Simple Kitchen Swaps
2. Yeti Cup
8. Leftover Storage Containers
9. Stainless Steel Pans and Utensils
Making the change to make your home “cleaner” can be quite the undertaking, but don’t let that stop you! You can start chipping away at it one space at a time. When I started the process, I started with my kitchen and now, looking back, it really wasn’t too much of a hassle.
REMOVING PLASTIC
First off for me was removing plastic. When I first spoke about this a lot of people mentioned that there are a lot of BPA free options, but plastic has a lot of other chemicals other than BPA that can cause health problems. Its bad for you, its bad for the environment so let’s just ditch it as much as possible. This is as easy as changing out food storage containers to glass options. Throwing out those plastic water bottles, drinking cups etc.
For drinking we switched completely to glass for the adults and stainless steel for the kiddos. Yeti recently launched kids cups, so you know we had to get those (our family loves everything Yeti). Don’t forget straws as well - we switched to stainless steel straws, which took a little getting used to, but now we love them. If you are finding it difficult to drink from the stainless steel you can get little silicone covers for them. We still keep some plastic/ziplock bags in the house but we mainly use Stasher silicone bags. There are other brands, but my recommendation is getting ones that have a zip top. You can purchase cheaper ones that come with little sticks you use to seal it, but then you have to keep track of the sticks and each one is different for the different sized bags. They just become a pain. We also really like reusable sandwich bags and they have been coming out with some really cute ones like these ones from Amazon. We personally have these ones from one of my favorite kid’s shops in Quebec, Le Petit Cocon. While we are on the subject of food storage, we also like these Beewax food wraps and these stretchy silicone lids to replace cling wrap. It is also a good idea to take a look at what you are storing your food in. Plain glass jars are a cheap and easy way to store food, but if you have issues with making everything look pretty like me then you might like these glass storage containers that we use in our home. For left overs there are a lot of glass options but they are all not created equally. The best I have found are these Pyrex ones. I can get them in my favorite color (white, haha) and the lid is glass and silicone so literally no plastic!
COOKING
Take a look at what you are cooking your food on. I was guilty of using non-stick or teflon cookware, we can get in that conversation if you guys want, but to keep it simple there is a chemical used in these pans which is a suspected carcinogen, hormone disruptor, and reproductive toxin. We made the switch to cast iron and stainless steel pans, they took a little getting use to, but once we got the hang of them they were just as easy to use and wash at the non stick - I promise! We just got a basic set like this one, and swapped to all stainless steel utensils as well. Also something good to note: a lot of people use aluminum foil while cooking in the oven or on the BBQ, but unlike aluminum cookware, which is oxidized, aluminum foil can leach into your food when cooked at a high temperature. Eat This, Not That! explains, “This is especially true when cooking with acidic foods like tomatoes since they expedite the leaching process.” And The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease links consuming aluminum to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.
DRINKING WATER
Last, but not least, on my list is your drinking water! Many of us like to avoid drinking tap water, but PLEASE don’t let that lead you to buying bottled water. Plastic like that from millions and millions of plastic water bottles eventually leaches in to our ground water, which furthers contaminates our water supply. They also end up in our oceans as micro plastics (soon there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean) which the fish consume and then we consume. Plastic bottled water is just making our problems worse, so please please avoid them at all costs.
If you want to avoid tap water, you can start with substituting with filtered water. Filtration is the process that cleans water by removing bacteria, some chemicals and pesticides form the water. Examples of these are filters found in fridges and Britta which eliminate a small amount of cantonments. We opted for the Berkey Water Filter for our family because it removes a larger number of chemicals toxins and other cantonments. Reverse Osmosis and water ionizer are other options.
If you are interested in looking in to a Berkey filter for your family I would be more then happy to chat more about it with you. It was something we went back and forth on for so long and when we finally we did I kept asking why we waited so long! We have the Royal Berkey (3.25 gallon) in our home in Montreal. I find it a great size for a family of four I also use the filtered water for all my cooking. We are at my parents house for the summer, so we ended up just purchasing the Travel Berkey Filter as well (1.5 gallon).
They sell their standard filters and then give you the option for fluoride filters, so do a little research before you purchase the fluoride filters. Some areas add fluoride to the water and others don’t, so they might be overkill for you, depending on your location. For add-ons we chose the stainless steel spout. They also sell things like glass water bottles, but they are way more expensive than the ones we get and love from Amazon. For ice, we use our filtered water and use silicone ice trays. Making ice is my least favorite part of making the switch to the Berkey and silicone ice trays are not as easy as to get ice out of them as the plastic ones, but for now I don’t know a better solution. That is why the Yeti cups are such a hit in our house we all love cold water and the Yeti’s help keep ice longer than a normal cup would.
KID SWAPS
I have spoke on this subject on the past so I wont go in to a lot of details, but I can share some of our favorite brands and swaps we have made.
An easy swap is plain old stainless steel cups and plates you can get on Amazon but if you some prettier options (like I always do) we like Cink and Young Lux.
For on-the-go water we LOVE the Yeti kid cups, but we also use the Pura bottles for around the house. When using baby bottles, we went with the glass LifeFactory bottles.
We also use these silicone sippy lids quite a bit, which essentially makes just about any cup kid friendly. I still use them with Liv when I make her smoothies.
I didn’t purchase these for the girls, but I recently came across ZipTop baby snack containers, they are so stinking cute! I will for sure be getting these silicone snack bags for any future kiddos. They also make breast milk storage bags, which is an awesome alternative to the normal disposable plastic ones.
These are just a few of the “cleaner” changes we’ve made to our kitchen and to our home. I hope this helps give you a few ideas of what you can swap out to make the lives of you and your family a bit healthier. I will continue to share my journey with you, but feel free to leave me any questions below or on my Instagram and of course any suggestions you may have for other kitchen swaps!
Much Love,
