Let’s Eco-Green Baby

Cloth Diapers

I’ll be 100% honest here: I didn’t even know that the type of cloth diaper we use and love was available until I was pregnant and started researching that kind of thing. I, like most people I’ve talked to about this issue, pictured ye olde cloth diaper of yore, complete with hazardous safety pin. Today’s cloth diapers are so much more advanced than those from the 70s that a lot of us are familiar with. Many, like the ones we use, are an all-in-one, with diaper liner and cover (as the name suggests) acting as a unit. Washing them is very simple, and even with our washing machine and dryer being in the basement, away from the rest of the house, and with two working adults’ schedules to content with, we don’t seem to be inconvenienced by having to throw a load of diapers in the washing machine every 2-3 days.

Anti-cloth diaper people sometimes try to argue for disposables by saying that the energy costs of the washing process outweighs its eco-factor. While I will admit that yes, you do have to use the washing machine to clean the diapers, there’s no way it can compare with the unknown number of chemicals found in disposables, and the fact that these diapers sit in many landfills around the country, not breaking down. In a CBC news story published last summer, Environment Canada stated that “more than four million disposable diapers are discarded in Canada each day” and “it takes an estimated 500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose in a landfill.”

The same chemicals leaking into our air are also on your baby’s bum, making cloth the preferred choice for reducing risk of allergies, asthma, and other respiratory illnesses. Disposable diapers, comprised of their plastic shell and the inner gel liner noted for its absorbency can contain sodium polyacrylate, a chemical that can trigger allergic reactions, as well as dyes and dioxin, a carcinogenic by-product of the chlorine bleaching process. The Guide to Less Toxic Products, published by the Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia states that:

A study conducted by Anderson Laboratories in 1999 and published in the Archives of Environmental Health found that disposable diapers release volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), including toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and dipentene. All of these VOCs have been shown to have toxic health effects, such as cancer and brain damage, with long-term or high level exposure.

I will flesh out the “increased” energy costs cloth diapers require momentarily; however, I do want to stress that a few extra loads of laundry a week is a small price to pay (and it is small!) when faced with hundreds of years of rotting chemical-laded diapers in landfills. Should a person’s health (especially a baby’s health) be compromised simply by convenience factor alone? Cloth diapers do require the use of a washing machine, and yes, people using cloth diapers will find themselves doing more washes a week than people who use disposables, but to say that disposables are better simply because cloth require increased use of a washing machine, is simply silly, and an unresearched, unjustified excuse (in my opinion).

But back to the washing debate: okay, so we do 2-3 loads of extra laundry a week because of the diapers. To compensate for that, we’ve really started watching our own clothes (can I get away with wearing those pants another day?) and I do all non-diaper wash, in cold water, to offset the hot-water wash that the diapers require. In the spring, summer, and most of the fall, I hang my laundry out to dry, further reducing the energy consumption these little bum attires require.

I could probably write a textbook on the benefits of cloth diapering, but I’ll get off my soapbox now. Oh, except for this: you’ll save money, too, if you use cloth. Quotes for diapering the average baby for 3 years have ranged from $1000-$2000 per year for a grand total of $3000–$6000 spent on diapers per child. We bought our cloth diapers for approximately $350. The kind we bought fits babies 7-35 lbs, making it the only diaper we’ll need. That’s already a savings of 87-97%, a savings that would further increase with subsequent children as the diapers can be reused.

Again, I’m no saint, nor do I pretend to be one. Once my daughter started blessing us by sleeping through the night, we opted to use a disposable on her. Cloth diapers do not possess the same level of absorbency that disposables do, and we usually find we have to change her diaper every 2 hours. Once we no longer were up with our daughter several times a night, we’ll confess that the desire for sleep won out over our environmental moral code. Does this make me a hypocrite you ask? Well, I could have easily withheld this tiny bit of info, but I choose to admit it in hopes of coming across as human and maybe, just maybe, persuading one (or more would be just lovely) parent that using, say, 9 cloth diapers a day and 1 disposable is still a hell of a lot better for our one and only Earth (not to mention our one and only-for-now daughter) than using 100% disposables. We did try using different liners and doubling up, and maybe I need to be more patient, but nothing seemed to work for our 12-13 hour a night sleeper (hey, she rarely naps for me, ok – I need her to be a good night-time sleeper!). We tend to buy one pack of diapers every 6—8 weeks, when disposable-diaper users buy them every week. So if you add this expense to our total diapering costs, we still come out ahead (we buy a brand that is roughly $12, so assuming even 8 packs per year for 2 years’ of diapers that would increase our diaper total to just over $500).

We also bought two swimming diapers. Yes, two: one for when baby is swimming, and one spare in case baby makes a mess. I’ve only ever used one at a time, but it is nice to know there is a spare. I paid around $8 for each diaper. Some cloth diapers can actually convert into a swim diaper as well, but I prefer to have a separate one for that occasion as I only bought 15 cloth diapers and I’m too cheap to use one on a 20-min swim. Anyway, I have never bought, nor do I intend on buying, disposable swimming diapers. There’s just no need.

Baby Food

Clearly, I love my daughter. What is evident these days is how much more I care for her than I do myself, and by default, my husband (sorry dear). I make 85% of my daughter’s food, and buy another 10% organically. While I would like to try to switch to organic food for the adults in the house, I do realize that this can be expensive. We do try to buy meat locally, and when time permits, buy our produce at farmers’ markets. It’s a work in process here, and there’s a reason why grocery stores make money: they are convenient.

But back to the baby food (since I am succeeding more in this area). I have cooked and prepared most of my daughter’s food since she starting eating solids. Here’s a secret folks: it isn’t hard! Shush, don’t say it too loudly – the baby food industry does not want you to know how easy it can be. Hey, I work a full-time job so I know time is an important factor. I’m not saying you have to grow your own food, but it is pretty darn easy to make your own baby food.

You might be thinking, why would I want to? Doesn’t it come in nice little cute jars, with all kinds of fun, delicious sounding mixes? Before reading any further, I would like those of you thinking these things to first of all smell one of these adorable looking jars of baby food, and second of all taste the stuff. It’s awful, on both counts. I don’t understand how a basic food like carrots can smell and taste so horrible, so un-carrotlike. Oh wait, yes I do. Take a look at the ingredients in these jars: there’s more than carrots in there; the stuff is ridden with preservatives, sodium, added sugar, and all kinds of extras you probably don’t want to know about.

Also, baby food companies tend to dilute their food with water and other liquids, ensuring that the nutritional quality of the jarred variety is inferior to homemade.

It’s also cheaper to make your own. Each little jar will run you roughly 65-95¢ and last (depending on baby’s age) 1-3 meals. One jar does not suffice an entire meal, however, as baby needs a good mix of protein, vegetables, and fruit per meal. So, each meal might run you $2-3. In comparison, a sweet potato (for example) can cost as little as $1, but once boiled and prepared, you can get 12-15 meals out of it. One apple can last the better part of a week. One banana 1-2 days. A bag of 2 lb carrots (usually $2) will give you 3 weeks’ worth of meals. And I just found this fantastically yummy recipe for chicken balls that makes 20 individual balls (I have frozen them and will give my daughter 1-2 every other day), all for the cost of about $5 (chicken included). For a basic cost comparison chart of various commercial baby foods compared to homemade, visit this site.

And finally, with homemade food, you have ultimate control over what your child eats. Baby food companies do not hire pediatricians to work with them. They make what they think will sell. That’s why you’ll see a jarred variety of strawberries intended for the beginner eater when, because of its classification as a high allergen food, it is recommended that babies do not eat strawberries until they are at least 1 year of age, with some doctors recommending 2 years.

That’s also why you’ll see many dessert-type products that look yummy, sure, (who wouldn’t like a banana custard?), but are higher in fat than what is really necessary.

How do I do it? For pureed food, I found it easier to cook vegetables en mass, once a week or so. I would cook, say, a whole broccoli, or some beans, or a bag of carrots. Once cooked and pureed, I would spoon the mix into an ice-cube tray. Once frozen, I would plop the cubes into a freezer bag, label them, and voila, a good stash of food was prepared. I still make the occasional baby food cube, even though my daughter is now mostly on finger foods, as I find the vegetables are good mixes with rice or pasta.

Now that my daughter eats texture, it’s even easier. I simply cook extra of whatever vegetable the adults are eating for supper, and that’s her lunch for the next day. Fruit is easy, as she will eat whole chunks of a variety of fruit, so I buy whatever is in season to keep the cost low.
My daughter is just starting to eat meat so I haven’t really solidified my strategy for this food group yet, but I do have the stand-by chicken balls, and I have offered her bits of whatever we tend to be eating.

A few admissions before you start calling me Miss Child:

•    Of course you have to buy some prepared foods. Baby cereal for one is a must. I do offer oatmeal (organic as well) to my daughter, but she does like the baby cereal. It’s pretty ok, health-wise, for the most part.
•    Even though I hate the jarred stuff, there are some foods I refuse to prepare. Prunes are high on that list. I’m just not going to stew prunes. And we’ve all learned that my daughter is happiest when on a routine of prunes. So I buy them. I do, however, at least buy organic ones. Similarly, I will not make applesauce – who has the time for that? But, instead of buying the itty bitty jars for 65 cents that will last 1 meal, I do opt for the mainstream organic jar (President’s Choice makes a great organic 796ml usually priced at $1.99 – one jar will last months).

A wonderful resource for researching baby food is a research paper entitled Cheating Babies: Nutritional Quality and Cost of Commercial Baby Food, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (a US-based institute).
Again, folks, it’s not about being perfect or sticking to it 100%. As long as you try, it does help.

For more information:

Diaper Debate: Cloth Makes a Comeback. CBC (July 15, 2008).
Envirozine. Environment Canada
www.wholesomebabyfood.com

Baby photos courtesy of Christine Gordon Manley.

Related posts:

1. Little Acts of Green
2. Crib Chronicles: Adventures of a New Mom