Although the official season of Winter is still upon us, the current warm weather means early spring cleaning is already underway in some households. Why risk your family’s health and pay extra money for chemical household cleaners when you can use safe and cheap alternatives?
Here are a few reasons to choose simple alternative cleaning products
Your Health The list of potential health hazards goes on and on for household cleaners including central nervous system and brain damage, kidney and liver damage, reproductive damage, endocrine disruption, respiratory irritation, skin and eye irritation including potential blindness, cancer, and in some cases exposure to the chemicals can be acutely fatal (i.e. if you mix ammonia and bleach you create toxic chloramine gas).
Kids Health and Poisons If you have children in your home, their health will be more susceptible to chemical influences including development of respiratory illnesses such as asthma. If you have ever read the bottles of some common cleaners you may already know they can be poisonous if consumed; did you know that almost 90% of poison exposures occur in the home, and over 50% of those are from children under the age of 6. The National Capital Poison Center states “Most poisonings involve everyday household items such as cleaning supplies, medicines, cosmetics and personal care items”.
The Environment All the cleaners you put into the sink, toilet, bathtub or shower go into the sewage system, which means that vegetation, soil, and wildlife (including fish you may eat) can all be chemically polluted. Sewage can also end up in rivers and oceans that people swim in and drinking water must be treated to remove chemicals.
Bacterial Resistance Researchers from the University of Ireland found that when they added increasing amounts of disinfectant to the bacteria culture of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the bugs survived not just the disinfectant, but a commonly prescribed antibiotic (ciprofloxacin) as well, even without being exposed to it. This means that excessive use of chemical disinfectants may develop stronger harmful bacteria.
Money Locally you can buy a 1 gallon container of vinegar for around $4.00, a 1 lb box of baking soda for $2-3, and a 32 oz bottle of hydrogen peroxide for $2. You can make a bottle of your own window cleaner for about 50 cents versus $3 or $4 for the blue stuff.
Alternative Cleaning Products
- Water
- Distilled white vinegar
- Baking soda
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Borax
- Castile soap
- Cornstarch
- Tea tree oil
- Elbow grease
Instead of bleach for disinfecting just about anything from countertops to fruits and veggies use vinegar, then hydrogen peroxide. Get 2 separate spray bottles and fill one with vinegar and the other with hydrogen peroxide (do not mix the two). Spray the surface with vinegar first and wipe, then with hydrogen peroxide. In tests run at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, pairing the two mists killed virtually all Salmonella, Shigella, or E. coli bacteria on heavily contaminated food and surfaces when used in this fashion, making this spray combination more effective at killing these potentially lethal bacteria than chlorine bleach or any commercially available kitchen cleaner.
Homemade glass cleaner is cheaper and won’t put ammonia or other chemicals into the air from spraying it. The simple recipe is:
- 1/4 c. rubbing alcohol
- 1/4 c. white vinegar
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 2 c. warm water
Combine in a spray bottle, shake well, spray and wipe with newspaper. It’s okay if you are missing one of the ingredients, any variation of the 3 plus water will work very well.
If you have baked on grime from cooking on the stove or in the oven, or dirty grout then a combination of baking soda, water, and vinegar will do the trick (remember vinegar and baking soda will fizz). Mix the three components to make a paste, let sit for 10 minutes, then scrub away with a scrubby sponge or bristle brush! Not only does the concoction clean, it will also deodorize the surface. You can also follow your cleaning with a spritz of tea tree oil mixed with water (about 2 teaspoons oil with 2 cups water). Tea tree oil is naturally anti-fungal so you can slow down mildew from returning; plus your bathroom or kitchen will smell like a spa.
If you want some extra motivation to switch, go read all the caution labels for the products you are currently using (this includes “green” products, many of which can still be harmful). Why not take the extra few minutes to change for your health and pocket book? And most importantly, don’t forget the magic of plain old water and elbow grease.
Happy Valentine’s Day! To celebrate, we thought it would be appropriate to share some healthful ideas related to love. The concept of “love” may seem immeasurable, however numerous clinical studies have been conducted that measure and reveal the affects that love has on the human brain and general well being.
To reap the health benefits of love, contact does not need to come from a romantic relationship – healthy friendships, family relationships, parenting, general social contact, and self-love can all provide healthful advantages.
For expecting or new mothers, here’s an interesting case study to consider regarding loving physical contact with children.
Psychoanalytic psychiatrist Rene Spitz conducted a study which involved two groups of babies. One group of babies was cared for with good hygiene and excellent physical care but received little if any individual love or attention. This group became physically and emotionally stunted. Most could not walk or talk even at the age of four. “Within two years 37 percent … had died from infection.” In contrast, a second group of babies was cared for in a prison nursery that was “far dirtier” but received loving affection from their mothers each day. “Not a single one of the second group of children succumbed to infection during the five-year period of Spitz’s study.”
On the more romantic side of things, a US News and World Report revealed, “Those who engage in frequent sex have a better sense of smell, lower rate of heart disease, improved physical fitness (probably because they’re motivated to work out), and healthier body weight.” Don’t go jumping into bed with everyone you meet, but recognize the value that a healthy relationship can provide.
On a molecular level, the hormone Oxytocin (aka “the love hormone”) is responsible for regulating dopamine release into the brain. Dopamine is a chemical that can make you “feel good” by giving you extra energy and motivation and decreasing pain – when falling in love or having loving interactions with others these hormones and chemicals boost your feelings of well being and mood. Relaxing and having lowered stress is linked to health benefits such as a stronger immune system.
Love can be developed in many ways, here are a few tips to start today!
- Focus on a proper intake of nutrients such as selenium, iron, zinc, b vitamins and vitamin D. Deficiencies can cause changes in mood or depression, which can make it difficult to want to interact with other people.
- Make a goal to give/receive 3 hugs per day, start with 1 if you have to.
- If you have a partner, go for a walk and hold hands, this will get you a dose of dopamine from the exercise and the warm contact.
- Meditate or pray for yourself and others, which allows you to mentally focus on positive loving feelings.
- If you don’t feel you have many family or friends to rely on, volunteer in an environment where you can be around other people. Not only will you be giving care to others, you will introduce yourself to new potential social relationships.
Almost every childcare book offers the same advice about a baby’s first solid meal — start them first on rice cereal mixed with breast milk or formula. This has been received wisdom for 60 years.
But this is because in the 1950′s, baby food companies launched an advertising blitz trumpeting the benefits of white rice cereal.
But there is no scientific basis for this recommendation. None at all. And now, concerned about increasing childhood obesity, some pediatricians want to change how babies eat.
If babies are getting used to the taste of highly processed white rice and flour, it could set them up for a lifetime of bad habits.
USA Today reports:
“White rice — after processing strips away fiber, vitamins and other nutrients — is a ‘nutritional disaster’ … White rice and flour turn to sugar in the body ‘almost instantly,’ … raising blood sugar and insulin levels.”
If you want to give your baby the best start nutritionally, do not follow the advice in most baby books encouraging you to start feeding rice cereal. Other than breast milk or formula, rice is the number one source of calories for infants in the first year of life, according to Stanford University pediatrician Alan Greene, and this is a nutritional disaster.
Optimal Nutrition for the First Year of Life
Ideally, your baby should be breastfed exclusively — meaning no other food or water is supplemented — for at least the first 6 months. Then, at the age of 6 or 9 months, you can begin to supplement with solid foods (while still continuing to breastfeed as well).
Choosing what those solid foods will be is incredibly important, but unfortunately most pediatricians encourage their patients to start rice cereal at about 4 to 6 months of age. White rice is a refined carbohydrate, a group of highly processed, nutritionally devoid foods that have been linked to increased rates of heart disease, insulin resistance, eye damage and cancer in adults, and are worthless nutritionally for infants as well.
Feeding infants cereal has been associated with an increased risk of type 1 diabetes and may prime your baby’s appetite for a lifetime of processed carbs in the form of white bread, cookies and cakes.
A diet based on these types of refined carbs is responsible for many bulging stomachs and fat rolls in thighs and chins, and even worse, high insulin levels that lead to diabetes and suppress two other important hormones — glucagons and growth hormones — that are responsible for burning fat and sugar and promoting muscle development, respectively.
Insulin from excess carbohydrates promotes fat, and then wards off your body’s ability to lose that fat. Excess weight and obesity not only lead to heart disease but also a wide variety of other diseases later in life.
What Should Your Baby’s First Solid Food Be?
You can easily cross any form of grain-based infant cereal off of this list. When flour is refined to make cereal, the most nutritious part of the grain is removed, so the flour essentially becomes a form of sugar.
When you feed your baby a bowl of infant cereal, picture yourself dipping directly into your sugar bowl and feeding baby a spoon or two, because that’s essentially what it amounts to.
So what’s a better option?
Egg yolk.
According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, egg yolk should be your baby’s first solid food, starting as early as 4 months, whether your baby is breastfed or formula-fed. Egg yolks from free-range hens will contain the special long-chain fatty acids so critical for the optimal development of your child’s brain and nervous system.
However, the egg whites may cause an allergic reaction so they’re best avoided until your child is at least 1 year old.
Here’s a simple, healthy recipe you may want to try:
- 1 organic egg from a pasture-fed (free-range) chicken
- 1/2 teaspoon grated raw, frozen organic liver (optional)
- pinch natural unprocessed salt
Boil the egg for 3 1/2 minutes. Place in a bowl and peel off the shell. Remove the egg white and discard. The yolk should be soft and warm, not hot, with its enzyme content intact. Sprinkle with a small amount of natural salt.
If you wish to add liver, grate it on the small holes of a grater while frozen. Allow to warm up and stir into the egg yolk.
After that, freshly pureed, organic vegetables are an excellent option. The following foods are soft and packed with nutrition for young infants:
- Mashed avocado
- Sweet potato
- Cooked peas or carrots
A few months later, as more teeth begin to erupt and the GI tract epithelium begins to mature, you can add even more variety, including:
- Cooked greens, finely chopped or pureed, such as kale, chard, collards, spinach
- Squashes, such as butternut, acorn and other winter squashes
- Mashed asparagus
- Raw nut butters
- Seaweeds that become soft on soaking, such as wakame or nori
From there you can expand even more, including:
- Chicken, turkey or other meat (organic and pasture-raised/grass-fed preferably)
- Eggs
- Raw milk cheese or raw milk yogurt
How to Introduce Solid Foods
Your baby will give you signs that he’s ready to start eating solid foods. He should be able to sit up with support, reach for toys and mouth his hands or toys. Your baby may also begin to watch you more intently as you eat, open his mouth like you do when you eat or reach for food off your plate.
When introducing new foods, do so one at a time at intervals of two to three days. This helps your baby get used to the food and will also help you reveal any food sensitivities or allergies. Small serving sizes, even just a spoonful or two, are best to start.
As your infant gets older you can progress from pureed foods to finger foods she can feed herself, but be sure they are chopped small enough so they are not a choking hazard. Raisins, nuts, popcorn and other small foods should not be given to young infants because of the choking risk.
Be Wary of Commercial Baby Foods
I have clear memories of Gerber baby food products when my twin brother and sister (who are 11 years younger than me) were growing up. I thought that was the best food they could possibly have, and I held that impression even into medical school.
But the truth is, outside of breast milk, the best foods you can give your baby are those you prepare fresh at home. Store-bought versions just cannot compare, and often contain unhealthy ingredients your baby is far better off without.
For instance, Mead Johnson’s Enfagrow, a nutritional supplement for toddlers, is little more than fortified milk with added sugar. The first three ingredients on the label are just that: whole milk, nonfat milk and sugar. Other weaning biscuits for toddlers can contain up to 29 percent sugar or even contain trans fats, both of which are simply atrocious for adults, let alone infants.
Even organic baby foods can contain excessive amounts of processed salt, or may expose your infant to toxic contaminants like BPA from plastic containers, even if the content itself is agreeable.
When you make homemade baby food, however, you have complete control over the ingredients; no unresolved questions about potential additives, preservatives, mysterious “natural flavors,” and so on.
Yes, it may require a little more time — but in the end, it’s up to you to decide what the health of your family is worth to you.
Simply cooking a squash or sweet potato, mashing it up and putting it into an ice cube tray is an easy way to have ready-made multiple servings available for the rest of the week.
As your child gets older, he can eat most of the same types of foods that you do, simply pureed into a softer form or cut into very small toddler-sized pieces. As with your own diet, whole foods — not processed “pseudo-foods” — will give your infant the best nutritional start possible.
Sources:
- USA Today December 1, 2010
- Dr. Mercola December 20, 2010
Unfortunately, air pollution is a reality for all of us. It is produced by so many of the modern conveniences we use very day – cars, electricity and power plants (just to name a few). We are only now even beginning to understand how much of a health concern this air pollution is.
“Research consistently is finding that, when spread out over a given population, the quality of the air has a very significant impact on public health. When vehicles, factories, power plants, and other machines burn fuel, the chemicals they release into the atmosphere react with one another (and other compounds in the air) in ways that can amplify health hazards.
One major study, which followed subjects for 16 years, found that people living in cities with higher levels of fine particulates were at greater risk of cardiovascular death. A difference of 10 micrograms per cubic meter increased the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease (narrowed arteries) by 18 percent, arrhythmia by 13 percent, and cardiac arrest by 21 percent. It seems air pollutants incite processes that lead to high blood pressure, blood clotting, and electrical instability in your heart.
Air pollution might actually cause disease as well. Separate Children ages 9 to 16 who played at least three sports and lived in areas with high ozone concentrations had a 30 percent increased chance of developing asthma. And other work indicates that infants whose mothers were exposed to air pollutants while pregnant might be at a greater risk of low birth weight, pre-term birth, and even death.” – www.mercola.com
The good news is that with the use of Standard Process whole food supplements, we can assist your body in better handling the enormous number of toxins it is exposed to every day. If you are concerned about exposure to things like air pollution, please call our office for more information on the healthy, safe and effective purification programs we can help you with.
Do you know the difference between butter and margarine?
Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.
Margarine is very high in trans fatty acids.
Triples the risk of coronary heart disease.
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol).
Increases the risk of cancers up to five times.
Lowers quality of breast milk.
Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.
Margarine is but one molecule away from being plastic and and shares 27 ingredients with paint.
Pass the REAL BUTTER PLEASE!
