Look at that cute little cup – lookin’ Mason Jar-y n’ stuff with its cute swirly straw!
I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of people saying you should be more proactive about using reusable drink-ware as to cut down on waste. You see a “BPA-Free” sticker slapped on every reusable plastic water bottle in the store. First of all… do you even know what BPA is!? BPA stands for: Bisphenol A is a carbon-based synthetic compound with the chemical formula (CH₃)₂C(C₆H₄OH)₂ belonging to the group of diphenylmethane derivatives and bisphenols. Did you know that BPA is water soluble? Basically meaning, that those plastic chemicals are leaking into what you’re drinking. So we’re safe, so long as we buy the ones with the “BPA-FREE” labels on them, right? Maybe not…
The pictured plastic mason jar above is sold at Walmart for under $5, and claims to be BPA-free. It’s so dang cute, it’s hard to resist, and for so cheap, well forget about it! GIMME DAT!
I made said cup my new official “work cup”. Sure, I’ve heard that glass is better for you! But I didn’t see any glass ones available and I felt like I was still doing my duty of protecting the environment. I was sip, sip, sipping away carefree for a few days. Then, all of a sudden, I noticed that I’d been getting headaches at work almost if not every single day. I thought, maybe it was from the heat + humidity combo that I just wasn’t used to but that I’d acclimate eventually.
A month later, still daily headaches.
I figured, maybe it was from spending so much time staring at a computer. So I brought my glasses to work.
Still daily headaches.
I had considered that maybe I wasn’t getting enough water, so I started making sure I was refilling my cup at least every hour or so.
Still daily headaches.
It finally dawned on me… what if the mass amounts of water I was consuming was the issue?
At work, we use one of those big water coolers that’s allegedly filtered water – kicker was, it’s still coming from a plastic bottle! (which I’m sure has “BPA-free” plastered on it somewhere)
Then, with one more sip from my *uber cute* fake plastic mason jar and straw… THIS was what was causing my headaches. So I experimented with it- I stopped drinking water right away and waited to see if my headache would go away. I figured, it would be a while before a dehydrated headache would come on that I’d be able to tell the difference. Within in ONE HOUR, my headache had gone away.
I seriously could not believe it. All this time, I thought I was doing something so good by using a reusable cup and staying well hydrated and in turn I was literally poisoning myself! Knowledge is power, people!
So what did I do? Chucked that cheap plastic cup for starters! I then finished my bottle of Synergy Kombucha and made that sweet glass jar my new drinking glass of choice. The chemical risks of drinking from a glass receptacle vs. plastic is almost null. What about stainless steel? Check to make sure that there is not any sort of lining inside the water bottle or you may as well be drinking out of plastic.
Please, PLEASE! Stop drinking out of plastic as quickly as you can! The harmful effects it has on your body are so not worth having something “cute” to drink out of.
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