Archive for December, 2008
December 31, 2008
· Filed under Environmental Detox, Home and Garden, conservation, diy · Tagged chemicals, diy, eco, ecology, gardening, green, homemade, how to, insecticides, insects, natural, non toxic, plants, recipes, repellents, safe
Non toxic bug controls: Easy DIY!
Ever since I first heard that you can kill garden pests with soap, I have been experimenting with different kinds of homemade soap sprays. I have found that they all work to some degree, some better than others, some better on certain bugs and not so good on others.
My soap sprays are non toxic and easy to make. But I also have a litany of other bug killing techniques that do the trick. Some involve herbs, many don’t. All of them can be made at home with easy to obtain ingredients. All of them work beautifully.
Today I’ll tell you about a few of them that have worked for me and are easy to work with. All of these tried and true methods are good for the environment, safe for the kids or the pets and will rid your garden of plant eating bugs without destroying the foliage, the bees, the birds or the butterflies. You’ve heard of some of them, of course. I’m just hoping that maybe there’s one or two you haven’t heard of that can help you out today.
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December 31, 2008
· Filed under Environmental Detox, Home and Garden, diy, recycling · Tagged auto, automobile, car, diy, eco, green, how to, projects, recycling, toxic, vehicle, waste
Everybody knows that a regular oil change improves your cars performance, helps with gas consumption and lowers emissions but did you know that an improper oil change can negate all of these gains? According to the EPA, nearly 200 million gallons of used motor oil is improperly disposed of every year here in the USA. Horrible fact: The oil from just one oil change can contaminate one million gallons of water, which equates to a year’s supply for 50 people. Ouch.
But no one wants to discourage you from changing the oil and also not from doing it yourself. As I pointed out, oil changes improve your cars performance and doing it yourself saves a lot of money. But if you are a do-it-yourself oil changer, the EPA has provided the following guidelines to ensure the process is as clean as possible. You can read more about it at the EPA website HERE. Or you can just hang in with me, since you’re already here, for the basic guidelines.
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December 31, 2008
· Filed under Environmental Detox, Health Care, Natural Remedies · Tagged eco, ecology, foraging, healing, health, natural, plants, remedies, sickness
I get really tired of the constant noise created by Pharmaceutical companies who are trying to promote chemical based drugs to a desperately sick populace. These companies only have a vested interest in promoting their “concoctions” because you can’t patent a herb or a plant and you can’t label it and keep anyone else from selling it. In fact, they will do anything to create a lot of distractive noise so that people cannot hear the truth. And the truth is, our creator, whoever you may believe that is, gave us a planet fully loaded with everything we need. And this includes medicine for whatever ails you.
I have done a lot of posting on herb based remedies you can make yourself, saving money and limiting exposure to chemicals and additives found in store bought items. These more natural and safe remedies are just as effective as any drug you can buy because everything starts in your belief system. If you truly believe only chemicals and hard core drugs will save you, then nothing short of radiation will do the trick. But if you believe in your heart that this planet can heal you, then it will. I recently ran across a plant database on the web that grabbed me. I found out about it on Natural News and went over to have a gander. It is an “online encyclopedia” of rain forest plants and their traditional uses. There are so many I cannot get into it here. But I can say this: these plants are just too valuable to eradicate. This is my one great argument for saving this Rainforest. And after you read this, you will want to help me do that.
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December 27, 2008
· Filed under Health Care, Natural Remedies, Personal Care, diy · Tagged cosmetics, dental care, diy, health, herbs, homemade, how to, natural, non toxic, recipes, remedies, teeth, whitening
It is crazy how popular teeth whitening toothpaste has become in the past few years. All of a sudden, every toothpaste has a “whitener” and the sales of “high powered whitening kits” has passed the ceiling. The honest truth is that most of these whiteners don’t work in the short term and many take years to actually make a difference. With the chemicals in the products if you continue to smoke and drink tea or coffee, you cross out any positive effects the paste may have had. So, in the long run, they are not worth the cost.
So what will whiten teeth? We all know that you can have a professional bleaching done for a big fat paycheck and then your teeth will be thin and sensitive and require special care for your lifetime. Oh, boy, but your teeth will be whiter than they were. Still, if you go back out and smoke and drink tea or coffee, then you will begin to stain the thin and sensitive teeth you have left and then a second bleaching will be out of the question.
So what might whiten teeth without all the trouble and can be done again and again, as needed, without ruining your teeth or costing a fortune? You are going to laugh at the answer. You are going to laugh because you not going to believe that nobody told you or if they did somebody else told you that they were lieing. Johnson & Johnson and Proctor and Gamble are not about to tell you can do with a few items you already have in your kitchen. Heck, you might not buy their tooth whitening toothpaste. Have you really seen any great benefit in that toothpaste? Only those of you with fairly white teeth to begin with have actually seen any “improvement”. Everybody else, you’re just imagining it.
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December 22, 2008
· Filed under Food and Drink, Natural Cooking, Natural Remedies · Tagged cooking, healing, health, natural, non toxic, remedies, safe, sickness
This is great news. There has been a new study just completed and the results were published in the September issue of the journal, “Phytotherapy Research”. Seeing that this is a rather dry and boring publication for anyone outside of industry professionals, I thought I’d put it in plain English for my readers. This study is showing that Olive Leaf extract lowers blood pressure AND cholesterol levels. This study was performed on adult twins diagnosed with borderline hypertension. I think it might be too dangerous to study people with really high blood pressure because the study requires getting off medication and this is risky.
The study had these volunteers take 500mg of Olive Leaf extract every day for 8 weeks. During this course of treatment, their systolic blood pressure (the higher or top number of the reading) fell by 5 points on average. Other study participants took up to 1000mg a day and their systolic reading fell by an average of 11 points. I guess this proves, the more the merrier.
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December 3, 2008
· Filed under Environmental Detox · Tagged chemicals, cosmetics, green, natural, poisons, safe, toxic
We are all using a lot of beauty products. Women spend thousands on these items, from hair care to nail polish to cellulite creams. It’s true that beauty is a huge factor in the lives of women, we are expected to present a certain image in our society. If we don’t, we are written off as ugly and unappealing. So we all strive to be clean, shaven, shiny and smooth with a white smile, nice hair and a shapely body. But we aren’t naturally this way so it takes a lot of cosmetic stuff to make it so, or at least close to so.
But it would be really good idea if women starting paying more attention to the crap they rub on themselves. Most of it is exactly that: crap. Toxic, dangerous and unhealthy. You can end up trading off your longevity for a night with a fake tan and bleached blond hair. Seriously. Modern research has found that the skin absorbs up to 60% of the chemicals in products that it comes into contact with directly into the bloodstream. A lot of the female troubles that have been reported over time have to do with chemical exposure and hormone absorption through these sorts of products. Do yourself a favor. You can get pretty and stay safe at the same time. Think about detoxing your cosmetics.
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December 3, 2008
· Filed under Environmental Detox, Food and Drink, Home and Garden, Natural Cooking, recycling · Tagged chemicals, cleaning, cooking, dangers, food preparation, green, kitchen, natural, toxic
I have written posts in the past on how to green the kitchen but not everybody is ready to take every step in that direction. So even if you’re not going to go all the way green, you should at least consider detoxing. That means getting the dangerous stuff out of your kitchen and making it safe as well as clean and accessible.
Many of the products that are used in the kitchen, from cooking to cleaning, can affect your central nervous system and cause symptoms that make you think you’re going mad. When you get on edge or feel irritable, it’s not always menopause or that you lack sleep. Sometimes it’s the toxic chemicals you are spraying all over the place in pursuit of bacteria. Consider lightening the chemical load through a simple detox. Here are the steps:
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