SIGG or Stainless Steel Water Bottles?

I have been thinking a lot lately about reusable water bottles, ever since watching the documentary, Tapped. After doing a little research, I decided it is time to upgrade from the plastic and mystery metal freebies I've been drinking out of lately, and get something that is both safe and practical for my lifestyle.

I celebrated my 30th birthday last week. I decided this year to take the money that friends and family gave me as gifts and actually buy myself things that I would like to have rather than put it in the checking account like I usually do.

The first purchase I made was on amazon.com, where I found the best prices on two brands of water bottles that I wanted to buy and compare. I picked out a brand new SIGG bottle, as well as a Kleen Kanteen.

SIGG

My Newest SIGG Bottle!

I've had 2 different SIGG bottles in the past. Both of them were destroyed when I left them in my car overnight during the cold Wisconsin Winters, and the water inside them froze and as the ice expanded the walls of the bottle burst open. The last bottle I owned was a year or two ago, and I'm excited to have a new one again!

I like SIGG because they have beautiful and artistic designs that you can use to really express yourself while carrying around your water all day. I like the "loop" top (as pictured above), but the ABT top is a nice option for when you need quick sips too. I love that they have the BPA-free lining now, (the newer bottles with the yellow lining are safe, the older gold ones are not!). And finally, because the brand is fairly well known, I love that people will see me carrying it and know I'm making a statement about drinking out of non-plastic reusable containers.

The downsides of SIGG bottles is that they can be a little inconvenient to clean because of the small opening, but I solved that by buying a SIGG Cleaning Brush years ago. They are dishwasher safe, though my last couple bottles claimed that hand-washing will prolong the life of my bottle and the liner inside. I DO NOT RECOMMEND using SIGG bottles for hot liquids, as the metal will conduct heat and become very hot to the touch.

Kleen Kanteen

In 2004 when the first Klean Kanteen bottle was released, the only other options out there were polycarbonate plastic bottles or aluminum bottles lined with plastic resin or epoxy (like the SIGG bottles).

My Kleen Kanteen!

Klean Kanteen wanted to give consumers a safe, healthy, BPA-free alternative to plastic, a bottle that's reusable, environmentally sustainable and durable enough to last a lifetime. They chose to make a bottle from high-quality, 18/8, food-grade stainless steel, which they claim is one of the healthiest and most durable materials available.

Some of the key features that set Klean Kanteen® apart include easy to clean rounded corners and threads; high quality, food-grade materials that are BPA-free and don't retain or impart flavors; and durable, all-stainless construction including bottle threads.

They also set up their company and manufacturing to be environmentally responsible and sustainable from the beginning. They oversee our manufacturing every step of the way, from the sourcing of the basic materials to the retail floor and they're constantly working to cut waste and operate more efficiently. Read more about their sustainability efforts.

Kleen Kanteen was preferred by several of the reviewers of SIGG bottles on amazon.com, so I thought I'd spend a little of my birthday money and check it out for comparison!

According to their FAQ webpage, you still can't freeze them, but if you have a double walled insulated bottle, you can transport hot liquids in them, and even use them on stove tops!  

The biggest questions for me: 

Which is safer, the Stainless Steel in my Kleen Kanteen or the Aluminium in my SIGG bottle?

While I still am not sure which brand I'll ultimately end up with, I did find information on the topic. According to Kleen Kanteen's website:

"While aluminum is lightweight, it can leach harmful substances and chemicals when it gets hot or comes in contact with anything acidic. Studies have also linked aluminum exposure to Alzheimer's disease. To ensure that the drinks inside aluminum bottles are safe, the bottles must be lined with something.

The most common materials used to line aluminum bottles include plastic resins or baked-on epoxy, both of which can leach BPA and other harmful chemicals or can get scratched, exposing the aluminum underneath. Ceramic is another material used to line aluminum bottles, but it's more rigid and can crack.

Of even greater concern is the fact that many companies won't release information about what the liner on their aluminum bottles is actually made from. The liner can also retain flavors, which can make your drinks taste funky.

The stainless steel used to make Klean Kanteens® is time-tested, safe and completely free of BPA, phthalates, lead and other harmful substances. It's fine for acidic beverages or foods, and doesn't retain or impart flavors. That's why it's the material most commonly used in food preparation and by the brewing and wine-making industries."

The first paragraph above makes me a little nervous about cleaning my SIGG bottle in the dishwasher! The Kleen Kanteen site claims that the bottles are dishwasher safe, except for some of the plastic caps. Until I get the Kleen Kanteen, I won't know if it will be any easier to clean than the SIGG though, so the jury is still out on that issue.

Both the SIGG and Kleen Kanteen bottles will probably have issues with sweating, so to solve that problem, I added a fun rainbow striped neoprene water bottle sleeve to my order!  I love that it has a snap built into the handles so I can hook it onto my purse, lunch bag, a tote, belt loop, or whatever!

I'm a little nervous about the openings on the bottom corner, but hopefully there won't be too much of an issue.

To wrap things up here, I'd like to mention that I started this post wanting to talk about why everyone should want to run out and buy a SIGG bottle like the ones I've enjoyed using in the past. However, through my research, I'm starting to wonder if I may just end up converting over to stainless steel bottles like Kleen Kanteen! I'll follow up after I've had a chance to use both, but in the meantime, I'd love to hear about the types/brands of water bottles that others use. I'm especially curious about anyone who uses them for their kids instead of plastic sippy cups & bottles!

Documentaries of the Week: Ingredients, King Corn, and Tapped

I had a wonderful weekend of cooking, cleaning, and walking with my dogs.  In the little down time I had left, I found time to watch three great documentaries through Netflix instant streaming.


The first one, Ingredients, came on recommendation from a friend, though it had already been sitting in my instant queue for a while anyway, just waiting to be watched.


This film was very good, though both DH and I felt like we had watched it before.  The story of the Canadian Farmer's Fight with Seed and Pesticide Giant, Monsanto, was very familiar to us.


Regardless of whether it was a repeat for us or not, it was a great reminder of why we should spend the extra money, whenever possible, to buy organic & local food.  It reminded me that not only are the pesticides they spray not something I want traces of in my food, but also the genetically modified foods are scary!  They are less nutritious and could even be harmful to our bodies!  I actually I paused this film about half way through in order to rush off to the farmer's market and load up on some yummy fruits & veggies!

The next documentary, King Corn, was also recommended by the same friend.  I'm glad she mentioned it because I'd seen it in the Netflix "Recommended" section (based on other films I'd viewed and liked), but I was totally judging a movie by its cover!  I thought the image (left) looked like some crappy 70's comic book cover or something, and didn't ever bother to look deeper and see what the film was about.


Turns out, it's about these two friends from CA who move to IA to plant an acre of corn and then follow their product through the commodities chain into our food system.


This was a GREAT film and I highly recommend it for anyone who needs a reminder as to why we should be avoiding processed foods!  Corn is in everything.  You can go to McDonald's and order a corn-fed burger, with fries fried in corn oil, and soda sweetened with corn syrup.  All because the government chooses to subsidize a few select crops over all others.  And the crops they subsidize are genetically modified, and actually cannot be eaten straight from the ground, but rather HAVE to be processed in order to become edible.  Gross!

The final documentary we watched this weekend was called Tapped. DH was getting a little "tapped out" on food films, so we decided to switch things up.  We had heard about this one a couple weeks ago from some tourists who had taken the Milwaukee Photo Tour with us, and while we walking along the Milwaukee River Way, our guide mentioned how ground water works in Milwaukee vs the surrounding suburbs and what an important resource it is.  The other tourist mentioned this film and it stuck in my memory.


This film was enlightening.  It is about the bottled water industry and the damage it is doing to communities, our health, and our environment.  Did you know until the 70's that only Europeans really used bottled water, and then they were glass?  Did you know that your city's municipal tap water is tested multiple times a day...and bottled water companies don't have to test their water at all?  Did you know that in many cases, bottled water companies just draw water from the same ground water sources that municipal tap water comes from, but they take it for free and then sell it back to you at highly marked up prices, sometimes at hundreds if not thousands of times the price it cost them to gather and package it?  All of it being the exact same water you could get out of your own faucet for free, just lest tested for safety and now exposed to harmful chemicals from the cheap plastic bottle it is packaged in?!?!?

I've been carrying around reusable water bottles for about 3 years now.  I started during my second master's degree because everyone else had these unique looking "SIGG" bottles and it seemed like the cool thing to do.  Plus, they often came with caps that can be hooked to your book bag or easily carried by looping one or two fingers through the middle.


It was a large investment at first (around $20 on average per bottle for this brand), but I did the math and it quickly paid for itself in only a few weeks, especially if I were to buy bottles one at a time from vending machines, rather than buying cases in bulk from the store.


I found myself drinking a lot more water at school, on the road, and even in the evenings when I had my own personal bottle with me, that I could refill whenever, wherever.  I also liked that I could express myself by my choice in decorative bottle too.


Over the course of three years, I became so accustomed to carrying free water with me everywhere (that I now get from my refrigerator Brita Filter), that I started collecting water bottles from any source I could find them.  I stopped paying the big bucks for my SIGG bottles and started buying cheaper generic aluminum bottles, then cheap plastic bottles, then collecting free bottles.... all plastic.


While watching tapped, DH and I realized how harmful to our health all the plastic food and beverage containers were!  This prompted me to do a little internet searching and I discovered the following list effects that Bisphenol A (BPA), found in hard plastics, can have on our health:

• breast cancer
• prostate disease and cancer
• diabetes
• obesity
• hyperactivity
• impaired, altered, and compromised immune system and functions
• miscarriage
• impaired female reproductive development
• sperm defects
• lowered sperm count
• chromosome abnormalities
• chromosome sorting errors
• Down’s syndrome
• Turner Syndrome
• Klinefelter Syndrome
• genitalia deformity
• early onset of puberty
• impaired learning and memory
• increased aggression

After watching this film and learning about all of this, DH and I immediately went into the kitchen, gathered up all the plastic storage containers we could find, and put them in a bag to take to goodwill.  Then went out to buy some glass food storage containers.  I'm currently in the process on deciding which cool design SIGG bottle I want to buy again to replace all the plastic ones we're getting rid of!


I strongly recommend that everyone I know watches this film.  And don't be surprised if you wind  up getting a fancy BPA free water bottle from me as your next Christmas gift too :)