I was asked by a customer this week about carting in some food, drinks and smoothies to a family member in hospital and my best recommendations for doing this safely. You would be surprised to know that you can do most of this with the one product, so today's blog post is dedicated to what I think is the most versatile water bottle in our store, the Klean Kanteen Wide Mouth Insulated bottle.

Why do I think it's the most versatile water bottle we sell? It's a great multi-tasker and has one feature that's really hard to find in both water bottles and insulated food jars… NO plastic touching your food or drink. Here's a run down on the features and the many uses of this bottle from Klean Kanteen.

Insulated Water Bottle

Let's start with the obvious, it is an insulated water bottle capable of holding both cold and hot liquids. The only restriction to this is that the bottle is not capable of holding fizzy drinks, only still drinks. So it's perfect for still water, an organic tea, hot chocolate or coffee, but something fizzy like kombucha should be stored in one of the bottles with the growler lids. Also be mindful that when placing boiling hot water in any insulated bottle or flask, you can create a little vacuum and the lid can be a bit harder to unscrew so allow your hot drinks to drop a couple of degrees before closing the lid.

Insulation time is up to 6 hours for hot drinks and 24 hours for cold drinks. For hot insulation, to get the best results, pre-warm your bottle with boiling water, then tip it out and then fill with your hot bevvie. The more you open the lid, the less insulation you'll get. If you don't fill it, your insulation time will also decrease a little. These facts are true for any insulated product, not just this one.

Ours come with a travel mug lid

Finding a travel mug with vacuum insulation, a stainless steel interior and a leakproof sipper lid can be a tall ask, and unfortunately it is with the current model of the Klean Kanteen insulated range too. However, every stainless steel travel mug on the market with a leakproof lid has a bpa free plastic lid and it's always touching your hot drink. We give you TWO lids. For transporting, you have a screw lid that's leakproof and has a stainless steel underside, so there's no plastic touching your hot drink. When you're ready to drink, swap to the bpa free travel mug lid and your hot drink touches plastic for a minimal amount of time.

Use it in place of a Thermos flask

A thermos flask is traditionally used to carry hot liquids, and in the Thermos brand, their lids have a push button system to allow you to pour the liquid out without removing the lid, thus, helping you retain heat inside the flask for as long as possible. If you only need to use one once in a blue moon, this insulated bottle will do the job just fine. While you don't have the fancy lid, you do have one with a stainless steel underside so there's no plastic touching your hot bevvie.

Use it as an insulated food flask

If you're using them daily, then having a separate thermos food jar and insulated drink flask is a great idea. If you don't need one too often, this bottle has a wide enough opening to get a spoon inside. Whether it's chunky soup or leftover casserole in winter, or some fruit salad or yoghurt in summer, you get up to 6 hours hot insulation and these flasks can be used for food as well as drink. When you consider that they function better when they're full, the smallest 12oz size can be perfect for a small meal for one and the narrower opening (when compared to a food jar) means your insulation will be just at little more effective.