The Zeer Blog

At Zeer, our goal is to make finding safe food easier than ever before. We hear every day from people who believe in our mission but just couldn’t shoulder our price.

You’ve written in, we’ve listened. Zeer Select is now only $4.95.

Everyone deserves the right to find safe food. That’s why we lowered our price so a greater number of people could benefit from the 40 years of Celiac Disease expertise that went into building Zeer Select.

Sign up now and get 30 days free. Cancel at anytime. Find Safe food.

To upgrade, login to your Zeer Basic account and click the upgrade link at the top of any page!

Enjoy and stay safe,

The Zeer Team

Since the Zeer launch in early 2008, we have been inspired by the support and passion that our members and visitors have shown.  We’ve heard from many people who say they’d like greater insights into the foods they are eating, that they want help reading a product’s packaging. Today, we are proud to introduce several exciting enhancements to Zeer that are directly in response to these enthusiastic requests.

A Simpler, Easier Way to Find Safe Food

We are excited to announce the release of Zeer Select, the easy way to find gluten free food. Zeer Select is a database of over 30,000 food product that helps people stay safe, save time, & learn the gluten free diet. Zeer Select is a monthly subscription ($14.95 a month) where members can:

• Instantly see the gluten-free safety status for over 30,000 products in our database
• Discover gluten free alternatives for any product
• Search gluten free foods by category, brand, product, and UPC.
• View highlighted problem ingredients and manufacturer’s statements to help you learn why products are safe or not.

We began all this work from a belief that finding great food information online should be easy. For many, this may only be a minor inconvenience, but for individuals living on a gluten free diet, finding food that is safe and also delicious is essential. Now individuals on a gluten free diet have help in making sense of the 60,000 ingredients and 30,000 products from over 10,000 manufacturers.  In Zeer Select, we have assigned a Gluten Free Safety Status to over 30,000 products. Subscribers can search or browse the entire database to find specific products or browse by categories such as entrees, condiments, sauces, etc.

We have also engaged a group of leading medical and nutrition advisers and food researchers with deep personal and professional experience in celiac disease and the gluten free diet to help in the process of assigning gluten free safety status’ to products. We have analyzed every ingredient (and synonyms) in every product for problematic ingredients, considered issues of cross contamination and have manually reviewed (in duplicate) every manufacturer’s statement/allergen warning on every product in assigning the Gluten Free safety Status.

Zeer Select is updated continuously unlike books and static lists which become out dated very quickly. Each week 500 products are added or updated so that our users have the best information to make their decisions.

To check out all the exciting changes we’ve made to Zeer, login now, and let us know what you think.

We are very proud to present our first ever iPhone app, Food Reviews on Zeer. Now all the great information on Zeer is available while you’re on the go — nutrition facts, warnings, and our stellar user reviews, plus a searchable database for 100,000 + grocery products.

Take a tour of the exciting features our app now!

From our press release:

“The Food Reviews iPhone App gives consumers access to the Zeer database of grocery products across 35 categories, ranging from bread and breakfast foods to pizza and beer. Consumers can easily search important information, including nutrition facts in the standard FDA format, consumer reviews, ingredients, and manufacturer warning labels.

The first-of-its kind application also allows consumers to filter searches by average rating to help discover high quality foods while on the go. Consumers can easily keep track of their favorite foods and sync their favorite products automatically with Zeer.com. Shoppers preferring Organic or Kosher foods can easily filter their searches to see only these products. High quality images are also featured for each product, enabling easy identification while in the supermarket aisle and improving the overall shopping experience.”

We also created a fun 1 minute demo on YouTube featuring our very own CEO, Mike Putnam, showing you some our favorite features of our application. Enjoy!

Is your pet a Vegan or Vegetarian? Well, according to some people, yours might be.

A growing number Vegan and Vegetarian pet owners are turning to plant-derived diets instead of meat-based for their pets. For your average pet owner, this may seems like a gross offense that upsets the very fundamental nature of canines and felines. And I’m not surprised; in fact, I’d define many people’s initial reaction as being more shocked and appalled than intrigued. One friend I spoke to even called the practice “borderline abuse.”

Meanwhile, Vegan & Vegetarian pet owners seem to believe this is the healthiest and most natural way to feed your pet. Sites selling Vegetarian dog food claim that dogs are natural omnivores and can survive on a nutritious and well balanced diet of non-animal proteins and supplements, but other sites completely disagree saying that yes, these animals can survive, but they can not thrive.

Why Would You Feed Your Pet A Veggie Diet?

After the pet food crisis in 2007, more pet owners turned to making their own pet food at home instead of turning to supermarket chain pet food, which means, more people are thinking about the food that their pets are actually consuming. Animal Rights group, PETA, who has looked deep into the more gruesome side of the pet food industry, reveals on their site that most supermarket chain pet food is usually made up of the biproducts of animals unfit for human consumption.

If you’re Vegan or Vegetarian and don’t usually handle meat, I could imagine it would be very difficult to feed your pet not only food considered unfit for human consumption, but food that is made up of animal parts you’d never consume yourself. If one will not consume another animal because they’re against the unethical treatment of animals, is it therefore right to speak for your pets by allowing them to eat a diet that may go against their evolutionary needs?

Is It Healthy? The Answer May Differ From Pet To Pet.

Ethical questions about treatment of animals strike at the very heart of this issue, but what it comes down to is the health of your pet. People want to know: Can dogs and cats live healthy, natural lives while subsisting on a vegan or vegetarian diet?

There are many books which claim that a vegan or vegetarian diet works for their dog or cat. A quick search on the internet reveals many sites that advocate for animal rights also advocate for vegetarian & vegan diets for dogs and cats. After reading much of this information, I found it difficult to deduce if anyone in the Veterinarian industry had made a claim recommending the diet more-so than a meat-based diet.

There was an abundance of websites selling Vegetarian dog food or cat food, that had this kind of information, but I had difficulty finding appropriate, unbiased sources from which to pull from.

However, I did find one gem among the rough. It turns out that the AVAR (Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights) published a position statement about this very topic in August of 2006. Though they don’t come out and say that Vegetarian and Vegan diets for pets are not good for your pets, they do seem to imply that without proper knowledge of your pet’s nutritional needs it is impossible to have them sustain on a Vegetarian or Vegan diet. They also seem to imply that this kind of nutritional discipline and understanding is beyond most average pet owners.

On the whole though, the AVAR is much more optimistic about dogs being about to achieve their nutritional needs through a plant derived diet than cats. Cats are carnivores by nature, where as dogs are considering omnivorous, therefore cats “require a number of nutrients in their diet, including taurine, carnitine, and arachidonic acid, which normally are derived only from animal flesh.”

The continue on to say that “ in light of recent studies that have proven two commercial vegan diets to be nutritionally deficient, nutritional adequacy of plant-based cat food diets cannot at this time be reliably assured and are, therefore, not recommended. “

Even PETA issues a steady warning to those attempting to convert their cat or dog to a meat-free diet: it won’t and shouldn’t happen overnight. Though their stance is completely against commercial pet food industry, they seem to imply that no one should convert their pet to a diet or lifestyle that in the end, is not good for the health of the animal. Before making such and important decision, they first recommend reading the book Vegetarian Cats & Dogs to learn about the proper nutrition guidelines for their pet. The next step is understanding what supplements they’ll need for their pet and then, once that key research and understanding has been achieved, then the pet owner should slowly making the diet adjustment by mixing vegetarian food in with their regular diet.

Ethical Pet Food

For those of you who find a Vegetarian or Vegan diet doesn’t agree with your pet, there are other options and diets for your pets that don’t use commercial meat-based industry. Sundance’s Treehugger channel recommends trashing the “Junk Food” and replacing it with “Natural and organic pet foods use meats that are raised in sustainable, humane ways without added drugs or hormones.” Ideabite totally agrees and even gives a list of green and organic pet foods that aren’t derived from animal byproducts.

Other pet food diets on the rise are the BARF diet (Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods) – many believe this is the most appropriate diet to feed their pet because they believe it’s the diet they evolved to eat which consists mostly of whole, complete raw meat, just like the kind of food they’d eat without human intervention. By choosing minimally processed, grass fed meat, you can keep your animals diet as natural as possible.

Conclusion

For those of you considering a Vegan or Vegetarian diet for your pet, keep in mind that though you may choose to feed your pet a diet that you find ethically sound, it will destroy your pet’s natural preference. As Janet Tobiasen Crosby also notes in her article, Roadkill Versus Asparagus, “despite your best cooking efforts, they might choose a day-old dead rabbit on the road.”

So, listen to your pet carefully if and when you transition them to a Vegetarian or Vegan diet. Ask yourself — what is my pet’s fur, dietary tract, weight, sheen, and attitude saying about the change?

Together, if you’re both listening to one another carefully, you can make the right decision about what is right for your pet in the long run.

As a huge fan of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel, I couldn’t help but compile all the food myths I’ve been hearing about through the show and on the internet.

If you’ve never seen Mythbusters, it’s an off-beat science show that features former special effects dudes, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman who take on urban legends and myths to find out if they hold water. After their (often crazy) experiments, they debunk or “bust” a myth or prove it to be true.

So, here on the Zeer Blog, I decided to bring you 7 Grocery Store Myths that have been “Busted” by modern scientists and even the Mythbusters team.

Pain from eating hot peppers can be cured by milk. – CONFIRMED

On Mythbusters, Tory, Kari & Grant tested out various cures that have mythically been described to cure pain from eating hot peppers and rate them between 1-10. Both parties claimed milk was a 5 possibly due to the fats that milk contain which helped to reduce discomfort. Some of the other cures were water, beer, tequila, and toothpaste, petroleum jelly, and even wasabi all were not effective as milk.

A person can stop a sulfuric acid leak with chocolate and hot water. – CONFIRMED

On a MacGuyver Myth promo, Kari & Grand demonstrate how the myth was possible because the chemicals and sugars in the chocolate work react to plug up the leak

A beef steak can be tenderized … in a laundry dryer – CONFIRMED

In Episode 103, Adam & Jamie test all the ways that you can tenderize a steak including explosives, shooting it with explosives, and … in a laundry dryer. All three methods were confirmed, but in the laundry dryer experiment they used protective shells to protect the steak as well as steel ball bearings, dry ice kept the steaks cool overnight in a running dryer. Their tenderness was tested by cutting several steaks in half with one half being the control and the other half being exposed the three tenderizing processes. The tenderness was then tested using an USDA approved pressure-sensitive cutting device. They were all found to be significantly more tender than the control half of the steak.

Vodka Can Cure Foot Odor – CONFIRMED

On Mythbusters, Grant smells Adam’s bare feet as the control, then gives it a number on a scale from 1-10. Both were a 7. Then, Adam’s feet were washed by Kari. One was washed with commercial foot wash and the other was washed with vodka. Then Grant smelled his feet and rated the one washed with commercial soap a 5 while the vodka washed foot smelt significantly better at .75.

Fresh Vegetables Are Better Than Frozen Vegetables - BUSTED

New research suggests that fresh vegetables aren’t as good for you as frozen vegetables if they’re flash frozen right after they’re harvested, which means that vegetables are frozen quickly and nutrients are not likely to degrade. Meanwhile, fresh veggies start losing their nutrients the minute they’re exposed to air. The FDA even recommends that you mix canned, frozen & fresh vegetables so that you get the 5 nutrients you need in a day.

It Doesn’t Matter What Carton of Milk You Pick - BUSTED

Supermarkets like to push the milk forward in the grocery store so that they get rid of it faster, so if you’re patient, take the time to dig to the back of the grocery store case to get the freshest milk they have. It’s the same price either way.

All Products Labeled Organic are made with ONLY Organic Materials – BUSTED

As I talked about in article one of my Zeer Green Team series, that little USDA label only means that the product was made with 95% organic materials and there are 38 approved un-organic materials that manufactures can use and still call a product simple “organic.” However, only products that use 100% organic materials will say so, but if they have a black or green USDA label, they may only 95% organic. Title: —- Five S

For more fun grocery shopping myths, be sure to check out:

10 Myths on Saving Money at the Grocery Store

10 Diet & Nutrition Myths

10 Grocery Shopping Myths

Words like organic, green and local have celebrity status in the blogosphere these days and Treehugger is definitely the TMZ for all the greenest gossip.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing shallow about the green movement and I totally support eating organic food, buying greener products and choosing locally made products over those shipped vast distances, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the changing tides. So, this is part one of series I’m doing to help consumers see all sides of the picture and help get closer to the meaning of these loaded words.

Today I’m focusing on one word “Organic” specifically, organic food.

What Is Organic Food?

The USDA National Organic Program (NOP) defines organic food as:
Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Before a product can be labeled “organic,” a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too.

So, if you’re trying to go organic, it should be easy right. Organic means all products that don’t use antibiotic, growth hormones, conventional pesticides…it sounds positively Utopian. However, with only a small percentage of the farms growing products that are up to the USDA standard, it’s difficult for huge chains like Walmart (who recently realized that buyers will pay a premium for products they consider organic) to get all the materials needed to produce these products– organically.

As MSNBC’s article on What Does ‘Organic Really Mean’ One of the misleading problems with organic foods is that unless the product is labeled 100% organic, it could contain up to “5 percent non-organic ingredients by weight — if those ingredients are on the USDA’s national list of approved non-organic ingredients.”

One of the questions looming for me personally is, if you’re paying a premium for an organic product, why would you want to settle for a product that is mostly organic? Though you might be supporting and ingesting 95% organically produced products, that %5 is made up of the exact materials you’re trying to escape. Though your beer may be labeled organic and all the other materials are organic, but the hops are not, isn’t that somewhat misleading?

How Can I Tell if a Product is Organic?

Certification is a beautiful thing. When wondering if your product is organic or not, look for the USDA Certified Organic label. Keep in mind that some products may claim their product is organic, but if they don’t have the seal, that means that no one can back up their claims. Perhaps it’s partially organic or some materials are Organic. The USDA seal means that the product is 95% to 100% organic.

Also, USDA can change their guidelines at anytime. In 2007, Epicurean covered the USDA’s decision to issue standards on “grass-fed” animals. Before the ruling, animals could be fed a grass fed diet for a certain part of their life, before being shifted to a conventional one. So, be sure to keep abreast on organic issues so you know what you’re getting, how it’s being produced, etc because rulings are changing everyday.

Also, keep in mind that a product is NOT 100% organic unless it says so on the label. Also familiarize yourself with the 38 ingredients that could be put in “USDA organic”-labeled foods even though they are not grown organically. Right now a petition is circling the internet to try to get the USDA to reconcider its decision to allow the 38 non-organic ingredients. If you believe that only products made with 100% organic ingredients should be considered USDA grade, consider signing this petition.

Why Do Organics Cost More?

When I consider the option of eating food treated with pesticides to organic food, I tend to lean toward “no pesticides please” but the cost of organic food in a sinking economy with high gas prices well – that leaves a lot of “swing eaters” (like myself, unfortunately) who eat organic only sometimes but as soon as the prices shoot through the roof – well, they’ll sacrifice their $5 free-range eggs for good ol’ Stop and Shop Brand.

Organic food is more expensive because it produces far less yield (10%-20% less than conventional farms) and because there are fewer organic farms in practice today that are considered USDA approved. However, studies have shown that with certain yields, an organic farm can produce more for less in the long run and are better for the environment. When you consider the cost of food prices vs the cost supporting farms that damage human health and the environment, the answer seems clear, but it’s hard to negotiate all the benefits when you’re holding a $12 bag of grapes in your hand.  Another thing to consider is the labor differences when comparing organic to conventional farming. To avoid using her herbicides, organic farms turn to old fashioned manual labor because certain vegetables like carrots, onions must be weeded by hand. This process may be yield healthier benefits for you and the environment in the long run, but it comes at a price and simply put all this manual labor is time consuming. And the thing about time? It’s money.

So, when you’re trying to decide between a $7 pack of organic strawberries and a conventional batch that costs far less, it can be difficult to know how to proceed. On one hand, you have conventional farming which uses synthetic fertilizers, synthetic hormones, and pesticides — on the other hand, you have $4 extra dollars in your pocket. If people knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that organic food could put years on their life, those $4 extra dollars would be nothing compared to what you’d gain. The problem right now is, no one study can guarantee it for sure and medical institutes like Mayo clinic won’t lean one way or another on the topic.

If you’re looking for a little reprieve from the cost of organic food, organic moms and organic enthusiasts have a few tips including Organic Mania, that suggests replacing high cost grapes with lower cost plums and Chicago Mom suggests joining a community farm or food growing program to alleviate cost.

Is Organic Food Better For Me?

Everyone wants to know, is organic food better for me – is it worth the cost – that my dears, is up to you. We all want easy answers, but I’m afraid in the case of organic fruit, that assurance doesn’t look like it’s coming anytime soon thanks to recent study that claims that Organic Food has no more nutritional value than food grown with pesticides. I found this study shocking, especially since a few other studies in the past years have made completely opposing claims. A study done in 2003, right before the boom of the health food movement, announced proudly that organic food has more cancer-fighting antioxidants than food treated with pesticides. While a study as recently as 2007 said that organic kiwis had more “health-promoting factors” than regular fruit grown with pesticides.

How heavily effected fruits and vegetables are affected by pesticides, depends on the item in question. Delicious Organics, an organic food delivery service, has an interesting, easy to understand list of all the fruits and vegetables highly contaminated by pesticides. If you have an interest in going Organic in a slipping economy, this list is priceless because it offers some reprieve. You can still eat organic on the foods that really matter, and as gas prices slip down again and organic foods gain some leverage, we might be able to eat organic more confidently. I know I will.

If you’ve just been tuning into this series, since late August, we’ve been compiling the best product recommendations on the web. We’ve already covered new Allergy products and new Parent products for fall, but now we stere our vision toward Organic products that are getting some buzz in the blogosphere.

Organic Products

Apparently We Love Jam’s Apricot Jam is so good that people can’t help but go through one jar a day, and at $20 a pop that’s a pretty steady promise. But the makers of We Love Jam who have been in Food and Wine magazine and who started their business off of one very old, organic on one of the last remaining Blenheim apricot orchards, which explains the waiting list which can be months long, so buy at their shop now for a truly rare jam experience.

Yöghund: Frozen Yogurt for Dogs? Are you serious? Well, Barking Dog, LTD of Boston, is serious! Yoghound proudly claims that it’s product is organic, made with “real yogurt,” recyclable, and apparently dogs (an pet owners – especially those with dogs with bad digestive systems or allergies) love it.

Garofalo Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti has one over Kalyn over at Kalyns Kitchen saying that “If you’re one of those people who loves pasta tossed with a bit of butter or olive oil and parmesan, this spaghetti would be fabulous for that.”

Ah, Back to school! Thank you to the All About Parenting Blog Carnival for reminding me school is around the corner.

Back to school is a time of excitement, new clothes, and the old classic stand by — the PB&J

But, for some children going to a new school this year, it will be a year of Soy Nut Butter sandwiches instead. As more and more schools ban products that aren’t labeled peanut safe, parents who aren’t used to the strict dietary confinements are having to open their hearts and wallets to a new kind of lunch hour.

Peanut Allergies Can Be Fatal

As any parent of a peanut allergic child will tell you, peanut allergies are serious business. Depending on the sensitivity of the child, even a whiff or small fragment of a peanut could cause the child to go into epileptic shock. If the child is not administered EpiPen ® immediately, the results can be fatal.

What makes matters worse is that cross contamination is particularly threatening when dealing with peanut allergies. A product may not have peanut or peanut based ingredients on its label but that doesn’t mean that product is ‘peanut safe.’ Even if the factory only made one product that contains trace amounts of peanuts, all the other products created in that would not be safe for a peanut allergic child to consume.

Why This Issue Should Concern All Parents

For some parents without peanut free children, it’s very difficult to understand the severity of the issue or why a peanut allergic child could be in danger if their child (who is not peanut allergic) has a peanut butter sandwich in his lunch.

Cross contamination is key here. In the case of young children, cross contamination via hands and mouths and toys is as serious a threat to children as eating trace amounts of peanuts themselves. Most parents educate their peanut allergic children not to eat strange foods, but what if another child told them the product was safe and they had a fatal episode? These are the concerns of the parents of a peanut allergic child.

As the number of children who are severely allergic to peanuts grows, so has the need for safe environments where a parent feels that their child is safe from harm. To meet the needs of these parents and to protect the children with these severe allergies, both public and private schools have made bold moves to educate teachers, parents, and children about the threat a child faces when exposed to foods containing peanuts. Some schools have even banned peanuts and products not labeled ‘peanut safe’ from the school entirely. However, the change hasn’t gone over as smoothly in the past, in 2005, a school in Indianna tried to ban peanut products from school. This decision was greeted with outrage from parents so a compromise was struck. Students with peanut allergies were to be isolated from their peers at the “peanut allergy table” – a compromise that parents of the peanut allergic are wrestling with to this very day. For schools less committed to the issue of peanut allergies, there is usually an allergy table which has problems of its own.

But, what does a parent with no experience with peanut-free foods go when faced with having to buy peanut-free products for their child? Many granola bars & cookies and other snacks contain trace amounts of peanuts.

What Can My Kid Eat?

If your school was smart, they probably sent you out some nice pamphlets explaining to you some of the foods your child can eat and how to prep your child on kids with food allergies. However, I find that the internet has a lot of great free information to keep your child happy and keep you from pulling out your hair.

• PeanutAllergy.com has a good list of foods to avoid.
• If you don’t mind doing a little blog research, you’ll discover a whole world of peanut free foods that kids love including Pirates Booty and Smart Puffs
• By doing an advanced search on Zeer, you can discover all the peanut-free foods in our site. To get more specific, narrow down your search by a keyword, food category or caloric content.
• Fresh fruit & vegetables are great year round. Be sure to check to see if a local farmer’s market is nearby – fresh fruit is a great thing to include in your child’s lunch year round. Plus, it’s healthy (and with the childhood obesity rate, that’s a good thing). If your child is fond of peanut butter and celery, stock up on Soy Nut Butter (available at most major food market chains). It tastes great, and it’s a great replacement for the childhood staple.
• Cheese is generally nut free. String cheese or cheese and crackers (might need to do some work to find out which crackers are nut free)

Peanut Free Blogs

Peanut Free Blogs are a great way to get information about recipes, tips and advice from moms who deal with peanut allergies every day. Though your child may not be peanut allergic, you’ll find great information on these blogs including links to products that your child can pack in their lunch box daily and peanut free news.

• Peanut Free Mama
• Please Don’t Pass the Nuts
• Nut At the Moment
• Peanut Free !!!
• Nut-Free Mom

Peanut Free Products

Sometimes piggy backing on other peoples great research is the best way to find out about new products for your child. The food allergy community does a great job of “taking care of their own” by providing fantastic lists of foods and manufacturers that make peanut free products.

Order Peanut Free products straight to your door at Peanut Free Planet

Divvies products are quite popular with Peanut free moms & families. You also can get Divvies cupcakes delivered to your door. If your child’s classroom is peanut-free, you can guarantee your child will be safe with Divvies cookies and cupcakes.

Disappointed dad, Matthew Amster-Burton over at Serious Eats, was sad that his daughter couldn’t enjoy PB & J like she used now that her school went peanut free. However, he now recommends turning to Sunflower Seed butter over SoyNut Butter claiming he “couldn’t in good conscience serve it to anyone with taste buds”

Peanut Free Ideas

Need some great Back to School Tips? Check out Victoria Groce’s blog for great allergy tips including this great Back to School burn down of what to do when you find out your child’s school has gone Peanut-Free.

Good Luck and We Hope Your Child Has A Happy First Day of School

As frustrating as changing your child’s diet can be, try to get some assurance that your child doesn’t have to live with a life-threatening allergy. Being a parent is difficult enough, but just imagine the extra stress you’d endure if your child was not safe from foods as everyday as peanut butter.

Though the debate is still out about whether banning peanuts completely is a good idea or only creates a fault sense of security.

However, the media coverage over this hot button issue is the best and greatest way to get the conversation started about what solution is best for all children.

When many of us were younger, hard plastic was as every day as toilet paper. Our toys were made of it, our lunchboxes, and even our sippy cups and baby buggies. In a consumer shift as dramatic as the move from glass to plastic in the 1980s, is the growing movement against plastics in modern-day 2008. At the center of this debate is Bisephenol A, or BPA, an industrial chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic resins, epoxy resins, and other products.

Though BPA been used for generations to create the nearly unbreakable, often clear plastic that made Nalgene bottles a staple of the modern athlete, fear of neurological and tissue damage has caused modern day moms to roll back to the classic glass baby bottles of the 1950’s.

Why Moms Are Worried

Recently, BPA studies on rat pups have begun linking BPA to the accelerated growth of prostate and mammary tissue, a phenomenal that increases the chance of prostrate and breast cancer developing in adults. Though no formal statement has been issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services linking Bisphenol A and cancer in children and adults— pregnant women, those with small infants, and even the Canadian government aren’t taking any chances.

Moms Fight Back, Go BPA Free

A gigantic grassroots movement of parents against hard plastics that contain the chemical agent Bisphenol A has emerged and given plastic companies like Platex and Nalgene the nearly insurmountable challenge of getting rid of the very same plastics that helped their business grow. Since large companies are overwhelmed by the cries of parents against hard plastic, green and organic companies have answered the call and developed BPA-Free alternatives such as Silicone nipples and Silicone slips for glass baby bottles and metal bottles for toddlers.

Can We Really Go BPA Free?

With all of the new products emerging, on the market – everything from BPA-Free Breast pumps to BPA free pacifiers – you’d think that by the end of this year, parents would be able to avoid BPA all together.

The problem gets even more complicated when we consider the impossible task of trying to rid our lives of these plastics. BPA is so widely manufactured that it’s very difficult to reduce your exposure completely, but according to some sources there are ways to minimize Bisphenol A’s potential effects.

What You Can Do

As consumers, we’re often prey to scare tactics aimed to steer our purchasing decisions, so it’s important to remember to keep your head when making decisions for your entire family. Before you make the switch, take the time to read reviews from real moms on alternative baby bottles and food containers for your baby.

And please, always double check your sources. BPA and non-BPA bottles could look similar when ordering online. After all, we’re human and all of us are prone to mistakes. Even authors of best selling baby books!

Have you noticed all the new faces on Zeer today?

Time Magazine has selected Zeer as one of the Top 50 Websites of 2008 ! We’re up there alongside some other great up-and-coming sites. I’ve enjoyed the morning perusing their selections and picked a few favorites below:

1. Serious Eats is a cornucopia of mouth-watering fare that covers tours all corners of the globe. Foodies will delight in bright pictures and armchair eating. It’s one of the few food sites that does the culinary experience casually without a lot of fluff, but a lot of great food.
2. Worried about gas prices, food costs and financial planning? Mint is a free financial service that helps everyday people keep track of what their spending. Using easy to understand pie charts and graphs users can see where their money is going (food, travel, utilities) and read helpful advice that helps keep their finances on track.
3. Turn promises into actions with Carbonrally , a site where you can create environmentally-friendly teams (from your home or office) and challenge them obtainable eco-challenges like taking a 2 minute shower, eating less red meat, or saving 20 sheets of paper a day. I plan on challenging my Zeer team to a meat-free challenge very soon.
4. And of course, there’s us! Zeer . We help people obtain unbiased information about groceries. On our site you can examine product information, create shopping lists online, and share products and advice on food with friends.

We’d love it if you gave us your rating on the Time website. Just click the link below and use the sliding scale to rate Zeer between 1 and 100. (Fingers crossed for 100!)

Zeer on Time Magazine’s Top 50 Websites of 2008