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Friday, July 17th, 2009
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naturalliving
[ passerina ]
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4:27p
washing soda residue on my clothes! or something.
When my natural laundry detergent wasn't seeming to cut it (thanks to exceedingly hard water), I added borax to the wash cycle. It worked great, but my husband happened to come down with a case of psoriasis shortly after starting it, and I thought maybe he was allergic to borax. So I switched to washing soda.
More and more often, however, my clothes are coming out with a grainy, almost waxy gray residue that seems like washing soda. It is different from the detergent build-up that caused me to start using laundry boosters in the first place. I always always always use at least 1/4c white vinegar in the final rinse cycle, but it doesn't seem to be helping in this case.
Have you ever experienced this problem? The tragic thing is that sometimes it seems to pull dye out of clothes in spots. And where it doesn't pull out dye, it just leaves a filmy residue that dulls the color. I have not been successful in rinsing it out. I tried filling up a washtub with water and vinegar and agitating the ruined clothes, but once they dried they were still the same. I thought the problem was that the rinse cycle of the cheap laundromat machines wasn't rinsing well enough, but this time we used a side-load machine that had 3 rinse cycles, and it still happened.
The water in the town I recently moved to is much softer. It's not soft water, but it's not hard as rock like our last place. Do you think that washing soda should not be used in situations where the water is not terribly hard? Or am I doing something wrong? Adding too much? (I add less than the box recommends. It recommends 1/2c, but I don't fill the measuring cup full.)
I can't wait to get back to washing my clothes by hand. When I was washing everything by hand, our clothes were always rinsed well enough and always felt and smelled clean. But the wringer ruined our knit clothes (and most of our clothes are knit), so I am thinking about buying a little spin dryer. Until then, we're at the laundromat. Dealing with alternating problems of detergent build up and washing soda buildup. And paying for it!
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naturalliving
[ crazycatlady76 ]
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4:12p
Figuring out if a food source is sustainable and organic?
I want to do an experiment on the feasibility of eating sustainable, organic, local ethical foods on a typical time and money budget when you don't live in southern California, but I don't really know how to evaluate my food sources. Local and ethical are fairly obvious and easy to evaluate, but I sustainable and organic are pretty nebulous terms with variable definitions. I know I should start with local farmers and ask about how they raise their critters or crops, but what should I ask or be looking for?
Also, how do you prioritize the different characteristics of the food? Is it better to buy non-organic stuff from the guy 10 miles up the road, or organic stuff from a couple states over? I think this is going to be a pretty major issue, given that I live in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and there are many things that either aren't grown at all or aren't grown organically/sustainably in our region.
I really want to do this, but getting started just seems really overwhelming.
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naturalliving
[ seeinglife ]
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2:46p
Snack bar to imitate a trail mix
I like to snack on this delicious "7th Heaven" trail mix that a store in the town I live in sells in its bulk bins. However:
- It's expensive.
- I'd like something more cohesive, even a crumbly sort of bar.
- I'd like to take out some of the dried fruit and reduce the choc. chips to make it lower glycemic, and increase the almonds for more protein and calories.
- I just moved, and now instead of living less than 1/4 of a mile away from this store, I now live what I would call a not walkable distance from this place.
The ingredients I particularly enjoy in this are the almonds, the coconut shreds, the dried cranberries, and the teeny chocolate chips, so I'm looking for those to be the main, if not the only, ingredients, with as few other ingredients as possible.
Most "health bar" "energy bar" "meal bar" "granola bar" or "snack bar" recipes I see either have far too much sugar or other sweetener, are basically a slightly less sweetened cookie bar with some healthy stuff in it which is gonna mess up my blood sugar, use a TON of dried fruit which again jacks up the glycemic index, etc. Not enough protein w/o protein powders or unfermented soy of some kind that my body hates, or they're just plain too low calorie. I'm trying to sustain myself, not lose weight!
I am thinking to maybe coarsely grind some almonds in my heavy ass meat grinder (should work well), make it into a paste with coconut milk, knead in lots of dried cranberries and a few dark chocolate bits, and press it into a pan and bake it into a bar like format. Does anyone have any experience with this and think it would work, not work, suggest a starting point for ratios or baking temp and time?
Nutritionwise, do you think that if I go easy on the cranberries and dark chocolate bits and heavy on the almond and coconut milk, this will be a food that won't give me blood sugar spikes and resultant crashes?
ETA
I should mention that I'm really not looking for a granola bar type food... honestly looking for something grainless, with as few ingredients as possible, preferably no added sweetener, esp. not honey, to which I have an allergic reaction to 2/3 of the time. :/ I'm looking for a HIGH protein and fat to carbohydrate ratio, with no restrictions on fat content, because this is what makes me feel healthiest as a general diet.
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