Non-Toxic Dishes for the Whole Family
If you're a parent, there's a good chance you've put more thought than you'd like to admit into this seemingly mundane topic. Personally, I spent an absurd amount of time thinking about how I wanted to serve food to my daughter when she was starting solids. (I also spent a lot of time talking about it, as my husband can resentfully attest to). It's just that I had a LOT of criteria I wanted to fulfill:
The plates had to be made from a non-toxic material, so definitely not plastic.
The material had to be light but shatter resistant, because, duh, kids.
I hate clutter and extra stuff and anything kid-colored, so I was determined to rethink the plates for our entire family, rather than buying kiddie plates. Plus I didn’t want to create a monster who throws a fit if we’re eating somewhere else and they don’t have their purple princess plate or whatever.
Dishwasher. Friendly. This is real life people, mama has shows to watch :)
So I Googled. And asked friends. And asked strangers on social media. And Googled some more. And finally came up with the perfect solution: stainless steel! Which seemed like a GREAT solution...until I realized that it's nearly impossible to find in the US. It's very popular in India, apparently, but not many Indian companies seemed to distribute to the US. It's also somewhat common at camping stores, but they usually have very limited sizes available. After about a million more internet searches I finally found my unicorn: Clean Planetware. They make big plates, small plates, bowls and cups, and they only charge like a bazillion dollars for them! Luckily for me my husband was so sick of hearing me talk about plates, he didn't even protest...much. I think we also asked for a few sets as a Christmas present from my mom, because we're exciting like that.
We've had our set for over three years now and I'm still obsessed with them. We went all in with 8 each of the big plates, the small plates, the bowls and the cups. Then last year we ended up buying 8 more of the big plates because we use them so often. They stack super compactly, taking up very little cabinet space. I love that the kids eat off the same plates as us, so there's no complaining about who got what and what color someone else has, etc. And I can definitely attest that they hold up just fine to being flung from the table in a level of rage only accessible to a toddler.
I should note that this post is not a paid ad (I wish!). I just really like these plates.