate for 9+ months; if there are 9 month olds who are spoon feeding themselves then maybe I should be worried.

Rating: Fair. The key limitation to this idea, young children's limited sense of handedness, probably should have killed this product idea and limits its real utility for the youngest utensil-users and for parents, who will still need to hover and assist heavily as their child eats. [Buy on Amazon.com | buy direct]

Catch Bowl
The Catch Bowl, as the name suggests, is designed to catch spillage as food makes it perilous journey from the bowl to your toddler's mouth. It also has a wide suction cup around the bottom of the bowl for stabilizing and securing the bowl to a feeding tray, table or counter.

Despite its suction-cup bottom, the Catch Bowl and its contents usually end up on the floor at our house. The fact that the bowl sticks slightly to his tray may have made it more of an intriguing challenge, but one which L nonetheless overcame with a flourish.

Rating: Good. This will probably work well for children at just the right stage. If you like specialized tableware that's stylish to boot, the Catch Bowl may be right for your little learner. [Buy on Amazon.com | buy direct]

Groovy
Luck with our son self-feeding improved when we listened to his protests to being confined in a high chair and we let him become a grazer on-the-go. This transition was accompanied by two other brilliant moves:

purchasing a Learning Tower, one of the best inventions ever, and
using Boon's Groovy interlocking plate and bowl set.

We are not familiar with the angelic child modeling this on the Boon website and L tends to get upset when we actually try to interlock the pieces - (he’s a take-er apart-er, not a putt-er together-er), but we all love using the orange side-bowls for his small serving, on-the-go snacks. We will often put a small amount of fruit, raisins, cheese, etc. in the small bowls and set them on the platform of his learning tower where he can access them. As he circles the room he stops by and scoops up no more than a handful of anything at a time which he eats while he cruises off somewhere else.

If he gets distracted by the gravity testing, it's much less to clean up than a whole bowl, plate or tray full or food. We take the little bowls with us to friends' houses too - when we put food in them and set it somewhere he can reach, he knows it’s for him.

For more substantial meals, we set him in his Learning Tower (reviewed in a guest post on Eco Child's Play by ZRecs) and feed him from the plate which has two separated compartments and a grip strip around the bottom so it doesn't slide around. In a miracle of miracles he has not yet picked the plate up and thrown it which is likely a testament to the new found freedom and independence he gets from the learning tower versus his highchair.

Rating: Excellent. The modular nature of this set makes it fun and functional, and we're confident it will continue to function well for us as L grows and his needs change. The Groovy has achieved its ends and has become a much-used item in our household. [Buy on Amazon.com | buy direct]

Snack Ball

The Snack Ball seemed like a strange design to me at first, but it's actually very convenient. It's big enough to carry a substantial amount of food (maybe 3" in diameter), easy to throw in a bag and fun for kids to play with or try to figure out how it opens and closes.

The device has two ways of opening. It screws apart into halves for easy adult access to snacks and for easy cleaning. The orange top moves on a single hinge to allow a small opening for accessing snacks thereby reducing spill opportunities, snapping back into place when little hands have departed from the chamber. The whole thing is very sturdy. Ours has been tossed, dropped, rolled and has never opened or spilled. At this point, it is still too challenging for L to open by himself, but I imagine older kids would have no problem.

Rating: Excellent. Fun, functional, and original, the Snack Ball is a great idea that just works. [Buy on Amazon.com | buy direct]

Further reading: Read Z Recommends' review of Boon's Fluid sippy cup, or learn more about Boon in the Z Report on BPA.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Five Great Bottles By BPA-Free Companies

By guest reviewer Naomi Shapiro

I never set out to be a lactivist, but my daughter Roo managed to nurse past her second birthday and never took a single bottle. She’ll be four next month and she’s only had two fevers in her life, which I attribute to her fervent nursing.

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to plan your life around your new baby’s breastfeeding schedule when you have a busy toddler to ferry around, so as my son Jasper entered his fourth month, I was determined that he would learn to drink from a bottle. I actually had a huge stash of unused Avent bottles saved up from Roo’s baby shower but with all the controversy over Bisphenol-A, I definitely didn’t want to use them with Jasper. Thankfully, ZRecs gave us the opportunity to try BPA-free bottles by Adiri, Born Free, Green to Grow, Silikids and thinkbaby.

Overall, these bottles are all very good quality. I was surprised at how well they performed alongside each other and impressed with the commitment the companies have made to keeping our children safer. I would recommend any of them to parents looking for healthier ways to bottle-feed their babies, and parents should keep in mind that preferences can vary from child to child.

That said, each bottle has its own strengths, and I hope that with this review you can make a better guess at which bottle your child might prefer. I would also recommend introducing bottles earlier than four or five months. At this point, I think Jasper is almost ready for the sippy cups offered by Born Free and thinkbaby. Hopefully some of the other companies mentioned here will be coming out with BPA-free cups for older babies and toddlers, too.

Each bottle was tested over a period of about two months and evaluated based on the same criteria as ZRecs' original Sippy Cup Showdown, whose reviews have been incorporated into the Z Report on BPA. The reviews here will also be entered in the report's company directory as well.

Adiri Natural Nurser
Materials: Polypropylene and P-Flex (a modified thermoplastic elastomer).
Components: Breast-shaped bottle with a twist-on base and full-length cover, color-coded to distinguish stages (all-white for newborns, blue for 3-6 months, orange for 6 months and up). The anti-colic device is a “petal vent” in the base that allows air to pass through freely.
Price: About $13
Dishwasher safe? Top rack only.
Observations: Gorgeous, flat-out. Sleek, all-in-one design combines nipple and bottle and fills from the bottom, which takes some getting used to. I had some leak issues initially. My husband loves the way the protective cap (more of a sheath, if you must know) stays on via friction with the TPE instead of screw threads. When the cap is removed for feeding, it drips pretty freely, so this wouldn’t be a bottle you give a child to hold themselves. Breast shape and pliability of material make it very useful for transitioning a breastfed baby to bottles or for occasional bottle feeding. Plastic display packaging seems extraneous, although it does show off the beauty of the bottle.
Jasper's Take: Love at first sight. This is as much a toy as a feeding implement, with a strong possibility it could be a lovey, too - Jasper likes to rub it all over his face while he drinks, getting kind of gross and messy, but he really slurps it down.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 9. Durability: 6. Eye Appeal: 10. Total points: 25/30. Buy now

Born Free Plastic Bottle
Materials: Polyamide plastic and silicone, made in Israel with materials tested in accordance with ISO 9001, the international gold standard for quality control at manufacturing facilities.
Components: Bottle, two-part inner valve, collar and nipple at one of five flow rates.
Price: $9-$10 apiece
Dishwasher safe? Top rack, secure small parts.
Observations: Probably the most tank-like of the bottles we tested, Born Free bottles eschew cutesiness in favor of functionality and durability, and look about as techie as a baby bottle can get. The design features lightly amber-colored plastic with a company logo in shades of blue and a secure white plastic collar. A two-part inner valve and air vent is supposed to help eliminate colic symptoms like gas and spitting up and reduce the rate of middle ear infections. It is also highly effective at preventing leaks, which would make this bottle particularly handy for formula mixing. Born Free bottles can be outfitted with the widest variety of flow-rate nipples in its class, and the same bottles can have the nipple swapped out for an O-ring with handles and one of two sippy spouts, increasing the lifespan of this Brick House of a bottle.
Jasper's Take: The nipples are incredibly pliant and Jasper loved to gum them and rub them on his face. The bottle itself was hard for him to hold.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 8. Durability: 9. Eye Appeal: 7. Total points: 24/30. Buy now

Green to Grow Plastic Bottle
Materials: PES plastic and medical-grade silicone, made in Taiwan with plastics periodically tested at an Illinois lab.
Components: Bottle, collar, and nipple at one of three flow rates. Cute logos and color-coding for standard- and wide-neck bottles.
Price: $7.50-$10.50 apiece
Dishwasher safe? Top rack.
Observations: With these slightly amber-colored bottles’ cute cartoon fruit faces, matching snapsuits and cloth totes for greener grocery shopping, Green to Grow's aesthetics have style to spare. This simplicity extends to their design; compact and lightweight, Green to Grow bottles lack a vent or valve, and their standard-neck bottles can even take Evenflo glass bottles nipples. The company takes a cradle-to-cradle approach to environmental issues, with 100% recycled packaging, soy inks, and 1% of annual profits going to environmental causes, and the company has founded an innovative program to connect parents with used bottles to organizations that will accept them and pass them on to mothers in need.
Jasper's Take: Fun to hold. He prefers the wide neck to narrow neck and the 5 oz over the 10 oz. Stubby, like him.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 9. Durability: 7. Eye Appeal: 10. Total points: 26/30. Buy now (direct only)

Siliskins Bottle
Materials: Glass and silicone
Components: 4 or 8-oz. Glass Evenflo bottle, O-ring, and nipple with silicone sheath in aqua, pink, gray or white.
Price: $10-$12 apiece
Dishwasher safe? Yes
Observations: Silikids' entry into the BPA-free bottle market is a thin, flexible sleeve that encases an Evenflo glass bottle. I was apprehensive about glass bottles but their heft is really nice and they are obviously very solid. The Siliskin definitely aids in grippiness and is designed to prevent chipping in falls, and we dropped ours from high-chair and counter height onto marble floor tiles with nary a scratch. The glass also retains heat and cold very well and is almost infinitely reusable by buying replacement nipples, so is fantastic for future kids. The narrow neck makes it a bit harder to clean by hand than some of the other bottles we tried, and I had issues with getting the collar tight enough to avoid leaking. Looks great with Silikids’ other products (Silibib and Silipads kneepads for crawlers), although I’m not sure why they don’t offer the same colors in all of them.
Jasper's Take: Jasper likes to rub the smooth surface and feel the glass through the cut-outs. The smaller size is easier for him to hold.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 7. Durability: 10. Eye Appeal: 8. Total points: 25/30. Buy now (direct only)

thinkbaby Plastic Bottle
Materials: PES plastic and silicone, made in Taiwan with plastics periodically tested.
Components: Bottle, collar, nipple with built-in vent in one of three flow stages.
Price: $17 for two
Dishwasher safe? Top rack.
Observations: Indented sides make it easy and fun for babies to feed themselves, and bottles are lightweight and leak-resistant, although they will leak liquid if held upside down. The nipples are very soft and pliant, with a built-in anti-colic device basically looks like a tiny silicone pipette attached to its base. Packaging is recycled and recyclable. The company also offers a Trainer Cup and two very sexy stainless-steel sports bottles so the whole family can match. Endorsed by Healthy Child Healthy World.
Jasper's Take: Fun to hold, fun to throw. He likes the 5 oz. best.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 9. Durability: 9. Eye Appeal: 8. Total points: 26/30. Buy now

Learn more about the companies mentioned in this review from the Z Report on BPA:

Editor's note: Many personal preferences are just that, so we'd love to hear about your own impressions of these great BPA-free bottles. We invite civil, succinct user reviews of the above-mentioned bottles in the comments below.

If you have specific questions about any of the bottle brands, post them in the comments of their directory listing linked above, where other users of that company's products or company reps themselves are most likely to see them.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Can You Read Japanese?

We're working on adding a few international bottle companies to our directory, and are looking for someone who can read Japanese writing for us on a company website. If it comes to it we'll be looking for someone to contact the company, but the information might be right in front of our noses. If you can help, let us know!

Friday, February 22, 2008

Mr. Rogers Learns To Breakdance

[Via christmasgorilla]

Something For The Weekend

After spending literally hundreds of hours compiling the third edition of our Z Report on BPA, we need to catch up! Unless we have urgent listing information to update, you won't hear from us again until Monday with a comparative review of several great BPA-free bottles by guest reviewer Naomi Shapiro. After that, expect more great ZRecs reporting and reviewing, with several major projects coming to a close in the weeks to come.

In the meantime, why not try making your child a homemade road rug, paint sample chip bus, play mailbox or sound memory game? Click on images below for these examples of ZRecs' creative homemade toy projects.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

The Z Report on BPA In Children's Feeding Products, Third Edition

Please note: This report has been substantially revised and updated since this post was published, most recently in our ZRecs Guide to Safer Children's Products. Much of the information in this post is outdated, and we encourage you to refer instead to our new consumer guide to BPA and other potentially harmful chemicals in children's products, the ZRecs Guide.

Welcome to the third edition of the Z Report on BPA. We have updated our directory to include new products, update company profiles, and rerank companies based on their current plans and shifting policies regarding products that come into regular contact with children's mouths.

Click on any company name in the listings below to find the BPA status of all children's feeding products they currently manufacture, as well as recently discontinued items.

Key improvements over the second edition include:

The addition of tableware, pacifiers, utensils, feeding aids, pumping supplies, and more
Coverage of many previously unresearched companies, for a total of 60 companies included
Company pages now include relevant ZRecs reviews
The BPA Mobile Project: A text-messaging service to query the Z Report on BPA from your mobile phone for on-the-go recommendations (added Feb. 29)
A printable wallet card providing basic BPA-free recommendations in key product areas and simple text-messaging instructions (added Mar. 6)

The following explanatory text from our previous edition still applies:

By BPA-free, we mean that not only the main body of the item is not made of polycarbonate plastic, but that none of the item's other parts are, either. Some companies provide incomplete information and claim that their bottles or sippys are "made of polypropylene" but cite this fact in a very careful way to obscure the fact that other parts of the equipment are made of polycarbonate. This is why we discuss products one by one with company representatives in compiling our research for this and our other reports.

If your interest or allegiance lies with a particular brand or brands, please view individual company posts for item-by-item listings of which products are BPA-free and which are not, and you can then buy products even from those companies with some confidence. We say "some" because companies which are on the record as supporting the use of polycarbonate plastic are under no legal obligation to inform you if they choose to change the plastics used in their products, and if they believe that polycarbonate is as safe as other plastics, they have no reason to tell you, either.

BPA-Free Brands
For this edition of the Z Report, we have tried to clarify and further refine our company rating system. Before we offer our ratings, which take into account product quality, innovation, the range of products a company offers, their stance on BPA and their openness about sharing information about their products, we should note all the companies that are BPA-free in all their relevant products, companies from which you can buy any bottle, sippy, tableware item, utensil, or breastfeeding accessory and know that it is certain to be BPA-free. If all companies operated in this way, the Z Report would not be necessary; we believe that someday it won't; and until that day comes, we believe that parents concerned about BPA should seriously consider supporting companies which respond to that concern. Those companies are:

Adiri | Baby Bjorn | Baby Cie | BabySport | Babylife (Wee-go) | BFree | Born Free | Brita | Combi | DCI | Ezee Reach | Elegant Baby | Emily Green | Green to Grow | iPlay | Kidbasix | KidCo | Klean Kanteen | Medela | Mother's Milkmate | Mud Pie Baby | Natursutten | Not Neutral | Nurture Pure | Obentec | ORE Originals | Prince Lionheart | PUR | Rivadossi Sandro (Trebimbi) | SIGG | Silikids | Skip*Hop | Steadyco | Thermos | thinkbaby

Company Ratings
Our overall assessments of the companies whose products we cover in this report are intended to serve as an assessment of each company's overall relevance to parents who are committed to reducing the BPA exposure of children in their lives. We have divided companies into four groups based on the described criteria.

Excellent: To receive an "Excellent" rating in the Z Report on BPA, companies must provide attractive, functional products in at least two product categories or exceptional design in one category, with all mouth-contact products being exclusively BPA-free, and must indicate or demonstrate a commitment to providing BPA-free products as a matter of course in the development of new products.

Within this group, we have designated as "Top Picks" companies that have made major contributions in design or overall product-line development to the range of BPA-free options available for U.S. parents. These companies' names are printed in boldface text and their company profiles will feature the ZRecs Top Pick pink starburst for as long as they retain that status.

Adiri
Born Free
Brita
Combi
KidCo
Klean Kanteen
Green to Grow
Medela
Nalgene
Natursutten
Not Neutral
Obentec
Prince Lionheart
PUR
Rivadossi Sandro (Trebimbi)
SIGG
Steadyco
Thermos
thinkbaby

Good: Companies in this category provide predominantly BPA-free mouth-contact products and offer at least one recently-designed BPA-free item in each product area they serve. Companies which do not currently make enough relevant products to be considered major players or who have failed to innovate since an initial product launch may receive this rating, even if their full product line is entirely BPA-free; such companies' names are printed in boldface type.

Avent
Baby Bjorn
Baby Cie
Babysport
Boon
DCIElegant Baby
Emily Green
Ezee Reach
IKEA
Lansinoh
Luvable Friends
Mother's Milkmate
Mud Pie Baby
Nurture Pure
ORE Originals
Sassy
Silikids
Skip*Hop
Tupperware
Zak Designs

Fair: Companies classified as "Fair" may provide excellent products in some categories but produce products in other categories while offering no quality non-polycarbonate option. Companies may express a hostility to the search for suitable alternative plastics for their products, or may have inconsistent and confusing naming, labeling, or communications policies with regards to their products' BPA status. Some BPA-free companies whose flagship products suggest significant design flaws, based on repeated user comments or ZRecs testing, or whose companies' policies, pricing or organizational status limit their products' relevance, are noted with an asterisk (*). Companies deemed likely to advance out of this category before 2009, for reasons noted in their company posts, have their names printed in boldface type.

Babylife (Wee-go)*
BFree*
Dr. Brown's
Evenflo
Gerber
iPlay
Kidbasix*
MAM
Munchkin
Nuby
Playtex
RaZbaby
Rubbermaid
The First Years
Tommee Tippee

Poor: Companies rated "Poor" demonstrate an unwillingness to acknowledge the legitimacy of consumers' concerns about Bisphenol-A and/or offer few or no BPA-free products.

Ameda
Innobaby
Playskool
Phil & Ted's
Second Nature

We'll be updating these listings individually as needed and will alert readers whenever we make major updates to a company post, so if you're interested in following this issue make sure you're subscribed to ZRecs via RSS or email.

We encourage readers who wish to support our research and advocacy to make purchases through product links contained in the directory or using the Amazon.com product search box on the lefthand side of the blog.

You might also be interested in:

Our BPA Mobile text-messaging service, which we offer free of charge (you simply pay whatever your carrier requires for texts)

To see the main directory page of the previous edition of the Z Report on BPA, click here.

Disclaimer: Z Recommends collects information for its reports from official company websites, company-staffed customer service lines, and company managers and public relations officials. We also update listings as needed to correct or revise information, and encourage readers or company officials to submit questions, comments or corrections as needed to ensure that this information is as accurate as possible. By reading and acting upon the information contained here, you hereby release Z Recommends from any liability for the information provided in this or other ZRecs reports.

Terms of Use: All content on Z Recommends, including designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, sound and other files, comments, and the selection and arrangement (the "Site Content"), are the property of ZRecs, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved. No portion of the Z Report on BPA or any other Z Report or ZRecs-developed Product Guide, beyond that necessary for reasonable excerpts, quotations, and citations may be copied, reproduced, republished, displayed, posted, or sold in any form or by any means, without ZRecs' prior written permission. You are granted a limited license to access and use the Z Report on BPA and to download or print a copy of any portion of the content solely for your personal, non-commercial use, provided that you keep all copyright or other proprietary notices intact. You may not upload or republish anything beyond short excerpts and citations of the Z Report on BPA on any other site or incorporate the information in any other database or compilation, and any other use of this content is strictly prohibited. Such license is subject to these Terms of Use and does not include use of any data mining, robots or other data-gathering or extraction methods. Any use of the Z Report on BPA, any other Z Report or Product Guide other than as specifically authorized herein, without the prior written permission of ZRecs, is strictly prohibited and will terminate the license granted herein. Unauthorized use may also violate applicable laws including copyright and trademark laws and applicable communications regulations and statutes. Nothing in these Terms of Use shall be construed as conferring any license to intellectual property rights. This license may be terminated without notice or cause.

Z Report: BPA: Adiri

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About the Company
Adiri is currently run by three California mothers, one of whom is the daughter of the inventor of the company's unique bottle design. Upon the inventor and company founder's death in 2005, the women took the opportunity to do a redesign of the bottle, and they designed a BPA-free three-stage product called the Natural Nurser, phasing out the Breastbottle in the summer and fall of 2007. They have no plans for new products at this time.

Adiri represents an example of a company transitioning to BPA-free status and earning Z Recommends Top Pick status in the process. As we wrote in our November 2007 edition of the Z Report, "Any manufacturer afraid that getting as far away from Bisphenol-A as possible will open them up to lawsuits should look at Adiri's sound example, swallow hard, and take the plunge." Those words ring true today in an environment in which companies are taking a closer look at the costs and benefits of going BPA-free.

BPA-Free Products
Bottles: Natural Nurser

Products Containing BPA
Bottles: None

Reviews
Natural Nurser

Materials: Polypropylene and P-Flex (a modified thermoplastic elastomer).
Components: Breast-shaped bottle with a twist-on base and full-length cover, color-coded to distinguish stages (all-white for newborns, blue for 3-6 months, orange for 6 months and up). The anti-colic device is a “petal vent” in the base that allows air to pass through freely.
Price: About $13
Dishwasher safe? Top rack only.
Observations: Gorgeous, flat-out. Sleek, all-in-one design combines nipple and bottle and fills from the bottom, which takes some getting used to. I had some leak issues initially. My husband loves the way the protective cap (more of a sheath, if you must know) stays on via friction with the TPE instead of screw threads. When the cap is removed for feeding, it drips pretty freely, so this wouldn’t be a bottle you give a child to hold themselves. Breast shape and pliability of material make it very useful for transitioning a breastfed baby to bottles or for occasional bottle feeding. Plastic display packaging seems extraneous, although it does show off the beauty of the bottle.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 9. Durability: 6. Eye Appeal: 10. Total points: 25/30.

Contact
Email: info@adiri.com
Website: www.adiri.com

Last updated: 2/25/08

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Z Report: BPA: Ameda

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About the Company
Hollister Incorporated's sale of Ameda to Evenflo was completed in January 2008. The company provided no information for Z Recommends regarding the fate of Ameda's breast pumps by our publication deadline. We will update this information as we receive it.

BPA-Free Products
Pumping Supplies: Disposable Bottle Kit (also called Translucent Milk Collection Bottles)
Feeding Aids: Baby Cup

Products Containing BPA
Pumping Supplies: Universal Milk Collection Bottles (also called Polycarbonate Bottles), Purely Yours Breast Pump, Manual Breast Pump, Elite Breast Pump
Feeding Aids: None

Contact
Phone: 866-99-AMEDA
Website: www.ameda.com

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Z Report: BPA: Avent

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About the Company
Avent, one of the largest bottle companies in the U.S. both in terms of reach and earnings, was purchased by Dutch company Royal Philips Electronics, a "global leader in healthcare, lifestyle and technology," in mid-2006. Philips companies have a combined total of nearly 100,000 employees operating in 100 countries. Its Domestic Appliances and Personal Care division, of which infant feeding products are but one branch, has more than sixty individual national sales organizations worldwide.

Dale Wytiaz, Avent America's Vice President of Sales for North America, currently serves on the board of directors of the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, which has maintained an aggressive stance in favor of polycarbonate plastic in public statements made as recently as February 2008. Avent is also listed as a member of the Coalition for Consumer Choice, a pro-BPA group which promotes anti-regulatory messages on behalf of major toy, feeding product, and trade organizations.

Philips public relations spokesperson Shannon Jenest expressed surprise in November 2007 when we confronted her with the company's listing as a supporter of the Coalition for Consumer Choice, and stated then on behalf of her company that "Philips/Avent as an organization is in no way actively involved in the Coalition for Consumer Choice." Since then she has maintained that no relationship exists and told ZRecs that Avent's legal team has requested that the company be removed from the organization's list of supporters.

Avent has released a new "high-tech" version of their Isis breast pump with polycarbonate breast shields. The company has begun rolling out a line of BPA-free bottles, which should be complete by October 2008.

BPA-Free Products
Bottles: BPA-Free Bottle
Pumping Supplies: Isis Via Breast Pump Kit (disposable system)
Pacifiers: None
Feeding Aids: Powder Formula Dispenser and Snack Cup
Cups: Magic Trainer Cup, Magic Super Sport Cup
Other: Microwave Steam Sterilizer (included bottles are not BPA-free), Electronic Steam Sterlizer (included bottles are not BPA-free)

Products Containing BPA
Bottles: Natural Feeding Bottle (aka "Airflex"), Tempo Natural Feeding Nurser (liners are polyethylene, bottle polycarbonate)
Pumping Supplies: Isis iQ Twin Electronic Breast Pump, Isis iQ Single Electronic Breast Pump, Isis Manual Breast Pump
Pacifiers: Avent Translucent Pacifiers, Avent Freeflow Pacifiers, Avent Newborn Nighttime Pacifier, Avent Fashion Pacifiers, Latex Toddler Nighttime Pacifier, Avent Silicone Pacifiers
Feeding Aids: None
Cups: None

Reviews
Magic Cup

Materials: Polypropylene, thermoplastic elastomer, silicone
Design: A no-frills plastic sippy cup with a removable handle ring.
Price: $9 for two
Dishwasher safe? Yes
Observations: What can we say? It's ugly, it's cheap, and it gets the job done. The Magic Cup first failed our side-rest leak test with flying colors, but then we realized we had screwed on the lid incorrectly and managed to seal it tight but off its threading. It passed a retest but we are newly aware of its persnickitiness.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 7. Durability: 9. Eye Appeal: 2. Total points: 18/30.

Contact
Phone: 800-542-8368
Website: www.philips.com/avent

Last Update: 5/1/2008

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Z Report: BPA: Baby Bjorn

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About the Company
Baby Bjorn, best known for their infant carriers, produces a variety of feeding and bathroom items for infants and young children, as well as baby seats, diaper bags, and travel cribs.

BPA-Free Products
Utensils: Two-spoon set (discontinued)
Tableware: Plate and spoon set

Products Containing BPA
Utensils: None
Tableware: None

Contact
Phone: 866-424-0200
Website: www.babybjorn.com

Last updated: 2/21/08

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Z Report: BPA: Baby Cie

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About the Company
Baby Cie produces melamine tableware for children.

BPA-Free Products
Cups: mug (sold with Baby Cie dish set), sippy cup (melamine and silicone)
Utensils: Spoon and fork
Tableware: TV Tray, plate, bowl with suction cup (melamine and silicone)

Products Containing BPA
Cups: None
Utensils: None
Tableware: None

Contact
Phone: 325-582-8300
Website: www.babycie.com

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Z Report: BPA: Babylife

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About the Company
Babylife is a California-based startup formed in early 2007 to launch the Wee-go, a silicone-sheathed Evenflo bottle which was long in coming and, in Z Recommends' assessment, overpriced for the limited utility of a silicone glass bottle sheath; we prefer the pricing structure and options of the Siliskin, and are looking forward to Nurture Pure's entry into the same product category. The company has plans to manufacture a teether and a silicone-sheathed 4-oz. bottle later this year.

BPA-Free Products
Bottles: Wee-go (Evenflo glass bottle with silicone sheath)

Products Containing BPA
Bottles: None

Contact
Phone: 415-339-0227
Website: www.gobabylife.com

Last updated: 2/21/08

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Z Report: BPA: BFree

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About the Company
The full story of the short-lived British BPA-free bottle company Baby B Free, and its legal run-ins with the Handi-Craft Company (maker of Dr. Brown's Natural Flow bottles) are beyond the scope of this report, but in October 2007 a British judge found that Baby B Free had undertaken a "deliberately illegal and dishonest course of commercial conduct... intended to hijack the considerable goodwill which had by then been built up in England around the Dr Brown's bottles to launch what was to become the B FREE bottles." To make a long story short, Baby B Free has liquidated key assets to Florida-based Born Free, and no longer exists.

BFree bottles, the first line we know of in the world to be sold with an explicit reference to their lack of Bisphenol-A, are still being sold online in Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, Romania, and numerous other countries throughout the world, none of which appear to have been immediately impacted by this judgment. The future of this bottle line appears uncertain, and given the judgment of false advertising and unethical business practices engaged in by the company's principals, we recommend doing business elsewhere.

BPA-Free Products
Bottles: All.

Products Containing BPA
Bottles: None.

Contact
None known.

Last Update: 2/19/2008

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Z Report: BPA: Boon

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About the Company
Boon, Inc. entered the infant and toddler feeding market in 2007. Current designs are largely polypropylene and silicone based, with one product, the Squirt feeding spoon, containing polycarbonate. Marketing director Kate Benjamin told Z Recommends in April 2008 that the company would be switching its sole polycarbonate feeding product component (the spoon portion of the Squirt) to polypropylene; it has already begun manufacturing the revamped product, and will have them in stores this summer labeled as BPA-free.

The company's Vice President of Sales, Dan Orsini - who spent time at Evenflo and Handi-Craft (Dr. Brown's) prior to joining Boon - serves on the board of directors of the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, which has maintained an aggressive stance in favor of polycarbonate plastic in public statements made as recently as February 2008.

BPA-Free Products
Cups: Fluid
Utensils: Benders, Modware, Squirt in summer of 2008 when labeled as BPA-free
Tableware: Catchbowl, Groovy
Other: Snackball

Products Containing BPA
Cups: None
Utensils: Squirt, when not labeled as BPA-free
Tableware: None
Other: None

BPA-Agnostic
Potty Bench

Reviews
Fluid

Fluid's donut-shaped cup may be the first thing to catch your attention; although it entails a slight reduction in cleaning efficiency, it is truly ergonomic, achieving the benefit of twin handles with the cup surface itself. But it's the sippy spout that is an exercise in meticulous and high design. Although appearing to be made of a single piece of plastic, it is actually two parts, closely joined: a hard plastic outer shell with a gentle curve, and a softer plastic inner lining with a rubbery give that is sealed seamlessly into the shell.

This lining helps seal the connection between the lid and the cup without the use of a threaded screw (adhering with an unsatisfying smush, but clearly sealing tightly) but it also does all of the work: The outer surface parts at the top in a small, ovoid opening roughly the size and shape of a cat's pupil, but it forms a slight depression rather than a hole because the inner material underlays this opening in a thin, soft membrane with a tiny slit in it that allows liquid to pass through when suction is applied.

The cup has a moderate flow that invites a lot of heavy swigging, but the lusty head-tilting feels well-supported by its ease of handling. Fluid does not drip much when shaken upside down, but creative users can create a drip-drip-drip effect, which strikes us as a limitation, for sure, when dealing with kids at the "no means not while I'm looking" stage. [Read more|Amazon.com]

Benders

Boon's Benders utensils are ergonomically designed to bend at an angle that facilitates eating for little ones. As your child gets older and refines his motor skills, you can straighten the benders. The handles have a soft, easy grip and are indeed attractive and well designed for little hands.

L does pretty well trying to eat with the Benders, but then he will occasionally switch hands, which means the Bender is suddenly bent in the wrong direction. The utensils are easy to bend, unbend or bend the other way, but it takes an adult to understand and perform the action, and young children learning to use utensils may frequently behave ambidextrously when attempting to eat. This limits the Benders' utility somewhat for the very audience they are designed to assist. Boon advertises that these utensils are appropriate for 9+ months; if there are 9 month olds who are spoon feeding themselves then maybe I should be worried.

Rating: Fair. The key limitation to this idea, young children's limited sense of handedness, probably should have killed this product idea and limits its real utility for the youngest utensil-users and for parents, who will still need to hover and assist heavily as their child eats. [Excerpted from this review of Boon's feeding line.|Amazon.com]

Catch Bowl

The Catch Bowl, as the name suggests, is designed to catch spillage as food makes it perilous journey from the bowl to your toddler's mouth. It also has a wide suction cup around the bottom of the bowl for stabilizing and securing the bowl to a feeding tray, table or counter.

Despite its suction-cup bottom, the Catch Bowl and its contents usually end up on the floor at our house. The fact that the bowl sticks slightly to his tray may have made it more of an intriguing challenge, but one which L nonetheless overcame with a flourish.

Rating: Good. This will probably work well for children at just the right stage. If you like specialized tableware that's stylish to boot, the Catch Bowl may be right for your little learner. Hand-washing recommended by ZRecs readers. [Excerpted and updated from this review of Boon's feeding line.|Amazon.com]

Groovy

We are not familiar with the angelic child modeling this on the Boon website and L tends to get upset when we actually try to interlock the pieces - (he’s a take-er apart-er, not a putt-er together-er), but we all love using the orange side-bowls for his small serving, on-the-go snacks. We will often put a small amount of fruit, raisins, cheese, etc. in the small bowls and set them on the platform of his learning tower where he can access them. As he circles the room he stops by and scoops up no more than a handful of anything at a time which he eats while he cruises off somewhere else.

If he gets distracted by the gravity testing, it's much less to clean up than a whole bowl, plate or tray full or food. We take the little bowls with us to friends' houses too - when we put food in them and set it somewhere he can reach, he knows it’s for him.

For more substantial meals, we set him in his Learning Tower and feed him from the plate which has two separated compartments and a grip strip around the bottom so it doesn't slide around. In a miracle of miracles he has not yet picked the plate up and thrown it which is likely a testament to the newfound freedom and independence he gets from the learning tower versus his highchair.

Rating: Excellent. The modular nature of this set makes it fun and functional, and we're confident it will continue to function well for us as L grows and his needs change. The Groovy has achieved its ends and has become a much-used item in our household. [Excerpted from this review of Boon's feeding line.|Amazon.com]