Green Smoothies!

I have a new morning ritual.

I love it!

So does my baby.

I think if I let him, we would drink that whole glass!

We love GREEN SMOOTHIES!

At first, I tried making up my own recipes, and I was having to choke them down, they tasted very earthy. Then a good friend, suggested adding some orange juice. It was life changing.

Then in December I saw a post on facebook, about the site Simple Green Smoothies and their 30 day challenge they were doing in January. It was free, they would send you recipes, and shopping lists! I signed up and I LOVED IT!

There were a few that I didn't enjoy, I am not a fan of avocados, or pineapple. But there were a few that were so delicious that they are now a staple in my freezer.

Green smoothies are great quick breakfasts or even a quick pick me up. There are about as many ways to make a green smoothie as there are "ratios" of greens to fruit.

If you are wanting to start doing green smoothies here are a couple tips that I have learned and have really helped me.

1. Start small. Don't jump right in with a bunch of greens to a little fruit. You won't enjoy it. Start with your fruit and then slowly add greens. I started with one cup greens to 3 cups fruit. Then after a couple of weeks, add an extra cup of greens and take away a cup of fruit, (or add and 1/2 and take away a 1/2 cup of fruit). I pack my greens down, but you can start by not packing, and then packing.

2. Prep. To make a big change in your life, prep work can help you stay on track. I like to prep all my smoothies for the week, for a quick, no thought breakfast. I use ziplocs, and store everything in the freezer. I keep prepped fruit one ziploc with anything that needs to added, ie liquid base. I also store greens in the freezer. I buy a couple of containers of greens, we rotate kale, spinach, and romaine lettuce. I measure my 2 cups packed greens and then label and into the freezer they go. No need to thaw before had, just dump and blend.

3. Blend your greens first. Starting with your liquid base, and your greens, blend them separately until completely smooth. This will help break them down, and keep you from having a lefty smoothie.

4. Have fun! Try new things and different combinations. I never thought of putting cacaco powder in a smoothie but it is now one of my favorite additives!

5. Follow this simple formula:

image from: Simple Green Smoothies

The Great Cloth Diaper Laundry Detergent Myth Busting Experiment

I am SO ridiculously excited about this experiment. Which is not like me, because I HATE HATE HATE laundry, almost as much as cleaning the bathroom...

In my post about why homemade detergent will not work, I said that I was going to do an experiment to show you that it doesn't work.

But because this experiment, most likely won't be done until the fall, I thought I would try to give some kind of regular update with it.

First off, the procedure, the most important part.

We have 13 cotton prefolds that we aren't using yet, and 15 microfiber (MF) inserts (I actually found more, but I already started the experiment... LAME)

So each load will consist of 6 prefolds, and 7 MF inserts.

Each load will be washed with a level two scoop of "detergent". The scoop I will be using if from our regular detergent.

Each load will be washed, with the following washing machine settings:
Water level: Medium
Water Temperature: Hot (machine will only do initial filling with hot, so the rinses will all be done in cold)
Wash Cycle: Quick wash (aprox. 10 min agitation cycle)

The loads will then be line dried, and every 5th washing, dried in the dryer, on high for 50 mins. (This is to save on our energy costs)

Any noticed differences in texture (feel) will be noted.

I have a spreadsheet to note the washes, dries, and any other things noticed.

We will be using the homemade detergent and Arm and Hammer Perfume and Dry Free.

100 washes each, goal is to wash twice a day, and to alternate the two loads every 5 washes or so.

When it come time for the test on how the detergent affected the absorbancy of the diapers, I will get you the details on that.

Homemade detergent, the scoop, and Arm & Hammer

Diapers drying. (I marked one load, so that if they ever get mixed, we can tell the difference)

Cleaners and Grades

Wow! I never thought I would get so many pageviews! I hope that post about using detergent helps someone! And that if that someone needs help finding a new laundry detergent, I hope with helps you too!

When I was researching a better way to wash our cloth diapers, and I looked up detergents to try on EWG.com to see how the rated.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) put out a data base of cleaners and their ingredients and graded them. From their website:

Environmental Working Group’s mission is to use the power of information to protect human health and the environment. EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning gives you practical solutions to protect yourself and your family from everyday exposures to potentially harmful chemicals. U.S. law allows manufacturers of cleaning products to use almost any ingredient they wish, including known carcinogens and substances that can harm fetal and infant development. And the government doesn’t review the safety of products before they’re sold. To fill those gaps, EWG’s staff scientists compared the ingredients listed on cleaning product labels, websites and worker safety documents with the information available in the top government, industry and academic toxicity databases and the scientific literature on health and environmental problems tied to cleaning products. They used that information to create EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning, which provides you with easy-to-navigate safety ratings for a wide range of cleaners and ingredients. (source)

I love checking out my cleaners. When we stopped making our own dishwasher detergent, we looked up different bands and the grade Seventh Generation got, made our decision easy. (Seventh Generation's Grade)

So when we were changing our cloth diaper wash routine, I looked up detergents to research. I took them to EWG.com to see how they were graded. 

I looked up Rockin' Green, and they weren't in the database, but it wasn't working for us, so I didn't really care to look up the individual ingredients.

The database has a few categories, one being laundry. When you are looking at just the laundry category, you can look at cleaners based on grade. I wanted to just look at detergents that ranked at least a "C" so I opened up a new tab for each grade, "A", "B", and "C". And then did some more research on the different brands and we decided to get Planet Laundry Detergent.

One of the most important things one our list was were we able to buy it local, We can buy Planet local and at a reasonable price. We also wanted a fragrance free detergent, and for it to be powder.

We also, picked a backup in case switching to Planet wasn't working. We decided on Arm and Hammer Perfume and Dye Free.

Here is a link the the grades for Planet, and the Arm and Hammer.

Some people claim that the EWG using arbitrary criteria for the grading scale, and if you feel that why, please read the info the EWG has, and do your own research. Always make the best decision for you, and your family. If you need to pick price over grading, that is ok, just make informed consumer decisions.

Peanut Butter and Blenders

I know we talked about nut butters last week, but I have a few quick things to add. 

1. Wonderful Man thought I needed to add that if you want make the same amount of nut butter you currently purchase, you will need to buy AT LEAST that weight in peanuts.

For example, we buy the large Adam's, which it's 36 oz. So I need about 36 oz of peanuts to make the same amount of peanut butter.

2. I got a new, and totally awesome blender for my birthday, and I can use it to make peanut butter in about 5 minutes! So if you have a professional grade blender you can use it instead of a food processor.

Here are some photos of this week's batch of peanut butter.

My new blender, the Oster Versa

36 ounces of peanuts

Blender doing its thing

Notice the volume difference between here, the finished butter and the previous picture

Can you tell which is store bought?

I did do the whole 36 ounces of peanuts in two patches, in my food processor, it would have been four. Sometimes homemade takes more time, but if you have to decided do you have time or money?

Why I Now Buy Laundry Detergent

We used for years homemade laundry "detergent". I thought I was saving us so much money.

In theory I was.

But our clothes were not "clean".

I didn't learn why, or more precisely how, until a few months ago.

Before Mr. Z was born I decided to cloth diaper, and while I was searching for a eco friendly detergent I found this.

And some pins on Pintrest on how to make cloth diaper "detergent".

Now, I am not a chemist, and I hated my chemistry classes, (except Thermodynamics and P-Chem, but I am just crazy).When on one of the cloth diaper facebook groups I am in, they were being very adamant that Rockin’ Green and other “Cloth diaper safe detergents” were just a bunch of water softeners and were not actually cleaning the diapers. I needed to do some research of my own.

The group had an article that one of the admins had written about the differences between soap and detergent. It got me thinking, and led us to switch cloth diaper detergents and our regular laundry detergent.

Now, I feel the need to let the world know that sometimes store bought is just better.

First, we will start with a basic property of water - surface tension.

The way the water molecules bond with one another, creates tension. I am sure you have noticed a bead of water on a hard surface. That bead is created because the water molecules have a greater attraction to each other than to the other surface. The tendency for the water is to stick together and not bind or mix with other objects (think of a water skipper "floating" on water) is called surface tension and is caused by the forces of cohesion.

To clean, we need to make the water “beads” spread out, or become “wetter”. (Wetting is a chemistry term that basically means to reduce the surface tension). Reducing the surface tension of the water allows for it to interact better with the cleaning agent.

Here is where the difference between soap and detergent is important.

Soaps are salts of fatty acids, usually made from animal or vegetable fats. Detergents are chemically engineered surfactants, which were developed due to a lack of vegetable and animal fats during WWI and WWII. A surfactant changes the way water molecules interact with each other, reducing the surface tension and causing the water to more easily interact with other particles.

The chemical structure of soaps makes them easily affected by the mineral content of the water. In hard water, the interaction of the salts of fatty acids (soap) with the minerals create insoluble compounds - soap scum. This same interaction is what causes, after multiple washings, ‘detergent build up’. Detergent build up is really soap scum on your clothes, towels, and cloth diapers! ( On cloth diapers it causes a whole world of problems.)

Detergents are very similar to soaps, both are surfactants. The difference with detergent is that it is less likely to interact with the mineral content of your water, and therefore less likely to form soap scum.

Let’s look at what is in homemade laundry soap; Borax, Washing Soda, Oxi Clean, Fels Naptha.

Borax is Sodium Tetraborate, and is advertised as a water softener.

Washing Soda is Sodium Carbonate, and is advertised as a detergent booster. Upon further research, it is also a water softener, as it reacts with the minerals in hard water, to help prevent the “detergent” from bonding and creating soap scum.

Oxi Clean is an oxygen based cleaner and stain fighter.

Fels Naptha is a stain fighter, but also the main ingredient is SOAP.

So, water softeners and stain fighters and soap. In theory it would work great to clean laundry, but when you only use a TABLESPOON of “detergent” it isn’t going to do anything. Maybe using a  normal about of homemade detergent would work, but then you are taking your dirt cheap “detergent” and making cost more equivalent to store bought.

Here are some numbers for you:

According to my previous post on homemade detergent, it cost $35.66 to make a batch for approximately 960 loads, which is about 4 cents a load. If we increase the amount of detergent to a normal store bought detergent level ( level 2 on a common scoop) it is about equal to 8 tablespoons. That takes our 960 load detergent down to 120 loads, and the cost up to almost 30 cents a load! Which is very close to the cost per load of store bought detergents. (Here is a list of some common detergents and prices)

Now, you might say, “Well it has been working on my clothes just fine. I don’t understand the big deal.”

The ‘Big Deal’ comes down to absorbancy. The average person doesn’t need their clothes do be doing much absorbing. But to those of us who cloth diaper, absorbency is HUGE!

I am going to run a little experiment for you. I have some cloth diapers we are not using right now, and I am going to take half and wash them 100 times with my homemade detergent. The other half I will wash 100 times with our regular laundry detergent (just the detergent no additives). Then we will use them to clean up a controlled amount of liquid, and we will see how the absorbency is different. I am hypothesizing that there will be a noticeable difference.

I hope this helps someone to understand the differences and why maybe you should just buy detergent.

If you are looking for a great more in depth explanation between the differences, go here.

Sources:

http://chemistry.about.com/od/cleanerchemistry/a/how-soap-cleans.htm

http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingswork/f/detergentfaq.htm

http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/clean_living/soaps__detergents_chemistry.aspx

http://www.20muleteamlaundry.com/about/what-is-borax/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax#As_a_water-softening_agent

http://www.armandhammer.com/fabric-care/laundry-boosters/Products/arm-and-hammer-super-washing-soda-detergent-booster.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_carbonate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OxiClean

http://www.oxiclean.com/in-wash/landing.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fels-Naptha

http://www.purex.com/products/laundry-enhancers/fels-naptha

Homemade Nut Butter

I have this friend, who is one of those “super mom’s” you hear about. She might not see herself as one, but I sure do. I look up to her.

Her house is always spotless, even when they are in the middle of reorganizing.

They eat real food, plant based meals. (I am willing to bet the most “processed” food item they have in their cupboards is rice pasta.)

They also eat gluten, dairy, and sugar free.

They don’t own a TV.

She makes everything from scratch, at least it feels that way.

She turned me on to green smoothies, something I will post about later. And has been the driving force helping me to clean up the way we eat and live.

As I am sure you know, eating whole, clean foods is expensive.  And one thing that we eat a lot of in our house is peanut butter.

One day, I went over to her house for a “cooking lesson” (we made Lara bars, there is no cooking involved). When I got there, she was getting ready to make some peanut butter, as she had just ran out that morning. With 2 kids, running out of peanut butter is a very bad thing!

In all my time of trying to budget and to find cheap ways to cook and clean in NEVER occurred to me to make our own peanut butter.

For two people, we eat a lot of peanut butter… and I buy two different kinds… Crunchy for Wonderful Man, and smooth for me (the chunks get stuck in my braces and I hate it!)

That morning, as I watched my friend make peanut butter, I was floored at how easy it was and how great it tasted.

I went home and told Wonderful Man, and he said, “Sure, but make sure it really is cheaper. And I still want chunky!”

At my local grocery store I can by bulk, unsalted dry roasted peanuts for $1.58 per pound, bulk peanut butter (the kind you grind in the store) for $1.98 per pound, and the peanut butter we regular buy, Adam’s All Natural is $5.52 for 2 lbs 4 oz or $2.45 per pound (2 lbs 4 oz = 36 oz, $5.52 / 36 oz = $0.15 per oz x 16 oz per pound = $2.45 per pound).

Buying your peanuts not in butter form is cheaper. So how much work is involved?

Not Much At All!

You do need a food processor though. No need for a super fancy one. (My friend has the best food processor ever, and it takes no time to make her stuff in it, but if you have a $5 garage sale one like I do, it is going to take a few minutes).

My $5 garage sale food processor

All you need are some peanuts and salt.

Your pour some unsalted dry roasted peanuts into the work bowl of your food processor and turn it on. Let it run until you reach the right consistency. I like to pulse mine a few times before just letting it run.

Add some salt, give the butter and other whirl in the processor, and BAM! Homemade peanut butter. Store in an airtight container.

Tips:

Because of the way food processor emulsify versus grinding, you do not have to refrigerate. I like to because it is very thin in comparison to store bought. Refrigerating helps to thicken it up a bit.

This same process can be used for almond butter, I like to toast my nuts before for a nice strong flavor. Or for you can use any nut you like for a butter spread.

Also, be sure to get UNSALTED DRY ROASTED peanuts. Oil roasted peanuts have too much oil and salted peanuts have too much salt.

If you want chunky, like Wonderful Man, pulse a few peanuts before to chop them, then add them with the salt.

Wonderful Man, approves of this new money saving change, and I love it too!

Hope you can enjoy some too!

Menu Planning

I know I have been gone for a while and more it it's time to start blogging again. I installed an so on my phone to hopefully get me writing more posts.

Instead of trying to pick up where we left off I am going to just jump in.

Menu Planning!

Do you do it?

I HAVE to. If I don't we don't eat. It isn't because we don't have food, it it's because I just stare at our cupboards unable to pick out anything.

We used to eat a lot of pasta, but recently we learned I have a gluten allergy. (Well, I have denied it for years time to suck it up and be an adult...)

Now, menu planning keeps me from cheating.

On the internet there are lots of blogs telling you how to menu plan and why. So what makes this post so unique?

Because I wrote it!

Yes- but more honestly, because menu planning is more than just a plan for what you're going to eat that week or month, how ever long you plan for. It is a great way to organize your week and dinner preparations.

Here is how it goes in our house. Sometime, usually Saturday or Sunday, I sit down and go to all my sources of recipes and pick out 5 to 6 for the week. And I write then down with page numbers or website links to recipes. (Usually this happens in a Google doc, but this week all my meals are coming from my new cookbook! So I actually write them down!)

After I have done our menu I then go back and make a grocery list, well at the same time.

Then I walk through the kitchen making sure we have everything and adding anything we might be out of.

One thing that I really like to add to my menu is a plan ahead type of note to each day. It isn't in my picture, but I like to add things like to pull out items from the freezer to defrost the night before or to soak beans to cook the next morning.

I think that last thing is the most important to keeping my week organized. It also helps prevent the "Oh no! I forgot to xyz for dinner... now what?" moments.

I hope that helps you get organized at least around dinner!

This week's menu