Where have I gone to

Some of you may have wondered where I have gone; well, the answer is: deep into kitchen renovation. About a month ago now our plumbing gave under the sink leaving a flood in my kitchen and we decided to take this opportunity to renovate instead of just patching up a kitchen that was already in shambles.

My mom and dad are down from NB helping (thank you so much). 3 weeks into the reno, my dad is now working on getting the floor ready for my new cork floor. The walls are up and painted; same goes for the ceiling.

I wish we could have done the full kitchen eco-friendly but cost restriction and timing prohibited us from doing so. However I did consider the enviroment at many points in the kitchen reno; below are some of the decisions that we made that are in part green.

1. Cork Floor: When cork is harvested the tree is not destroyed and then replanted but rather the bark is trimmed from the tree every 9 years, leaving the tree and the forest undamaged. Its not unusual to have a 200 year old tree still producing cork bark. Cork flooring is actually made from the waste of the cork wine stopper manufacturing process so cork flooring is a recycled product.
2. Sico Go Prime Duo 100% Acrylic Latex Primer- Sealer and Undercoat: This is a great all purpose primer with less then 78.38g/L of VOC's. I knwo there are some primers out there that have 0g/L VOC however we had some primer left over from a previous project and in our time restraints could not get our hands on anything that had a lower VOC count.
   
3. Sico Paint Chamois: This is a 0g/L VOC paint; however the tint does add some VOC, the darker your paint the more VOC in it. Once again I know more eco-friendly options exist but we had all the paint we needed left over from previous projects.
   
4. I would have loved to get a LED light fixture for the kitchen but the up front cost is too much for us; instead we got a light fixture that could accomodate a compact florecent bulb. When chosing your light fixture make sure to always double check that a compact fluorescent bulb will fit, they are bigger then their incandescent conterparts.
   
5. We are reusing our existing cabinet pulls. We don't have enough to do the full kitchen so the uppers will have the old pulls reused and the lowers are going to have new pulls giving the kitchen a unique fun look.
6. An Ikea kitchen we chose Ikea for a few reasons first they are inexpensive secondly they do have a good enviromental practice. Ikea is not perfect but they do try harder then many companies out there to find out more check out : http://www.theikeaway.ca/en/home.html.

I found a great website with information on non-toxic painting if anyone is interested:
http://www.eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_paints.htm#2d

Toys 'r' us - Natural Wood Toys

For Christophe birthday we received 3 more pieces from the Natural Wood collection Toys r Us now offers. But just how green and non-toxic are this new line from Toys r Us. Below is a list of pros and cons from my point of view.

Pros:

• Forest Stewardship Council seal approved wood used
  
• Made from wood
• no paints or dyes
• chemical-free
• does not use batteries
• inexpensive
  

Cons:

• made in China
• manufactured by a company that also makes toxic toys
• sold at toys r us (over the years as toys r us has taken over the toy market many small mom and pop shops have closed their doors)

As much as the cons are big ones, I also believe that the more the general public purchases green items from the large corporation the more they will get the message that green is the better way.

I know for example the grocery store in my neighborhood is carrying more and more organic dry goods and produce because the demand is there. Our economy is all about supply and demand.

So far Christophe has Trailer Truck; Alphabet block set; Race car and the shape sorter and I have to say he loves all of them especially the truck and car. We will probably eventually get him the Fire Truck also.

As a mom point of these are built to last; the fact the people are all the same shape and size is also great as Christophe can let the race car driver drive the truck and vice-verse. The only thing that I am not crazy about is the fact that they are made with unfinished soft wood, soft wood takes on oils of your skin and discolors after time not making these good targets to save to pass on to the next generation.

What's your opinion about large corporations going "green"?

Non-Toxic & Eco-Friendly Toys Talk in Toronto

On April 20th, I will be leading a discussion on non-toxic & eco-friendly toys at Red Tent Sisters in Toronto.

In this discussion I will share all the information I have gathered in regards to toy selection for my son; I will also be bringing in loads of examples to show and your little ones can test drive them while we talk.

If you are interested check out the Red Tent Sisters Meetup Page - cost is $10 at the door or $8 in advance.

Toy Thursday - Non-toxic toys

Instead of talking about one toy this week I want to bring up the subject of what is a non-toxic toy. In another post I will look at what makes a toy green; so this post is strictly about chemicals and toxins.

Everyday we make purchases and decisions on behalf of our little ones from what clothing will they wear; to what will they eat; to what will they play with; and everything else they do. Our children are our responsibility and it's up to us to ensure they are safe.

You would think that if a toy has been approved for sale in Canada that it is safe for play; think again everyday toys are recalled. The recalls catch the toys that don't meet the governments standards but are the standards high enough?

Let's look at various toxins that can be found in toys: (because Christophe keeps me extra busy, I am going yo divide this post in sections each one talking about a toxin)

This weeks toxin is - LEAD

We all know lead is bad, it can be found in your water supply, old construction materials, and paint in your home, it has also been known to turn up in painted toys and kids jewelry.

"Scientists have found there is no safe level of lead for children - even the smallest amount effects a child's ability to learn. Children are more vulnerable than adults to lead. Lead impacts brain development, causing learning and developmental problems including decreased IQ scores, shorter attention spans, and delayed learning" 1

Because lead is a natural element it is found in almost everything around us, trace amounts are probably in all toys. What you want is that your toy does not leach lead. Well this should not only apply to toys but to everything in your home; but we are talking about toys.

How do I avoid lead toys, unless you personally test all your toys for lead there is no way of being 100% certain that your child does not own a toy that contains lead but there are ways you can reduce the chance of this happening.

1. avoid buying no-name brand toys
2. avoid buying toys from the dollar store - they are notorious for recalls
3. do not buy second hand toys that have metal bits or paint unless you know the manufacturer. This way you can look up the toy to see if it has ever been recall
4. do not buy metal jewelry - especial cheep jewelry - for young children. Over 20% of children jewelry contain lead.
5. buy a home lead kit test and test some of your toys, the results may surprise you. (I hope that you do not find any lead in your toys buy I would not count on it)
6. my last tip is use your common sens, check up on the company see if they have had recalls in the past for lead, if so how many, how long ago. If the company has a bad reputation and lots of recalls I would personally avoid purchasing from them.

Number 5 said to get a lead paint test kit, these can be purchased at most reputable paint stores.

Additional reading:
Lead saftey in Toys
A third of toys contain detectable lead
Consumer Product Recalls
Product Recalls
Healthy Toys

I leave you with this question: Have you ever had experience with lead in toys? do you have tips on how to help to avoid lead in toys?

1 - Healthy Toys

teflon out - CERAMIC IN

First of all I would like to start with that I think my kitchen is finally "plastic free". I say this in quotations because we still have a few items left...

Our mandolin; we don't use it often enough to make it worth switching. Our food processor; we could not find a viable option were food does not touch plastic; if anyone out there knows of one let us know. Our glass jars have plastic lids and some of our utensils/kitchen gadget have plastic handles but none of those touch food.

Our last switch was our kettle we traded in our electric plastic kettle for a beautiful brushed stainless steel stove top kettle. We got in on a great deal at Winners, it's from Kuhn Rikon and has such a nice heavy weight to it.

Our next step is to banish Teflon from our home. You ask me why are we banning Teflon and teflon like products from our home...

"DuPont studies show that the Teflon offgases toxic particulates at 464°F. At 680°F Teflon pans release at least six toxic gases, including two carcinogens, two global pollutants, and MFA, a chemical lethal to humans at low doses. At temperatures that DuPont scientists claim are reached on stovetop drip pans (1000°F), non-stick coatings break down to a chemical warfare agent known as PFIB, and a chemical analog of the WWII nerve gas phosgene."

"In new tests conducted by a university food safety professor... A Teflon pan reached 721°F in just five minutes..."


So how are we banishing Teflon:

We started by getting rid of all our none stick pans and replacing them with stainless steel high end pans such as Lagostina and Cusinart. Winners is a great place to get these for reasonable prices. The reason why I say high end is that with past experience unless it's a heavy weight stainless steel you wont be happy with the pan after a few weeks. You need to spend the $ to get something that will last and cook well.

However Geoff wanted to keep one non-stick pan for when he cooks those really sticky items. This is when we started to research alternatives to non-stick pans. After a bit of research and a struck of luck when we were spending some gift cards that we received at Christmas we found Earthchef at Zellers. Earthchef is made from stainless steel with a non-stick ceramic coating. So far we love our pan. I have to say I was also impressed at the weight of the pan, it's nice and heavy and compares well to our $200 Lagostina pan.

Eggs still stick a bit to the pan and you need to use a small amount of oil but it's worth the trade off for our health.

Earthchef also makes baking wear. In case you did not know most of the metal baking wear is also coated with Teflon. So we got a cookie sheet and a muffin tray from Earthchef also. We also love these - no problem with sticking yet.

Earthchef is manufactured by BergHOFF in Belgium. There website claims that the product is "six times stronger than the traditional non-stick coatings"; use "recycled packaging"; "the product line offers cookware; induction cook-tops; bake-ware; roasters; cutting boards; cutlery and knife blocks".

The best thing about Earthchef (after the fact that it's safe) is the cost, our 10" pan was around $30 and our cookie sheet was around $15.

Other then these great ceramic cook and bake wear items we are using glass and clay wear to do our baking; we already had tones of these that were given to me by my grandmother years ago.

We still have a few items that we need to find solutions for such as our rice cooker, waffle iron, spring form pans and decorative cake pans. If anyone out there has seen a rice cooker that is plastic and teflon free please let us know.

Quotations 1 & 2 from: Canaries in the Kitchen by EWG the article is worth a full read.

Tasty Tuesday

For me tasty tuesday is al about Christophe and feeding him; in order to feed a baby in todays modern world you "need" gear so this entry and the next few weeks will be about gear.

Bibs:

there are thousands of bibs these days to chose from however and eco friendly parent or just an aware parent needs to ask themselves many questions:

• Is it made out of natural fibers
  
• Is it PVC free
• Is it Vinyl free
• Is it Phthalate free
• Does it have ties (ties are a no no these days with kids as they can strangle themselves)
• Can it be easily washed
• Does it stain easily
• Does it fit a long age rang (you do not want to be buying bibs every 6 months)
• Does it have a pocket to ketch falling food

I am sure there are more questions to ask but this is all we could think of. We found a bib that answers almost all these criterias from Crocodile Creek. We have 2 of these an so far these are our favorite bibs, the only criteria from above that they do not meet is 100% natural fibers. They are made of cotton but have a non-toxic coating for easy cleaning.

Refrences:
Image from Crocodile Creek