Cleaning products: round-up of natural home care.

I like to think I’m a minimalist. Part of being a minimalist is finding what works best for you and eliminating everything that doesn’t. I’ve been trying to trim down my household cleaning supplies to a few manageable, non-toxic items that I can store under my sink. I only use products that are cheap, safe, and hardworking. I want to save the planet and my wallet without skimping on the cleanliness of my home.

The following is a list of products that I’ve discovered by trial and error. It’s everything I use to keep my house clean! Anything that you can’t find at your natural grocery or pharmacy, you can buy on Amazon.com.

• Bio-Kleen’s Bac Out: this product is my go-to, all-purpose cleaner. It deodorizes and disinfects everything from trashcans to toilets, cleans stains out of carpet and fabric, can be used for an extra cleaning boost in your laundry, and leaves a pleasant, plant-like scent in it’s wake. Dilute it, and it becomes a great thing to mop your floors with.
• Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap. makes dish washing an aroma therapeutic experience and gets dishes clean and crud-free.
• Mrs. Meyer’s Stainless Steel Spray: smells lovely, leaves metal squeaky clean and super-shiny.
• Bio-Kleen’s All Temperature Laundry Liquid: gets laundry clean, even in cold water, so you can save money on the electric bill and don’t have to worry about faded clothes. It’s also hypoallergenic.
• Ecover Stain Remover: the applicator top comes with flexible plastic “bristles” so that you can scrub the product over the stain. Brilliant!
• Baking soda: mix it with essential oils to create a vacuum-friendly carpet deodorizer or sprinkle it on a surface after spraying it down with an all-purpose cleaner and it’s a scouring agent. You can also throw it in with your laundry.
• Essential oils: I keep lavender and lemon oils around to make carpet deodorizer, linen water, and furniture polish.
• Vinegar: I use this for glass cleaner and furniture polish concoctions.
• Extras: olive oil, lemon juice, rubbing alcohol (for my cleaning recipes)

Recipes (cheaper and more effective than the store bought equivalents)

Furniture Polish

• 2 T. white vinegar
• 2 T. olive oil
• a few drops of lemon essential oil
• 1 q. water
  Combine ingredients in a spray bottle. Shake before each use and use like commercial furniture polish.

Glass Cleaner

• water
• white vinegar
• rubbing alcohol (optional)
  Combine ingredients in equal parts in a spray bottle. Use like commercial glass cleaner. (Hint: Use crumpled newspaper instead of paper towels!)

Linen Water

• lavender essential oil
• distilled or purified water
  Combine in a small spray bottle. Shake before each use and spray directly on fabric.

Carpet Deodorizer

• 2 c. baking soda
• several drops of essential oil
• 1 T. lemon juice
  Add ingredients to a medium-sized bowl. Stir to combine and sprinkle on carpet. Leave for as long as possible up to twelve hours (though even leaving it on your carpet for a few minutes will help) and vacuum. Can be stored for later (preferably in a glass jar).
  

Recommended extras: at my house we also love Mrs. Meyer’s scent diffuser in lavender, her basil-scented dryer sheets (click here for my review), and her all-purpose cleaner for mopping the kitchen floor (primarily for the lovely scent it leaves behind). I don’t have a dishwasher, so if you have a favorite dishwasher powder or liquid, let me know!

Posted by: Catie

The World’s Healthiest Foods

 A nutrition class in college sparked my interest in healthy eating.  While the text book was informative, it was hard to navigate as a regular kitchen resource, so I kept my eyes open. Unfortunately the majority of nutrition books are fad or diet oriented, and I just wanted something to tell me the cold, hard facts.

I picked this book up at Costco over a year ago and have since recommended it to all of my friends who cook.  The author George Mateljan started the organic brand Health Valley and is now dedicated full-time to his foundation of the same name as this book.  His goal is to find the best way to preserve the most vitamins and best digestibility of every food.   Much of the information can be found on their website, but the book is a must-have for every health-conscious kitchen!

Things to love:  This book is intuitively organized by food group and then by individual food.  Each individual food is organized in the same manner, making it easy to follow and use as a quick reference on the fly.  Each food section has the following subsections: nutritional content, background, best way to store, best way to prepare, healthiest way of cooking, Q&A, health benefits & potential effects, and recipes.  The nutritional content for each food is more detailed than I’ve seen anywhere else, and the recipes consistently taste great.  In addition, there are several indices to aid in referencing foods by allergen, type of nutrient, medical condition, and a few others.  The book’s introductory chapters also give an overview of basic nutrition for those who are unfamiliar. I recommend “flipping” through the book on the Amazon site.

Less than perfect:  Because the book’s goal is to give the healthiest way of cooking everything, you won’t be able to cook most of your food the way you’ve been taught.  For example, frying veggies is BAD.  So be prepared to either embrace healthy, organic indoctrination or become comfortable ignoring that nutritional conscience you’ve been trying so hard to develop.  Furthermore, because George believes that an optimal amount of nutrients are absorbed with the aid of some particular combinations of foods, many of the recommended dishes take on a Mediterranean flavor.  I like this, but not everyone is a Mediterranean fan.  Fortunately, he makes other suggestions as well.  Lastly, the book is a giant paperback.  I anticipate some duct tape surgery for my copy in the near future.

Final Analysis:  This is an essential reference book for every kitchen.  The format and depth of information on each food has encouraged me to branch out and try cooking new foods as well as explore new methods of cooking common foods.  I frequently use this book “just to know” what George recommends or to find out what types of foods I should be eating for particular ailments.   This is well worth the $26 on Amazon.

Posted by: Lynnette

Mrs. Meyer’s Dryer Sheets

I was at Greenlife Grocery here in Chattanooga when I ran smack into a display of Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day products. A neat, little green box caught my eye: the basil-scented dryer sheets. Eighty sheets for eight bucks. That’s eighty loads of laundry that smell like basil-scented heaven for the low, low price of seven ninety-nine plus tax. I decided that anything that cheap that had the potential to bring that much joy into my life was worth it. This weekend I did several loads of laundry and dried sheets, towel, and clothing with the dryer sheets.

Things to love: The scent is lovely, and the aroma coming from the laundry room while the dryer is running is definitely therapeutic. The perforated sheets are paper, biodegradable, and tear into two strips so that they won’t block your dryer’s vent and the scent gets more evenly distributed throughout the load.

Less than perfect: However, the end result is very, very faintly scented fabric. My t-shirts picked up the scent better than my bamboo sheets, but even so, you have to bury your nose into them to catch the scent. I’m going to experiment with the other scents, as well as adding more sheets per load. If it turns out I do need to use a couple to get a light but noticeable effect, I think I’ll save the sheets for things like my bed linens, and jeans which I wash less frequently then towels and other items of clothing.

Final Analysis: I have found that the magic number is three–three dryer sheets will give you a perfectly scented load of laundry. A bit of a luxury, but I have to admit, walking around and smelling basil all day was totally worth it. Plus, the scent stays with you without the itchy-nose inducing floral scent you get from regular dryer sheets.

Posted by: Catie