Just five years ago, I was shocked to see that major manufacturers weren’t making more BPA-free baby products. Now, you can wander down the aisles of any big box store and find dozens of shiny plastic goods with BPA-free labels. But what can you find beyond your basic BPA-free plastic baby dishes?

Green Sprouts has several options for baby dishes including the one above, made from a cornstarch based biodegradable plastic. It’s BPA and phthalate free but can’t be used in the dishwasher or microwave.

Fresh Baby’s Divided Dish is made of stainless steel, which can be washed on the top shelf of the dishwasher. It’s safe for the freezer, but obviously not the microwave. It’s snap-on lid makes it convenient for toting snacks or transporting meals to daycare. It’s also BPA, lead, melamine and phthalate free.

And now for my all time favorite…the custard cup. It’s made of thick, nearly unbreakable glass, it will be useful once your tot outgrows baby food, and it is usually microwave, dishwasher, freezer and, oven safe. Unlike many other food containers jumbled into your cupboards, custard cups are stackable and compact. Many styles come with snap on plastic lids that make them instantly into small tupperware containers. (Double check to make sure the lids are BPA and phthalate free as well.)

What are your favorite eco-friendly dishes for baby? How have they held up over many meals of mashed yams and applesauce? Did you even get baby dishes or just work with what you already had?

After two years of research, editing, and writing (with spit-up on our shoulders and cloth diapers in the dryer) The Eco-nomical Baby Guide hit bookstore shelves in the spring of 2010. We packed the book with practical tips to help families save thousands of dollars by going green. The insider secrets we’d learned in the trenches of early motherhood and from hundreds of Green Baby Guide readers were finally organized into the book that we wished we’d had as new parents.

Since then thousands of copies of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide have ended up at baby showers and green boutiques across the nation––and even the world! In December my cousin wrote me from Seoul where he and his wife are on a temporary teaching contract. Their South Korean birth coach had a copy of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide prominently displayed on her shelf. I have no idea how it made it that far, but it’s a thrill to know that our down-to-earth message is resonating with readers.

More than anything, Rebecca and I want to get copies into the hands of new and expectant parents. The Eco-nomical Baby Guide has been selling for under $10 on amazon lately, which is a great value for the amount of money it can help you save! If you’d like to read it before you buy, check it out at your local library. We have hundreds of copies in media centers across the country. If yours doesn’t have one yet, just make a request! We’re also happy to add that our publisher has just released a Kindle version of the book.

Thanks so much for your enthusiastic support of our exploration of green baby rearing on a budget. Who knew that whirling up sweet potatoes, finding secondhand strollers, and getting the best value on green goods could be such fun?

Our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is packed with useful information for new parents who want to go green on a budget. (Are we biased? Absolutely!) Beyond the cloth diapering advice, tips on buying used gear, and a directory of the best green gear at every price point, we included recipes for homemade baby food.

Since chilly fall days are just starting to descend, we are sharing our Pumpkin Pancake recipe with our online readers. These pancakes can be made ahead of time in big batches and frozen so you can pull them out for easy breakfasts. They’re healthy, delicious, and your tot probably won’t mind if you make a stack of them up for yourself as well.

      Pumpkin Pancakes:

• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup canned organic pumpkin puree (you can also use bananas, sweet potatoes or squash)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• 3 tablespoons whole milk
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Mix all moist ingredients in one bowl and dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Combine them, adding additional milk if needed to get the right consistency. Warm griddle or skillet to medium heat and coat with vegetable oil. Cook for approximately three minutes on each side and enjoy!

As you may have read in my post on zero waste lunches, my son’s school has banned all single serving food items to eliminate trash. It’s time to invest in some greener food storage options!

I was excited about trying Lunchskins or other reusable snack bags, but read a comment on Monday from a user who struggled with mold on the fabric. Many parents LOVE the product, but others have also complained about stale food and not being able to dry the bags out enough before the next use.

Moldy bags and stale food reports make me hesitate on the brink of a purchase. At $7-15 dollars a bag, it’s tough to shell out so much and not know whether or not it will work. Does anyone else have feedback on reusable snack bags? Are you able to use them successfully? What’s your trick for avoiding mold on the fabric?

Just a few days ago I posted about my conflicted relationship with pre-packaged food. Convenience is expensive, wasteful, and sometimes really, really….convenient. Especially when it comes to packing school lunches, a chore my husband and I utterly dread.

So imagine my surprise when my son’s preschool sent home a notice asking us to exclude all single serving packaged items. What a glorious idea! Having a trash-free policy for packed lunches has a huge impact when sixty students follow it every single day. And since the kids compost and are limited to refillable drink bottles, the daily trash produced will be extremely minimal. But that means no more raisin boxes, or cheese sticks, or fruit leathers. From now on, it’s reusable containers all the way.

I’m actually glad to have the eco-pressure to take that step. It’ll require extra time, but in the long run it will save money and environmental impact. Instead of buying single serving items, we’ll buy large quantities and individually pack them up in the beginning of the week. At this point my inner lunch packing loather is horrified by the change, but like all lifestyle adjustments, I think we’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Cheese sticks will become cheese cubes.
Fruit leather will switch to frozen blueberries.
Raisin boxes will be replaced with homemade trail mix.

In terms of reusable lunch ware, we already love the small compartments in Lock & Lock containers with removable trays. They’re BPA-free, dishwasher safe, microwave safe, freezable and they nest for easy storage.

But we’re also thinking of buying something like Lunchskins so that we can squeeze more in lunchboxes. People also seem to really like the Itsy Ritzy Reusable Snack Bag. Do you have a snack bag solution that helps you pack a zero waste lunch?

I guess the easiest solution would be to wash out zip-lock bags on a daily basis. Are any of you managing on that system?

I have a strange relationship with packaged foods. In my heart, I’d prefer to whip up batches of homemade crackers, cereal, cookies, and even yogurt in my spare time. I hate buying pre-packaged stuff and tossing wrappers into the trash, but I’m also eternally grateful to have it on hand when we’re heading off to parks, swimming lessons, or school. I minimize packaged items in lunches, but when I’m in a rush it’s nice to be able to quickly assemble something healthy that my child will actually eat.

So are there some prepared foods that pack more of a nutritional punch and treat the planet just a bit more kindly?

Dry cereal is a great breakfast option but can also be tossed into lunches or stirred into trail mixes. I love Trader Joe’s O’s, but Annie’s Homegrown Organic Bunny O’s are also excellent. Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies are a terrific alternative to the ubiquitous goldfish.

My children can be tricked into eating pumpkin and pureed prunes due to the lovely taste of Kashi bars. At this point in my life, I’ve also realized that I may be the one having the hunger meltdown if I don’t have snacks along on our adventures.

Newman’s Own Organic Raisins are easy to pack up in tupperware or reusable plastic bags and can be thrown into trail mix, oatmeal, or cookies as a great supplement.

Bare Fruit’s 100% Organic Bake-Dried Fuji applies are currently on sale for less than $20 for two one pound bags. I know it can seem costly, but you have to think of the volume of apples that have to be dehydrated to produce just two pounds of dried fruit. (If you have a dehydrator and do the drying yourself, I envy you!)

Stretch Island Fruit Leathers have no added sugar or colors and are made just one state away in Washington. My kids love these and they’re currently less than $13 for a pack of 30 bars. Making fruit leather is an eventual goal of mine, but I’m not there yet…

If you’re trying to get a few more greens into their lunches, consider tossing some boiled and salted edamame (soybeans) in. Somehow the novelty of popping the soybeans out of their shells helps to get these nutritional gems into their bodies. My kids also love roasted Seaweed Snacks. It may sound a bit exotic, but the sheets of nori (the seaweed used to wrap sushi) are seasoned with sesame and then roasted and salted to create a really delicious snack that emulates potato chips.

Although they’re often forbidden in schools where children suffer from allergies, there’s nothing that beats the nutrition and ease of plain nuts. One pound of Raw Organic Almonds can be tossed in with cereal, raisins, and dried fruit to create a killer trail mix that’s easy to transport.

What are your best ideas for simple school lunch snacks? Do you dread packing lunches as much as I do?

Yes, I know this is the Green Baby Guide, but I hope you will allow me to indulge in just one or two more back-to-school posts as we approach kindergarten. Last week I wrote about BPA-free lunch boxes, and now I’m left wondering what to pack inside them. What are some nutritious, packable foods that don’t come with a lot of packaging waste? Those of you with experience packing lunch for a picky kid, please chime in!


Stay tuned tomorrow for more school and daycare lunch ideas from Joy!

What to Expect When You’re Expecting is a thorough guide to pregnancy that has been tremendously popular for over twenty years–and this week their website, What to Expect, is sponsoring a giveaway! We’re throwing in a few copies of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, to sweeten the winnings for two lucky readers. There are multiple ways to enter so get in on the action!

Prize #1
What to Expect Before You’re Expecting (+ a copy of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide: Down to Earth Ways for Parents to Save Money and the Planet)

For women who are planning conception and pregnancy, What to Expect Before You’re Expecting is a great resource. It provides tips on everything from nutrition to medical care for women (and men) in the months before you get pregnant. And it will help you make the good choices that will lead to a healthier newborn. For couples hoping to conceive quickly, Murkoff educates readers about how to pinpoint ovulation cycles to raise your odds of getting pregnant.

As for our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, we’ve spoken to many women who received it late in their pregnancies only to wish that they would have read it months earlier. Why not learn about cloth diapers and used baby gear before you’re dealing with morning sickness and exhaustion? We hope that having the book far in advance will allow you to gather up the new and used green gear you need while saving thousands of dollars.

Prize #2
What to Expect When You’re Expecting(+ a copy of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide: Down to Earth Ways for Parents to Save Money and the Planet)

What to Expect When You’re Expecting is read by over 90% of pregnant women who read pregnancy books and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for decades. So what can you expect from the book? The book is organized into monthly chapters which provide information about how you may feel, common questions, a week-by-week guide to baby’s fetal development, and information about what your midwife or doctor is likely to say during that phase of pregnancy. The book also addresses childbirth plus the emotional and physical issues that couples face in the postpartum period. The question and answer format helped me pick out sections that were relevant to my pregnancy. I was too overwhelmed and exhausted by growing a fetus to actually read any book cover to cover so I appreciated being able to easily reference what I was looking for.

We wish every newly pregnant woman could get a free copy of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, just to have access to humble, humorous, hands-on advice for gearing up green on a budget. Since we can’t just stand on the corner and hand these out to pregnant passers-by, we’ve decided to send one to accompany What to Expect When You’re Expecting in this giveaway. We hope you can win!

Whether you’re lucky enough to win one of the prizes or not, you should know that What to Expect online now offers heaps of free information for expectant women and new parents. You can pick up a copy of many What to Expect books on Amazon for less than nine bucks and The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is currently on sale for less than eight dollars. (And it will save you much, much more than what you pay for it!)

Enter the What to Expect When You’re Expecting (and the Eco-nomical Baby Guide) Giveaway!

Each comment counts as an entry. You can enter up to four times. Here’s how:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like the Green Baby Guide on Facebook (then tell us you did it in a separate comment)

3. Visit the What to Expect website and comment on what you learned.

4. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on Thursday, August 11th, and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Great luck!

Great luck!

One of my first baby purchases was a set of  little containers for all of the pureed delights I planned to create for my child. In retrospect I can see this was an odd obsession, considering most babies don’t get a taste of solid food for a good six months after birth—but finding a good system for storing breast milk and homemade baby food can make the whole process much more manageable.

Two things I didn’t know back when I bought those containers in 2005: 1. I should have looked for BPA-free plastic—or found an alternative to plastic. 2. I should have considered buying containers that worked for storing expressed breast milk as well as pureed food to get the most bang for my buck.

The products listed below are all BPA-free, and most of them can be used for freezing ice cubes or storing regular food for years.

Fresh Baby So Easy Baby Food and Breast Milk Trays. On sale—a set of two for $8! These BPA-free trays have snap-on lids and each cube can hold one ounce of food or breast milk.

Juvenile Solutions Baby Cubes (2 oz/Pack of Another great deal for just $6.69.

Set of 10 Baby Cubes 1 Oz. Baby Food Storage Containers. Also by Juvenile Solutions, a set of ten for $6.65. I like that these sets come with individual containers; you don’t have to transfer the food to another plate or bowl.

Mumi&Bubi Solids Starter Kit Premium Baby Food Freezer Trays & Recipes. A bit more for $25, but a good system if you want to freeze a lot of food at once. Each tray holds 21 cubes of food.

Fresh N Freeze 2 oz. Reusable Baby Food Containers 12-Pack. $9.95 for a set of 12 two-ounce containers. Cute and practical. I’d get a lot of use out of these with a five-year-old!

What did you use (or what do you plan to use) for storing expressed breast milk or homemade baby food? Let us know what worked—and what flopped!

Our pantry purge has yielded some fantastic recipes, but this one is my absolute favorite.  My kids declared that these were the best popsicles they’ve ever eaten.  Little did they know there was a secret vegetable lurking within them! The pumpkin really brings out the peach flavor and augments the color beautifully.  Give this a try and your kids will never know!

• 2 Cups fresh or canned peaches
• 2 bananas (throw brown bananas in!  Overripe fruit will add the most sweetness)
• ½ C. apple juice concentrate
• ½ C. canned pumpkin
• 1 Cup ice
• 1 Cup water

Blend it up and add more fruit or juice until you like the taste and consistency.   Serve the first round as smoothies and pour the leftovers into popsicle molds for later.  It truly is delicious!

If you like this recipe, you might enjoy some of the others tucked between the covers of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Homemade teething cookies, pumpkin pancakes, or pear tofu pudding are just a few of the recipes for your young tot that we’ve enclosed in the book. (Of course it’s also packed with tips on buying new green gear, safe used gear, and every detail you can imagine about cloth diapering.) The book is still on sale for less than eight bucks on Amazon, which is a whopping 61% off. We’re not sure how long the crazy sale will last, but as eco-nomical souls ourselves, we hope that you get to take advantage of it!