Silicone Feeding Gear Tastes Like Soap? Here's How to Fix it...

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It even makes a great gift. And listeners of this show can get 20% off any AquaTru purifier when you go to aquatru.com. That's A-Q-U-A-T-R u.com and enter the code weaning at checkout. That's 20% off any AquaTru water purifier when you go to aquatru.com. And use the promo code weaning W-E-A-N-I-N-G at checkout@aquatrutu.com. Are you trying to squeeze the starting solid food stuff into your already busy schedule? Well, I have an all-in-one done for you solution that's going to take the guesswork out of feeding your baby. My online program is called Baby led weaning with Katie.

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Ferraro contains all of my baby led weaning training videos that your original a hundred FIRST FOODS content library plus a hundred day meal plan with recipes like the exact sequence of which foods to feed in which order. So if you wanna stop trying to piece all this feeding stuff together on your own, I would be honored if you would join me inside of the program. You can get signed up at baby led weaning dot co slash program. And if you're detecting this soapy taste coming off of the silicone feeding gear, if you have the a hundred percent food grade silicone suction mats and bowls, you can actually put them in the oven to kind of bake off that soapy taste. So some people do it at three 50, other people say two 50, anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. I've tried this. You kinda like smell the soap coming off of them, but it's a really kinda low lift way to remove that soapy taste.

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So You don't have to throw this dishware away. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietician, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning here on the baby led weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to Solid Foods using baby led weaning. Does your baby's silicone feeding gear like the plates and the mats and the bowls, does it ever taste like soap to you? Now, I personally like to taste everything that I'm making for babies. I wanna make sure it's not too hot, not too cold, you know, tastes whatever.

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There's nothing funky or off. But occasionally you do pick up on a soapy flavor if you're offering foods out of silicone suction mats or bowls. And I've heard of parents I've seen like comments or post something on Instagram about, you know, products and people say like, oh, that one tastes like soap and I'm throwing it away. You do not need to throw these products away. Okay? There are some really easy household remedies to get rid of the soapy smell so that your baby can get back to tasting all of the new foods that you're trying. I like to start each of these mini solo training episodes with a baby led weaning tip of the day. And today's tip is when you are selecting silicone feeding gear, look for 100% food grade silicone.

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So again, there's different variations, there's lots of different products out there. I personally use the brand Easy peasy. So easy peasy makes the original silicone suction mats and bowls. I've used them for all of my own children and I continue to use them in my infant feeding practice. And all of the easy peasy products are made from 100% food grade silicone. If you're in the market for some feeding gear and we wanna check out the Easy Peasy products, my affiliate discount code KD 10 always works for 10% off@easypeasyfun.com. Now hang tight, 'cause in this episode I'm going to go through some really simple household fixes in order to remove that soapy flavor. So I mentioned Easy Peasy, and when I first started hearing about this soapy flavor, before I'd even picked up it on it myself, I reached out to them and asked, you know, what do you recommend?

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Like when parents complain about this, how do you remedy it? So I first wanna share some of the solutions from Easy Peasy and then some additional cleaning methods as well. So the suggestion from Easy Peasy is there's a couple of different ways you can do it. You can do a baking soda paste. So if you make a paste that's one part baking soda to two parts vinegar, then you cover your whole mat and you let it sit for 20 minutes, then wash away the paste under hot running water and allow it to air dry. Now, easy peasy also recommends cleaning your mats and your products with warm soapy water. Instead of doing it in the dishwasher, I personally need to use the dishwasher because of the volume of foods that I'm making. So I do the dishwasher, and then on occasion we'll do the baking soda vinegar paste.

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Okay, if you are using the dishwasher, the easy peasy recommendation is to use the steam and the dry settings on your dishwasher and ensure that there's enough distance between the mat so the space will allow the dishwasher to clean the detergent thoroughly. Another solution that you can possibly do is you can submerge your products in the sink if it's full of hot water with a quarter cup of white vinegar and then rinsing it and air drying it. Another cool solution, and I've seen some different variations of this, is actually putting the mats in the oven so you can heat your oven. Some people do 250 degrees, some people do 350 degrees, but basically you can put the easy peasy products in the oven for about 10 minutes and kind of smell the soapy flavor coming off of that when you're cooking it again, it is important to make sure that you're using the a hundred percent food grade silicone.

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I know especially with easy peasy, there's a ton of different knockoff products there. So turn it over and make it sure. It says easy peasy on the back. It'll also say have the easy peasy logo on the front and those are perfectly safe to put in the oven. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back. Okay, I wish this were not true, but as someone who works in front of a computer or a phone all day, I know that of the average 20,000 breaths that Americans take a day, 90% of those and 90% of our time is being spent indoors. And the indoor air that we breathe can be up to a hundred times more polluted than outdoor air according to the EPA.

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If you head to air dr pro.com and you use the promo code weaning, you can get up to $300 off air purifiers. And this is exclusive to podcast listeners, but you will also receive a free three year warranty on any unit, which is an additional $84 value. You can lock up this special offer by going to A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R o.com. That's air dr pro.com and use the code weaning, W-E-A-N-I-N-G To get started today. Now, when it comes to cleaning products, okay, I mentioned that you could do the baking soda and the vinegar paste.

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Okay, you can do the dishwasher and make sure that you're getting a lot space between the products. I've definitely had the problem where I like overlap them too much and then the dishwasher detergent doesn't get all over them, but you can also try rubbing your silicone with a half of a lemon or a lime. Then you let it sit for 10 minutes and then rinse it out in air dry. Okay? Some people have recommended using unscented baby soap to wash the silicone materials. And when you're looking at your dishwasher detergent, preferably staying away from things like essential oils or moisturizers, these different antibacterial agents that sometimes get into soaps, all of those oils can cause like they can stick to the silicone and then it causes this kind of off taste that we perceive as being soapy.

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Or sometimes it tastes like super plasticy. So I have two dishwashers and I use one like for my regular family stuff. And then I have another one that I always run the baby stuff through. Like at the end of the day when I'm done cooking all of our baby led weaning recipes or if I've had a family over for parent coaching, the dish washing detergent that I switched to is from the company Branch Basics. So Branch Basics makes a line of non-toxic household cleaners. So for a long time I just used like the cleaners in their starter kit. Basically it's like this bottle of non-toxic soap concentrate and then you dilute it at different levels to make like a bathroom cleaner, an all purpose cleaner, a streak free window cleaner, which by the way will blow your mind 'cause there's like two drops of soap in an entire bottle of window cleaner.

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And I was like, why was I buying Windex? And there's like a ton of chemicals in there and it's so expensive when I could just take my one bottle of Branch Basic six concentrate and like basically make soap at home. So I loved the starter kit from Branch Basics to make the household cleaners for a long time, but when they came out with their dishwasher tablets, I started using those for all of my Easy Peasy products, which is all made out of a hundred percent food grade silicone. And I've never had any issues with that soapy taste. So I am an affiliate for Branch Basics. They make the non-toxic household cleaners. And I previously interviewed one of the founders of Branch Basics here on the podcast. That's way back at episode 122. It was all about the non-toxic household cleaners that actually clean the baby led weaning food mess. That was with one of the branch basic six co-founders, Alison Evans.

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Again, that's episode 1 22 if you wanna check it out. But if you want to check out the Branch basics, non-toxic cleaning products, I have a code for 15% off the starter kits. It's Katy 15. It works for everything except the trial size starter kit and I, I don't know right now if you can add the dishwasher tablets or not, but I really do like the dishwasher tablets. I also love their laundry detergent and I've switched to that as well. So like slowly over the years, branch Basic has infiltrated my life and taken over all of my cleaning supplies. So if you're having a soapy issue with your silicone feeding gear, try out one or more of those options with household stuff you already have. Or if you wanna pick up the branch basic stuff, I'll put a link to the discount code that is an affiliate code and an affiliate link in the description where you're listening to this episode.

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Or there'll be on the show notes, which you can find@blwpodcast.com slash 4 8 5. A special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out someone on the podcast from AirWave Media. We are online@blwpodcast.com. Thank you so much for listening and happy feeding. See you next time.

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