Skip to content
Grist home
All donations DOUBLED
  • How to make healthy, safe food-bank donations 

    In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. ————— Time to green the canned-food drive.From the Grist Twitter feed: Looking for healthy safe nonperishable foods to donate to food banks. Ideas?  — […]

  • Umbilical Cords Strike an Off Note

    More than 200 toxic chemicals were found in the blood of umbilical cords sampled from racial and ethnic minority babies in a report coming out Wednesday. The analysis discovered for the first time in cord blood bisphenol A (or BPA), a perfluorocarbon used in non-stick and weather-proofing products, as well as certain forms of PCBs […]

  • Toxic toys and BPA-exposed babies, just in time for the holidays

    Dearests, in this season of love and laughter, when we all become young at heart and so forth, I’m going to point out two new child-related studies that might just make you — well, choke on your egg nog. Luckily, I’ve also found some handy resources that will keep your holidays happy. Cute — but […]

  • BPA Babies and Cash Registers

    We’ve known for a long time that bisphenol-A (BPA) is bad for us. Study after study shows the ill-effects of this widely-used industrial chemical on our bodies–and in particular, on developing babies’ bodies. The list is pretty sobering: BPA’s been linked to breast cancer in women, brain damage in children, obesity, heart disease, diabetes… Two […]

  • While scientists fight over BPA studies, Congress could just act

    Joining Tom Philpott on the anti-BPA bandwagon, the New York Times columnist Nick Kristof had an op-ed Sunday detailing the mounting evidence against the hormone disrupting chemical. One comment in particular summed up the debate nicely: “When you have 92 percent of the American population exposed to a chemical, this is not one where you […]

  • Consumer Reports finds BPA traces in common canned foods

    Bisphenol A, commonly abbreviated as BPA, is vile stuff–not the kind of thing a smart species knowingly introduces into its ecosystem. And if a species were to willfully foul its nest with BPA, it would at least be wise to keep it out of direct contact with food. That’s because BPA is an established endocrine […]

  • Ask Umbra on her hotness, corporate gift baskets, and more

    Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I am worried that your hotness may be contributing to global warming. I’m not sure what can be done to fix this. O Zone A. Dearest O, You are making me blush. But I am using your letter as a springboard to report some exciting news: In […]

  • Umbra on Camelbaks

    Dear Umbra, Recently, I’ve started to try to avoid plastics (especially plastic water bottles). For Christmas, my brother gave me a Camelbak-type water bottle. How safe is this? I assume it’s as bad as most plastic water bottles. Timothy Kearney Issaquah, Wash. Dearest Timothy, Gifting quandary alert. But does it suck? Photo: iStockphoto Not all […]