For most green families, plastic is one of those items that is on its way “out”. We are constantly examining how we can choose products that involve bringing less plastic into lives. Why? Because plastic lasts forever! It doesn’t biodegrade so at best we can only hope to recycle it into something else useful but with the staggering amount that makes its way into the modern home, we know much of it ends up in the landfill instead. Much of that plastic is unnecessary too. Do we really need that plastic film to cover magazines that come in the mail? Do we really need plastic drink straws when we could just drink out of the cup? NO.
Of course this week my family has been trying a straw alternative, which has been very nice. We still have some plastic straws that came with various reusable bottles but haven’t bought plastic straws in a store for a very long time and kids loves straws. I find they make drinking green smoothies just a bit more fun when you use a straw… So we gave some glass straws a try. We got these from an awesome company called Strawsome. They have beautiful glass straws that make you feel like you are drinking out of a sculpture rather a straw but a straw they are and the kids really liked them.
We wanted to use glass as opposed to stainless steel because being able to see through the straw and make sure it is clean is VERY important to me. My kids aren’t good at making sure their cups/straws are rinsed out. Oh an please ignore that Ziploc baggie in the pic below, LOL. I still haven’t found a good solution to replace those and I have been freezing local produce quite a bit lately.
We made a green smoothie with 2 big leaves of Swiss Chard, a couple handfuls of frozen strawberries, some frozen peaches, and a frozen banana. I also added some Vita-Mineral Green.
My son made the smoothie for us… something he LOVES to do and it was pretty tasty.
After blending everything together I poured my two boys some smoothie. The youngest was kind of baffled by this straw thingy in his glass. But he caught on fast and the lure of the nifty straw kept him there until it was all gone. Usually he will make his smoothie last for a couple hours while he plays. He liked the decorations on the straw and well, he is three… he just plain likes drinking out of a straw.
My youngest used the regular size straw and it worked very well for his thick smoothie. My oldest used the bigger “smoothie” size straw.
He too was fascinated with the decorations on the straw. The size and the unique decorations will help them to identify their own straws.
I found they were not hard to clean but I cleaned them right away. Strawesome does have special cleaning brushes for the straws though. They also have bent straws that look pretty cool, but IMO maybe slightly harder to clean.
Many of you may wonder about breakage and I can tell you I haven’t been very “careful” with them on purpose. I needed to see of looking at them crossly would result in breakage. Who the heck wants to imagine broken glass in their kids mouth? Not me that’s for sure! I have used the straws myself and crunched down on them with my teeth. I suppose I could break them but it be deliberate pressure, not accidental. If you have a kid who likes to chew on straws then maybe these wouldn’t be for you. But I have a chewer in my oldest and he doesn’t chew on these. Even so I have been watchful. These are for use at the kitchen table in our house… not for use in the bedroom while playing video games. I also store these with all our glass cups and tumblers and no breakage so far. They are pretty sturdy.
