SIGG bottles are known to be eco-friendly and BPA free. When confronted by consumer advocates about BPA, SIGG has always claimed that their bottles do not leach BPA but never admitted that they do not contains this endocrine disrupting chemical.

That is, until now. SIGG had been manufacturing bottles that contains BPA prior to August of 2008. Bottles manufactured after August, 2008 use a new “EcoCare” liner that is 100% BPA free.

It is important to note that test results by third party labs show that the old liner does not leach BPA. They are safe.

If you own a SIGG bottle and want to find out if yours contains the old liner just look inside. The old liner is bronze in color. The picture below shows a bottle with the old liner.

The second picture below shows a bottle with the new “EcoCare” liner. Notice that the liner is a light cream color:

What to do:

If you own a bottle with the old liner and are concerned, you can exchange your old bottle with a new one that uses the new liner. Send an email to liners@mysigg.com to ask about getting a replacement.

Our stand:

• We carry SIGG water bottles and will continue to do so. We are very disappointed in the way they’ve handled their public relations regarding the old liner & BPA questions from consumers. However, we believe that SIGG aluminum bottles are safe with the new liner. Published test results shows that they do not contain BPA.
• We have verified that all SIGG aluminum bottles offered at our stores uses the new liner. We found one batch of bottles that was from the old design and have discontinued it.
• Our own kids will continue to use their SIGG bottles. We do not plan on replacing them.

More information:

For further reading, we highly recommend the following:

My favorite nutrition podcaster has another bit of newsletter info the other day that surprised me: Plain button mushrooms have more antioxidants than tomatoes, carrots or zucchini!

I love mushrooms more that carrots or zucchini, so that’s not a problem for me, but I know they can be a sticky situation for many kids (and grown ups too).

Luckily, there are some great online resources for getting kids familiar with the wonder that is the mushroom:

• NAMA’s Manual for Teachers and Naturalists They even rent teaching kits; so cool!
• The Great Morel Fun photos of kid shroomers.
• Fun Facts About Fungi Utah State University hosted site includes games, facts and great fast-motion video of growing mushrooms.

And often times play food can help kids get used to new veggies as well. We have a couple types of play-food mushrooms, as well as some other good-for-you veggies like peppers, tomatoes, carrots and more!

Do you have tips for getting kids to eat more veggies? We all want to know!

Like most things in moderation, a little chocolate can be good for you. Yay! Of course, the good news comes with some caveats: dark chocolate is full of heart-healthy ingredients, but the more fat and sugar, the more the benefits are outweighed. So the Reeses on my desk left over from my son’s class Valentines, sadly, don’t count.

But you can do yourself a favor with an ounce of dark chocolate every day. And, as my favorite nutrition blogger reminded me today, cocoa powder is good too (though she points out dutch-process processes out the bitterness and the health benefits). I started adding cocoa powder to cookies and shakes, and it works really well as an inexpensive, easy nutrition addition.

If you’re looking for non-candy supplements to your Valentine’s celebrating, we have some great ideas.

I get a weekly nutrition newsletter and this week’s held some great information about calcium. We moms have it pounded into our heads we need a lot, so many of us take calcium supplements. But if we’re taking them with iron, we’re wasting our money.

If you take iron and calcium, make sure you don’t take them together. And if you’re trying to get as much calcium as you can from food (and I salute you!), check the food’s iron content. Apparently there are other compounds called oxalates that make calcium not absorbable; for instance, broccoli and spinach are both high in calcium, but spinach has a lot of these oxalates, so the calcium is not as easy for the body to absorb as from broccoli.

My son will be happy I’m not forcing as much spinach on him. Has anyone ever used St. Patrick’s Day to try and get kids to try more green foods? I wonder if that’ll work…