If you’ve been reading the news for the past couple years, you probably already know that research has proven that plastics are a problem, particularly when it comes to food/drink storage and cooking. Many companies are now starting to phase out certain chemicals in their plastic products that have been proven unsafe for humans and for especially children but, at the same time, many companies are doing business as usual and that’s a problem. Since we don’t always know what’s in the plastics we use or which companies are doing right by consumers, we’re of the opinion that it’s best to just avoid them whenever possible. Fortunately, there are companies like Noplastic.ca that have amassed all kinds of great products to fill many of your non-plastic needs and we’ve partnered with them to give away to one lucky randomly selected winner a 12 oz stainless steel bottle with a sippy adapter and Avent sippy spout.

Find It Here: Noplastic.ca

Win It: We’re giving away a 12 oz stainless steel bottle with a sippy adapter and Avent sippy spout. Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter NPL5 as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: What are the six categories of non-plastic items carried by Noplastic.ca? Enter by 6/2/09. $19 value. Open to residents of US and Canada. Winner will be notified by email. Contest closed. Congrats to Monica!

Don’t take this the wrong way but if you haven’t heard about the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) showing up in baby bottles, amongst other things (food cans, milk container linings, water pipes, dental sealants), you need to get up to speed. BPA is a hormone disrupting chemical that, in animal testing, has been linked to a variety of health issues such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, genital abnormalities in male newborns, early puberty in females, poor semen quality, obesity, metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes and neurological problems like ADHD. Is it any coincidence that all of the aforementioned health problems seem to be on the rise over the past several decades as plastics have become more and more prevalent in our lives? My non-expert opinion is no. Fortunately, with the aforementioned information getting out, BPA-free baby bottles are now available so you can feed your baby and feel safer about limiting their exposure to this dangerous chemical. Even better? We’ve partnered with our friends at Mama Goes Green to give away to one lucky reader a Green To Grow BPA-free Baby Bottle Basics Gift Set that contains two BPA-free baby bottles and a package of non-toxic medical-grade silicone beginner (0 – 3 months) nipples all packaged in a super cute re-usable shopping tote. Squeee!

Find It Here: Mama Goes Green

Win It: We’re giving away a Green To Grow BPA-free Baby Bottle Basics Gift Set. Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter GTG4 as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: Name three other green or organic baby items carried by Mama Goes Green. Enter by 4/25/09. $47 value. Contest closed. Congrats to Andrea!

You know I love all things green, right? Green is good. No, actually green is AWESOME. But even better than the awesomeness of green is the awesomeness of green combined with style.  While I love many traditional childhood decor themes, I’m a big fan of nifty modern designs for the wee ones, as well. One shop in particular that makes me swoon is Saplings. They have oodles of  stylish eco-friendly kid and baby decor, all with an emphasis on being chemical-free, organic, fair-trade, sustainably-produced and locally procured whenever possible. Perusing their site is like a little slice of mass-marketed-characters-free heaven, with timeless designs that won’t become embarrassing or uncool as your child grows older. In a culture where everything is designed to break or go out of style in a shockingly short period of time (aka “planned obsolescence“) Saplings is like a breath of fresh, VOC-free air.

Find It Here: Saplings

Win It: We’re giving away a $50 gift certificate to Saplings. Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter SAP as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: What is your favorite item in the Saplings shop? Enter by 4/19/09. $50 value. Contest closed. Congrats Katie!

Plastic baggies…we know they’re convenient for packing lunches because, well, we’ve used them. I mean who hasn’t, right?  There’s just one problem…they aren’t recyclable. The end result is that every day of the 180 day school year, millions of plastic baggies are thrown away and will live on for hundreds of years in a landfill. But it doesn’t HAVE to be that way. There  are lots of reusable options available for packing waste-free lunches and one that we especially like are Fresh Snack Packs. I like them because you can see what’s inside them but equally awesome is the fact that they’re phthalates, PVC and BPA and lead free. Oh, and did I mention they’re reusable? Yeah, they are and we think they’re so groovy green that we’re giving away a couple sets of Fresh Snack Packs to one lucky winner!

Find It Here:  Fresh Snack Pack

Win It:  We’re giving away two sets of Fresh Snack Packs (4 snack and 2 sandwich packs) to one winner. Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter FSP3 as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: Fresh Snack Packs are made of what material? Enter by 3/25/09. $29 value. Contest closed. Congrats to Tammy!

After reading the results of the study done by Environmental Working Group that illuminated just how many chemicals teen girls have in their bodies, many of which were due to their personal care products, I couldn’t help but think of my own daughter. She’s only eight and a half but I know that stage of hyper-showering and deodorizing and perfuming and overall grooming that tween and teen girls go through is just around the bend. I’ve wondered many times if I’d be able to find non-toxic personal care products for her that would serve her needs AND keep her body from becoming laden with so much toxic junk. It seems the folks behind tweenBeauty had the same thoughts—to curtail the toxins that are bombarding the bodies of girls at such a delicate time in their lives. Their line of personal care products designed just for tweens includes shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lip gloss and all of the are free of parabens, phthalates and sulfates and they’re vegan. Oh, and they smell absolutely delicious. How do I know this? Because I’ve been using my daughter’s tweenBeauty shampoo, conditoner and bodywash, too—but that’s just between us, okay?

 Find it Here: tweenBeauty

Win It: We’re giving away a tweenBeauty  gift set that includes a shampoo, conditioner, body wash and a tube of lip shine in a hand woven fair-trade bag. Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter TB3 as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: tweenBeauty shampoos and conditioners are available in which scents? Open to US residents. Enter by 3/17/09. $25 value. Contest Closed. Congrats Stefanie!

If there’s one baby item I wasn’t sad to say goodbye to, it was the highchair. Yes, it served us well through two children but it’s ginormous footprint made it one of the few things I couldn’t wait to give away to some other poor, unsuspecting family. And the fact that it was 100% plastic? I can only plead ignorance. I simply didn’t know any better all those years ago. Now, if we’d had a minui HandySitt…I might be bragging instead of lamenting because the ultra cool and modern HandySitt is small, lightweight (5lbs), portable, adjustable and best of all made with steel and Forest Stewardship Council-certified birch. Additionally, all paint and varnish finishes are formaldehyde free, and the plastic guard contains no phthalates or bisphenol A (BPA). I’m actually a little jealous that new moms today have so many safer, greener options to choose from, but just to show you all that there are no hard feelings, we’re giving away a minui HandySitt portable highchair to one lucky winner!

Find It Here: minui HandySitt

Win It:  Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter MH21 as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: The HandySitt is safety-certified by what group? Open to US and Canadian residents. Enter by 3/6/09. $149 value. Contest closed. Congratulations, Melissa!

Okay, so just in case we haven’t made it abundantly clear, we LOVE non-plastic food and lunch containers. Why? Because plastics (and plastic bags) are made with a variety of toxic chemicals (not to mention fossil fuels) like PVC, bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates, all of which can interfere with human hormone functions and are suspected human carcinogens, which means they’re believed to cause cancer. I know…not exactly what you had in mind for lunch, right? That’s why we dig LunchBots 100% stainless steel lunch containers so much. They’re made from the highest quality, lab certified lead-free stainless steel and contain no plastic whatsoever. When you have containers this cool, packing your kids a toxin-free (and waste-free) lunch is a no-brainer!

Find It Here: LunchBots

Win It:  We’re giving away a pair of awesome Lunchbots (the Uno and Duo) containers!  Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter LB02 as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: What type of stainless steel is used in LunchBots? Open to US residents. Enter by 2/27/09. $30 value. Contest closed. Congrats to Skila!

With all the reports out there about the dangers of certain plastics, I’m liking stainless steel for feeding products more and more, mainly because I don’t have to worry about remembering which plastics are the safer ones and which ones are NOT. To that end, I’m really very excited that thinkbaby has come out with a complete BPA-free feeding set that includes a bento box, two bowls, and a mug which feature a stainless steel interior and a polypropylene exterior, plus two polypropylene utensils. Yeah, it only comes in one color (bright orange) and yeah it has “thinkbaby” stamped all over it instead of duckies or airplanes but seeing as I’m more concerned with safety than style, I really love it because it’s BPA-free, PVC-free, phthalate-free, lead-free and melamine-free. As an added green-mom bonus—the containers are great for making a waste-free lunches or carrying snacks on the go. Now that? Is some pretty smart thinking!

Find It Here: thinkbaby

When I had my first baby, I had the best of intentions, right down to making my own baby food. Unfortunately, I was too overwhelmed with the everyday tasks of motherhood to do anything extra like shop for organic produce, wash it, peel it, cook it and puree it. Hell, I was lucky to have on two matching shoes when I left the house. So even though I wanted to make it myself, I bought organic baby food in the jar (and sometimes in those horrid little plastic containers) with both of my babies. For today’s baby mommies & daddies, however, life just got a little bit better because now there’s HAPPYBABY. They make a whole range of fresh-frozen organic baby meals (in BPA-free trays) that are nutritious, convenient alternatives to highly-processed baby foods and they also make probiotic dry cereals with DHA —the only probiotic dry cereals on the market. Equally impressive, these foods were developed with Dr. Robert Sears, pediatrician, author, and go-to-guy for millions of parents who have questions about the health and well-being of their children. Oh, and by the way…the HAPPYBABY Organic Puffs are really good and if you’re not careful, you might find you’ve eaten half of them all by yourself—not that I would know anything about that. Ahem.

Find It Here:  HAPPYBABY

Win It: We’re giving away an awesome bundle that includes 2 free trial coupons of HAPPYBABY fresh frozen organic fruits, vegetables, grains and meats, 2 free trial coupons of HAPPYBITES organic hand-held toddler meals with hidden veggies, 2 canisters of HAPPYBELLIES probiotic cereal with DHA, 2 canisters of HAPPYBABYPUFFS organic self-feed baby snacks, Infant and toddler Nutrition Guide by Dr. Robert Sears, FAQ on Probiotics & DHA and HAPPYFAMILY Recipes. Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Enter HB123 as the giveaway name and provide the answer to these questions: Tell us which two flavors of HAPPYBABY baby food you will choose if you win and the name of the charity HAPPYBABY supports. Open to US residents only. Enter by 2/10/09. $40 value Contest Closed. Congratulations to Kristy!

I recently became the proud owner of a VitaMix 5200 high performance blender. Yes, I know…it’s a blender. Big deal, right? Well, I’m here to tell you that the VitaMix really is a big deal. For one thing, it’s about a hundred times sturdier than the last THREE blenders I’ve owned, all of which died premature deaths because they were basically el cheapo grande pieces of crap that were never intended to last more than a year or two. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s much greener to just buy quality the first time, especially since it’s not at all unusual for VitaMix machines to last upwards of 25 years. But that’s not all… The VitaMix does a ton of things that make a lot of other appliances in your kitchen obsolete. Like? Let’s see… it blends fruits for fresh smoothies, cooks hot soup from scratch, makes low-fat ice creams, grinds healthy whole grains, makes fresh nut butters, kneads dough hands-free, juice whole fruits and vegetables, purees homemade baby food in seconds, creates lump-free gravies and sauces, crushes ice, chops cheeses both coarse and fine, mills gluten-free grains and beans, cooks scorch-free cheese sauces in minutes, grinds meat, churns fresh butter from cream and most impressive, it CLEANS ITSELF in minutes. Really, it does even more but I know you don’t have all day so let me just tell you that the container is made of Eastman Tritan copolyester which is virtually unbreakable as well as chemical resistant and best of all, contains no BPA—zero, nada, zilch!  So if you’re in the market for a blender that will last and you’re hoping to find something on the eco-friendly side, the VitaMix 5200 has the Green Mom stamp of approval.

Find It Here: Vita-Mix

Drinking on the go just became the “funnest” activity for my son. But then again, how could drinking from a flip-top, stainless steel Spiderman canteen with a pop-up straw NOT be fun for a little kid? His eyes practically jumped out of his head with excitement when he saw it for the first time and he hasn’t let go of it since. *I* love the fact that it’s stainless steel inside and out and free of BPA, PVC and phthalates. Add to that the fact that it’s virtually spill-proof and super easy to clean and you’ve got a winner in my book. If Spiderman’s not your thing, you can get these FUNtainer Straw Bottles (with matching insulated and equally fun! food jars)  in a bunch of different styles for boys and girls, such as princess and Cars patterns. The straw bottles keep contents cold for 12 hours; the food jar keeps food cold for 7 hours or hot for 5 hours. Both will keep kids having fun for a long, long time.

Find It Here: The Soft Landing

Deal! Receive 10% off at The Soft Landing with code “GMF109″. Expires 2/28/09.

NOTE: The straw for the Funtainer includes a small piece attached from the outside of the bottle, which can be a choking hazard for young children. If you’re shopping for a child 3 or under, please choose another product.

Every now and then I come across a product that makes me wonder why I didn’t think of it first! Baby Cubes is one such example—it’s a freezer storage system for home-prepared baby food where each unit is stored and capped individually (total convenience anyone?). Made of non-toxic and recyclable polypropylene, they can be used for baby food, breast milk or anything else that requires airtight storage and they’re freezer, dishwasher and microwave safe. Best of all,  they’re BPA, phthalate and PVC-free. I don’t even have babies anymore and I’ve already thought of a dozen ways I could use these genius little cubes around my kitchen!

Find It Here: Amazon.com