Have you seen these?

I guess I'm behind the times, but I didn't know about these little things until we had an energy audit done by the gas company recently. They are little foam pads that you place inside the outlets on your exterior walls to insulate them. I just purchased a pack of 6 for $1.97 at Lowes. The energy auditor said they would pay for themselves in no time with energy savings. Find them with the weather striping and insulating supplies at your hardware store. They also have them to fit light switch plates.

The exterior walls of your home should be completely filled with insulation, but the outlet box itself takes up most of the wall space leaving very little insulation between it and the outside wall. Also, if you have sheet insulation instead of blow-in insulation in the exterior walls it's very likely the installer didn't get the little spaces around the outlet filled in very well. On a cold day feel the outlet cover and then the wall beside it. If there is even a little difference in the temperature you are loosing heat (or air conditioning) through the outlet. On the day we had our energy audit, despite the fact we have nice blown-in insulation in the walls, there was nearly a 10 degree difference in the temperature of the outlet and the wall right next to it. All these little "holes in the envelope" suck the warmth right out of your home through conductivity even if they aren't drafty. Most rooms have at least one outlet on every exterior wall. Some of my rooms have several.

These inexpensive foam pads can help quite a bit and only take a minute to install. Who doesn't want to save money on their heating and cooling bills for years to come?

Just remove the outlet cover with a regular screw driver, place the foam pad inside and replace the cover. You will normally just install these in exterior walls unless you know that wiring for interior wall outlets goes through an uninsulated attic space (through a garage or above attic insulation) which can conduct heat or cold temps through the conduits to your outlet.

While you are at it, be sure and check the insulation on your attic hatch. You can loose 10% of heat in your home through a non (or poorly) insulated attic hatch. That's a lot of money and it's an easy fix anyone can make for $5-10.

Eco Friendly Laundry part 1: Washing

 
For years I have been giving away my recipes and tips for eco friendly and money saving cleaning products to anyone who wants them. In fact, I offer my best ones on my website for all to share. But in all this time I haven't had many converts that I know of. I can personally vouch for how inexpensive and easy they are to make and how wonderful they are to use and how they surprisingly work better than all those nasty smelling, harsh expensive, commercial products I bought for years. But I've always just touted the benefits.

What I have failed to do all these years is the fire and brimstone preaching equivalent of gaining converts. I've never bothered to use the scare tactics of harsh reality. And truthfully, that's not my style and I don't really want to start now. But there are a few facts that you ought to know about the products that you are bringing into your home and using in your own personal environment, on your garments, on your bedding and towels and dinner napkins and everything else in your home that you and your family are in nearly constant contact with day in and day out.

This is the first in a five part series on Eco Friendly Laundry.

I must admit that I don't make my own laundry detergent. It's not quite as easy to do as making some other products if you like liquid detergents though it is possible. Dry laundry soap is easier to make, but me and my machine prefer liquid so I buy it. Read on for my recommendation.

FACT:  Did you know that makers of laundry soap, softeners, bleaching agents, household cleaners, etc are NOT required by law to disclose what their products contain? Nope, they aren't. They may list some of the ingredients on the bottle, but they don't have to fully disclose what's in there. Sometimes they are protecting their secret recipes. Sometimes they just don't want you to know. Most eco-friendly brands voluntarily list ALL of the ingredients.

LAUNDRY SOAP vs.  LAUNDRY DETERGENT:

Most commercial laundry cleaning products are DETERGENTS.  Detergents by definition are petroleum based. Petroleum based products are slow to biodegrade. SOAPS on the other hand are plant based. They biodegrade much more quickly. Eco friendly laundry cleaning products are generally soap.

The used water that drains from your washer doesn't just go to the treatment plant to be treated and then returned to the system. Waste water treatment is not a closed system. Some water is released back into the environment and the treatments used cannot break down many of the chemicals used in making laundry detergents. They are released into an eco system that is not designed to deal with them. The water that is not released back into the environment does go right back to you and all your neighbors.

Eco-friendly brands contain highly effective plant based enzymes or ethanol instead solvents for removing stains. Solvents are harsh on the eco-system (your family is part of the eco-system). Traditional detergents also usually contain synthetic fragrances many of which have been proven harmful to marine life or have been found to be carcinogenic. The big commercial brands are heavy on surfactants some of which can mimic hormones in the bloodstream or can damage the immune system.

SIDE NOTE: Thankfully, the use of phosphates in laundry detergents has been banned for some time, but they are still used in some of your other cleaning products such as dishwasher detergent. Phosphates are basically fertilizer which end up in waterways causing excess growth of algae and water plants which deplete the oxygen and kill fish and wildlife. Phosphates are so bad that several states are now adopting a voluntary ban on them in dishwasher detergents as well.

I know you aren't ingesting your laundry detergent, but putting anything on or against your skin can cause it to enter your bloodstream if the particles are small enough. That's why applying a muscle rub like Aspercreme topically can ease the pain of the underlying muscles by sending the asprin it contains right to the effected muscles. That's why taking a nice hot bath with Epsom salts can almost magically sooth sore muscles. The magnesium in the salts enters your bloodstream. Sure, you can also take a magnesium supplement, but soaking in a bath of magnesium salts gives your skin direct contact all over your body and works much faster than ingesting the magnesium. Any residue left from your laundry products is on your clothes, your towels, your bedding, the air you breathe and some of it can certainly can enter your body.

Got your attention now?

BUT . . .

You've been using the same detergent for years and you know how it works, you like how it smells, you can pick it up while you shop for groceries . . . .

OR . . .

You buy whatever is on sale or you have a coupon for and those swishy eco-friendly products are more expensive and there are never any sales or coupons.

OR . . .

How can these things even clean well if they are so "gentle" to the environment?

To the first and last argument, I say just give it a try. When I tried it I was very pleasantly surprised because even though I was using less of the concentrated formula and it was unscented my clothes looked and even smelled cleaner. The brand I buy is available in almost every grocery store chain.

To those worried about your budget, take a look at the number of loads that the expensive little bottle of eco friendly detergent will wash. Compare price per load rather than price per container. And go on-line and you'll very likely find a coupon to print off. My favorite brand has an on-line coupon club. If your sale brand still comes out ahead in the price department consider if those few cents per load are worth it.

And what is my favorite brand? For years I have been using Seventh Generation. It's one of the most available brands out there so you're sure to be able to find it. I liked it so well from the start that I admit I haven't tried many other brands. It works equally as well on delicates as it does on dirty gardening clothes and my sweaty TaeKwonDo uniform so it's the only thing I buy. It comes in liquid and powder and does go on sale sometimes.

I did also try the Costco brand of eco-friendly detergent. The price was nice but I was highly disappointed to discover it contained a lot of synthetic fragrance.

P.S. I also use Seventh Generation dishwashing liquid. They also have a wonderful Blog and if you become their friend on their Facebook Page you'll receive an update every time there is a new post.

Check in next time for the second post in the five part series which will be on bleaches.

Kitchen Tip: Save time and money!

In our home we have a lot of stir frys since it's a great, quick way to feed the family a little protein and several servings of vegetables. Since my husband likes to eat low-carb, he can have the stir fry and the rest of us add rice or noodles. The money saving part comes in by buying large family packs of chicken or inexpensive cuts of lean beef at the supermarket or warehouse store and using small amounts of meat and a lot of vegetables in each stir fry. So, what do I do with those large packages and how does this save time?

I pop the whole package, as is, into the freezer for an hour or two to firm it up for cutting into very thin slices. When it is partially frozen, it cuts very easily. I rinse the meat and then slice the entire package and put the slices into a large bowl. I then add all the ingredients that I would normally add for a stir fry marinade. For a couple of our favorite recipes, look below.

Leave just enough in the bowl to use for that night's dinner. Cover the bowl and put it in the refrigerator to marinate for an hour or more. The rest gets divided up into quart size freezer storage bags in portions large enough for your family. Seal the bags carefully pressing out all the air and pat the bags flat so they freeze quickly. Freeze them right away. The meat will marinate as it thaws when you are ready to use it for a quick, healthy family meal. On a busy night, half the work of meal prep will already be done for you and you save time in general by prepping everything for several meals all at the same time.

Pictured above:  Citrus Chicken Stir Fry with yellow summer squash, white onion "petals" and delicate enoki mushrooms.

CITRUS CHICKEN STIR FRY MARINADE

adjust the amount of each ingredient according to the size of the batch and your family's taste

fresh orange juice

low sodium soy sauce

fresh ginger, minced

green onions, sliced

pepper, optional

small amount of fresh orange or lemon zest (for more citrus flavor)

SAVORY BEEF STIR FRY MARINADE

adjust the amount of each ingredient according to the size of the batch and your family's taste

low sodium soy sauce

small amount of rice vinegar

oyster sauce

fresh garlic, minced or sliced very thin

fresh ginger, minced

green onions, sliced

drizzle of roasted sesame oil

pepper, optional

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To Prepare Stir Fry:

Thinly slice vegetables of your choice and have them ready to add to the stir fry.

Heat a wok or large frying pan and quickly saute the marinated meat in a small amount of peanut or canola oil. Add vegetables one by one according to how long they will take to cook--for instance, the delicate, straw like, enoki mushrooms in the stir fry pictured above were added just before the heat was turned off. Do not overcook the vegetables. This can take some practice, but it always tastes good anyway. If you want to thicken the sauce with cornstarch mixed with water, do this at the end. Optional:  top with chopped peanuts, green onions or pepper flakes.

Serve with rice or noodles if you like. For a nutrition boost I usually serve it with fragrant brown basmati rice, brown jasmine rice or very quick cooking buckwheat soba noodles if I forgot to start the rice 40 minutes early (brown rice takes longer than white rice to cook).

Enjoy,  Sue