Vitamix makes state of the art blenders which are good for making juices, soups, non-dairy milks, nut butters, grinding flour, and more.
Sadly, their current containers are made out of plastic, and even though it’s BPA-free plastic, the substitute (Tritan) might be worse than BPA.
Vitamix used to make stainless steel containers, and due to increasing health problems from plastic chemicals, a growing number of us want them to make them again.
Vitamix Then and Now
Beth Terry at My Plastic Free Life (a great website by the way) wrote about this in some detail in her blog post “Quick Action: Ask Vita-Mix to bring back the stainless steel blender pitcher!” and started a petition.
Please sign it! If not for you, then for me!
Many of my teeth are loose, I have pockets in my gums, and recurring infections due to years without safe and appropriate access to dental care. This makes eating healthy and medicinally a real challenge, but a SS Vitamix would help me make safe-for-me food!
Please sign the Petition:
Vita-Mix, “please bring back the stainless steel pitcher”
http://www.change.org/petitions/vita-mix-please-bring-back-the-stainless-steel-pitcher
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Oh, and if you already have a plastic blender container please don’t use it for soups or anything hot. Foods and drinks that have a high fat content or are acidic are also said to absorb more of the chemicals. You might want to contact the manufacturer and ask them to exchange the plastic for something safer, like nickel free stainless steel.
The following article (see page 2) mentions some disturbing details about Eastman’s Tritan, the material Vitamix switched to when they ditched BPA. I haven’t looked into what other companies are using, as the Vitamix would serve so many of my needs.
The whole article is worth reading if you want an in-depth understanding of what goes on behind the scenes.
The Scary New Evidence on BPA-Free Plastics
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certichem-eastman-bpa-free-plastic-safe
Despite its “oh shit” findings, by 2010 Eastman began to produce marketing materials claiming that Tritan was free of all synthetic estrogens. …
… Eastman, a $7 billion company that was spun off from Eastman Kodak in the 1990s, assured its corporate customers that it had done extensive safety testing on Tritan. But its methods were questionable. According to internal Eastman documents, in 2008 Eastman signed a two-year contract with Sciences International, another product defense firm that had played a key role in the tobacco industry’s scientific misinformation campaign.
…
This was part of a broader pattern of indifference. According to Usey, hundreds of manufacturers—including most of the big baby bottle makers—contacted CertiChem to inquire about testing their BPA-free products for estrogenic chemicals, but few actually followed through.
“Their position was: Until consumers are demanding nonestrogenic products, there’s no reason to be an early adopter,” Usey explains. “They want to delay as long as they can, because they know any transition will cost them.” In some cases, manufacturers paid for testing, then never collected the findings.
“They didn’t want to know the results because there’s liability in knowing,”
…
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So there you have it, the way corporations are allowed to operate these days, unless we demand (and independently test for) healthy, non-toxic products and materials, we aren’t going to get them!
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However, they will change if we work together and demand better!
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Seriously "Sensitive" to Pollution 
Great idea Linda, I signed! I’d love to see them make a vintage Vitamix, I think people would LOVE it. I have an old stainless steel one on my kitchen counter and everyone who comes here is blown away by it. I bought it new in the early 80s …
Thank you Kathi!
I think there’s a definite market for them!
Oh well! There goes my collection of BPA free water bottles! That was one scary article … I just tweeted it. I signed the petition, but I hope they do nickel-free stainless … Thank you for mentioning that, Linda!
Thanks!
Nickel free stainless is possible if we say that’s what we want! Let them know!
I’ve been using mostly glass bottles since I discovered my reusable plastic coffee mug and single use water bottle were dosing me with petrochemicals :/
I did buy a SS cup, for the rare times I might want a hot drink away from home
Apparently they make some interesting bottle casings for better grip and ease of carrying glass if that’s a concern.
No, I wrote, “MAKE THAT NICKEL-FREE STAINLESS FOR THE LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION WITH NICKEL ALLERGIES” in the comment box when signing, ha. I can’t carry glass around even in a small size though (hand injuries). What do you have for your water at home? I have been drinking bottled water and I was going to get a PUR filter instead (because supposedly it filters out pesticides also), but I don’t know what the PUR pitcher is made of. Probably Tritan. :-(
Good comment!
I have double carbon whole house + ceramic and carbon kitchen filters… the casings on the kitchen filters are SS, but there’s a ton of plastic (and the plumber installed them so far away he claimed he had to use plastic hose instead of copper pipe to reach the special tap… GRRrr… He made a few other dumb mistakes with the installation… if I had been here I wouldn’t be wasting so much filtered water – having to flush the plastic hose… so I usually fill up 6 old juice jars or jugs once a day…
Back in Toronto, after I sensitized to the water chemicals from a contamination event up the block, I had to buy spring water in large heavy glass jugs for about 1 1/2 years. I couldn’t get filtration installed there :-( There wasn’t enough $ and the water pressure may have been too low anyway…
The spring water companies in this area did not offer it in glass, hence the serious filtration (which could even use another stage for the whole house part), as I still need a shower filter in addition to all that!
Oh wow, that is intense! We rent, so anything that involved is not gonna happen. Sounds like an amazing system, though, despite the plumber’s mistakes.
I don’t even think we have spring water in glass. I’ve only seen sparkling water in glass. Man.
I need to get a shower filter.
And worse, my bathroom sink smells moldy in the overflow (the part at the top with the holes, but you probably already knew that). Last night I poured vinegar and some baking soda down it, and today two bottles of Seventh Generation bleach (the hydrogen peroxide one–I can’t tolerate regular bleach). And the apartment is cleaned once a week by a cleaning person, since I can’t do it, and there is still a slight smell.
Sorry to change topics. Just having a freakout about the moldy smell. I don’t know if bathroom sink mold is the same as the kind of mold that gives people MCS. I already have Lyme, fibro, allergies, and some degree of chemical sensitivities, which I am trying not to make worse.
I’m thinking of just asking him to put in a new sink. He probably won’t want to because we broke the sink twice last year (electric toothbrush fell into it) and he replaced it twice.
Damn, I am rambling again. Insomnia.
Shower filters are great.
You may be allowed to install a counter-top filtration unit
“Doulton counter-top water filter systems are designed to be easy to install/uninstall.
The Preferred choice when portability is important, or when easy, quick installation is desired.”
http://www.doulton-water.com/counter-top.aspx
Or maybe a Berkey
http://www.berkeyfilters.com/
There should be a way to clean out the sink… The bad mold usually grows on porous materials (wood, wall board, furniture) that have been too moist for a long enough while, not in sinks and plumbing pipes… It doesn’t sound like that’s what you have happening there. Can you ask the cleaning person how they clean the hidey parts of sinks?
I really need some fragrance free cleaning help! Someone with an offgassed vacuum cleaner and good dusting skills! I’m not able to deal with it on my own and the dust bunnies are growing so that I can now see some of them without my glasses!
Thank you! You are so wonderfully knowledgeable! I will look for the filters, and I feel so relieved about the mold. It’s weird–I mostly smell it at night. I don’t think the cleaners do inside the sink at all…I might ask them. This bathroom does not have a window, and although there is a fan, it does not provide enough ventilation.
Aaagh, have been there with the dust bunnies big enough to hop around!
I have a friend with MCS (I was in a Nonviolent Communication telephone class that was advertised on an MCS forum, so I met a quite a few people who have it—that was where I met Sharon) … anyway, this friend puts an ad on Craigslist that goes something like this:
Environmentally conscious, disabled, feminist woman with multiple chemical sensitivities looking for helper to do cleaning, shopping, and organizational tasks. MUST be fragrance-free (including shampoo, laundry detergent, and soap) as fragrance makes me ill. I will provide the appropriate products. Please contact me at …
She interviews people by phone. Usually she gets vegans and other people concerned with the environment. The “environmentally conscious, feminist” part weeds out the right-wingers. If she likes someone over the phone, she interviews them outside on a park bench. If she hires them, she buys them the products she can handle. Eventually, if they stick around, they buy their own products. The way her benefits are structured, she can get reimbursed for this service. I don’t know if any of this would be helpful, as I don’t know how benefits work in Canada and I don’t know if there is Craigslist. (You can get a lot of nutjobs on Craigslist, but if you advertise in the home-health care section, you get more serious applicants).
Churches and religious organizations are good too. Another friend got a volunteer from a church, and another person got a volunteer from the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services. (Both friends are atheists, but they sort of, uh, failed to mention this when they called.) It’s harder to get a person who is unpaid to be fragrance-free, but sometimes it works out.
My cleaners are not fragrance-free, but they use vinegar and fragrance-free cleaning products. I usually schedule my acupuncture appointment when they are here because the vinegar smell dissipates by the time I get home. A lot of professional cleaners don’t wear fragrance, however, because they deal with smelly products all day long, and I think some of them get chemical sensitivities. My previous cleaner got to a point where everything gave her a headache because she has been working with cleaning products so long, so she gave up using all scented body products.
Having unreliable sources of info in my life has caused me to have to do a lot of research :/
The Property Manager’s Resource Guide has some more info for dealing with mold issues, in case you want more back-up, just in case you ever do have any leaks that need dealing with (I think there’s an old scouts oath to “be prepared”? and knowing what needs dealing with and what doesn’t can save us so much energy)
Thanks for those ideas too… I will look into what kind of help I can find after a few other things are addressed…
Hey, that might make a good blog post for you!
I’ll bet there are plenty of people who need cleaning help that is fragrance free, and those pointers would be so good to have!
Ha…interesting idea, but I am 4 blog posts behind. Probably because I’m leaving mini-blogs here LOL. No, actually I’m putting off writing about my Lyme results. I should change my blog name to “Miss Diagnoses, Many of Whose Diagnoses Are Lyme-Related.” I just didn’t know that until recently.
Behind what?
You can copy and paste the mini blog from the comments here and save it as a draft for when you are more inspired (or less) as the case may be…
Maybe you can be Miss (ed lyme) Diagnoses? Hopefully things get easier once you have the answers.