Traveling...

The Badlands of North Dakota

Afton Mountain B&B (Virginia)

Chimney Rock, Nebraska

Little Bighorn Battlefield (Montana)

I haven't posted on this blog for over a month because I've been on an extended road trip. From Montana to Virginia to Kansas City and through Wyoming, I've attended a son-in-law's law school graduation, stayed with good friends in Missouri and visited historic sites everywhere I've been. It's been quite the adventure.

I started planning this trip months ago. My biggest worry, of course, was how I would find chemically safe places to stay overnight and gluten-free places to eat. To my amazement and relief, I had very positive experiences on both accounts. It took hours and hours of advanced planning and much vigilance while traveling, but I am now safely at home, none the worse for wear.

To find lodging, I used several different resources, including The Chemically Safer Travel Directory (http://www.safetraveldirectory.com/) and Internet searches for chemically safe (and "green") lodging. Wherever possible, I stayed with family and friends who understand the issue and were more than happy to accommodate my needs. Without exception, I called every place I was to stay the day before and reminded them that I needed a room that hadn't been cleaned the day of my arrival and, if I was to stay more than one day, that I didn't want housekeeping services while there. I also traveled with a small, room-sized air purifier, which I turned on as soon as I arrived at a new place. I have long traveled with my own bedding and towel and I always stay where I can open a window (not on a busy street, if possible). Though I had some less than positive conversations with hotel managers while searching for accommodations before the trip, every place I ended up staying turned out to be positive, with hotel staff bending over backwards to make sure I was safe and comfortable.

As for eating, I started the trip with a list of restaurants and health food stores in every location where I thought I would be safe. Because there was so much I wanted to see, I didn't have time to eat out as much as I would like to have, but that was probably better for me chemically anyway (and definitely better on my purse). I ate a lot of peanut butter and corn/rice cake sandwiches, raisins and fruit. It was a real treat to find gluten-free crackers at the Trader Joe's in Cleveland and muffins at the Whole Foods in Virginia and Omaha. One of the best investments I made before the trip was in a nice portable cooler bag from LLBean. Most of the places I stayed had at least small refrigerators, so I was able to refreeze my ice pretty regularly.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the trip was the attitude of most of the people I met when I discussed my chemical sensitivities. Without exception, everyone I spoke with knew someone else with chemical sensitivities (a family member, friend or co-worker), and many people told me that they had quit using fragranced products already. There were a few instances when I had to leave someplace because of fragrance, but if I mentioned it, the people were at least apologetic. My own attitude helped too. I went into this adventure knowing full well that there would be some places I would just have to walk out of, and I did, without making a big deal about it and without becoming too disappointed. Most of the historic sites I visited (and the graduation) were outside and not in big cities, so that was also to my advantage. I also planned the trip so that I would be visiting places on weekday mornings and during a time of year when most places are not yet busy with tourists. And I stopped at a lot of off-the-beaten-path (obscure) kind of places.

I guess one of the things I've learned about traveling with MCS and celiac disease is that I may not be able to go to some places or eat what everyone else is eating, but there is so much to see and do, so much history to learn, and so many interesting people to meet that I can have a great vacation in spite of (or maybe because of) my disabilities. I am glad to be home though. A month was perhaps a little long to be traveling. My energy really wained the last few days. So I'm trying to take it easy for awhile. Until the next adventure...

More Uses for Vinegar

I've written about vinegar before, but I found an article on the care2.com website that discusses even more uses for this old household standby. Turns out, white vinegar (which contains acetic acid) is more useful than I'd thought. Though I haven't tried all of these suggestions myself, I'll pass them along and you can try them for yourself.

Cooking
--Add a few tablespoons of white vinegar to the water when poaching eggs to help the whites stay formed. Add a few tablespoons to the water when boiling eggs, and if any shells crack, the whites won't leak out.
--Soaking leafy veggies that are wilted in cold water with a little vinegar will perk them up.
--Rub your hands with white vinegar after chopping onions to get rid of the smell. [The smell of the vinegar with dissipate very quickly.]
--When cooking vegetables from the cabbage family (i.e. broccoli or cauliflower), add a little vinegar to the water to perk up the taste and reduce the gassiness they can induce. This also works when cooking beans.

Cleaning
--Clean and deodorize the garbage disposal by mixing equal parts vinegar and baking soda and putting id down the drain. After letting this fizzing mixture sit for a few minutes, flush out the drain with warm water.
--The steam from a boiling bowl of vinegar and water can loosen caked-on food and get rid of odors in the microwave. [This is for my children who don't clean out their microwaves regularly--you know who you are;^)]
--To make a trap for fruit flies, set out a small dish of white vinegar and some smashed fruit covered with plastic wrap with some holes in it. The flies crawl into the trap, but can't get out.
--If your glassware gets spotted in the dishwasher, wrap it in paper towels soaked in vinegar, let them sit, and the cloudy deposits will rinse right off.
--Instead of bleach on tile grouting, let vinegar soak on it and then scrub with a toothbrush.
--Clean scuffed or dirty DVDs by wiping them down with some vinegar on a soft cloth.
--To remove water marks on your wood furniture [if you forgot to use coasters, as your mother probably taught you], rub the furniture (always with the grain) with equal parts vinegar and vegetable oil.

Laundry
--To clean urine out of a mattress [because children and pets do have accidents], clean it with a solution of vinegar and water and then sprinkle some baking soda onto the mattress and brush or vacuum the residue once it's dry.
--Spray vinegar onto deodorant-stained shirts before washing to remove discoloration. [Of course, if you use natural deodorants you shouldn't have this problem in the first place.] Vinegar also works to remove mustard, tomato sauce or ketchup stains.
--Add a cupful of vinegar to the rinse cycle of your wash to freshen up bright colors. Acetic acid won't harm fabrics, but it dissolves the soap residue that can dull dark clothing. It also acts as a fabric softener, a static reducer and a mildew-inhibitor.
--Vinegar will loosen chewing gum stuck to car upholstery, rugs and carpeting.

Outdoors
--Remove old bumper stickers from your car by spraying with vinegar, waiting a couple of hours and then pealing off.
--Wipe down your car windows and windshield with a 3-1 vinegar-water mixture to keep them frost-free in the winter.
--Kill weeds and crabgrass growing in sidewalks and driveways by pouring vinegar onto them. A half-and-half solution of vinegar and water can kill garden slugs if sprayed directly on them.
--To extend the life of cut flowers, add a few tablespoons of vinegar to the water in the vase, along with a teaspoon of sugar.

Pets
--Wipe out itchy ears with undiluted vinegar to keep dogs and cats from scratching at them.
--Cats don't like vinegar, so to keep them from scratching at furniture or sitting in certain areas, spray a vinegar solution onto the spot.
--For outdoor areas, soak a sponge in vinegar and place it in the forbidden place to keep cats away. If a cat likes to mark his territory, spray the area with vinegar to help eliminate the smell and deter recurrences.
--Vinegar gets rid of skunk odor on pets. Soak the animal with a half-and-half vinegar and water solution and then rinse with water.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day to everyone and especially to dear Mother Earth!

Forty years ago, on the first Earth Day, I was a freshman in college. Though I was pretty much unaware of what was going on across the nation that day, I was painfully aware of the environmental problems in my own backyard. I had dealt with some minor allergies as a child, but that first year away from home had put my health into a tailspin, as I grappled with reactions to cleaning products, air pollution and my roommate's shampoo. By April of 1970, my dorm mates had dubbed me "Puff the Magic Hive" for my chronic hives and facial swelling, and just breathing had become a daily challenge. My roommates were concerned and sympathetic, to a point. The university officials were not. Had I dropped out of school and gone home (as my doctor and parents urged me to do), I would have lost a semester's tuition and rent. (There was no clause in my housing contract allowing me to leave because of health problems.)

Those who know me know that I can be pretty stubborn, and at eighteen, education was the most important thing in my life. After all, how was I ever going to write the Great America Novel if I couldn't even make it through my freshman year in college? I did, however, drop a couple of classes (keeping only my favorites, of course) and stayed with a friend off-campus during cleaning week (the annual spring cleaning in the dorms--very, very toxic). But I have to say that by the end of April and that first Earth Day, I was actually starting to feel a little better. Spring in Utah can be beautiful, and warmer temperatures meant open windows in the dorms and in classrooms (pretty common in those pre-air-conditioned days). I took to doing most of my daytime studying on the lawn outside the dorm or sitting on a bench in the student quad, and I had long since found a quiet corner on the top floor of the library for evening study sessions.

So, even though I didn't know about that first Earth Day at the time, I had learned a lot in the previous months about chemicals and pollutants and how they affect the human immune system. I may not have been part of any environmental sit-ins or "teach-ins" (as they were called at the time), but that was the beginning of my own environmental consciousness. Sown in a time of personal peril, those seeds of eco-activism have grown to maturity for me and for the world in a way that gives me hope for the next generation. I can't bring major corporations to their knees (though I do try) or have much influence on corrupt foreign governments, but I can change the environment in which I, and the people I care for, live. And, I can teach others and help change attitudes, one person at a time. That's why I celebrate today, because Earth and the people who live here are worth it. I hope you all have reason to celebrate too.

Healthy Transportation on a Budget

In my continuing series for Earth Week on staying healthy on a budget, I have just a few ideas about transportation. It seems obvious that a major part of reducing chemicals in the air we breath involves reducing the exhaust we produce from our vehicles. Luckily, most of what we can do individually to reduce vehicle pollution also saves us money. There are many news articles and blogs this week talking about this, so I'm just going to throw out a few ideas that work for me.

1) Use public transportation whenever possible. Alas, the only public transit system where I live is by appointment only and extremely limited even then, so I generally only use public transportation when I'm visiting someone else's home town.

2) Ride a bicycle or walk. This is great exercise and we do have good bike paths here. It's just a little far between destinations and there's that problem with sub-zero weather in January, but don't let me stop you if this is what floats your boat.

3) Drive an energy-efficient car. I drive a 2002 Toyota Camry (which we bought used) that still gets between 30-35 miles to a gallon of gas with 180,000 miles on the engine.

4) Carpool to work, school and church activities. I work at home and MCS keeps me from going to most activities, so this isn't an issue for me, but I remember the days with teenagers who always had to be ferried from one place to another.

5) Plan your errands and shopping to use the least amount of gas. Try to consolidate your outings into a couple of trips a week instead of every day. Sometimes I have to go to the post office to send an urgent order to a customer, so I'll try to add another errand onto it. Also, if I'm going downtown (it's called the Gulch here) or to a large shopping center with several different stores, I park my car in one place and walk. Besides saving fuel and money, I figure that's my exercise for the day.

6) Don't make left turns. This is an idea I borrowed from UPS (the big brown trucks). They have a company policy of planning their deliveries so that they go in a big circle, only making right turns. They have found that they save millions of dollars a year by doing this. When you make a left turn you have to wait for oncoming traffic and inevitably sit and idle your engine (thus wasting precious fuel). I find that in our town there are times when I just have to make a left turn, but I try to avoid them as much as possible and it does make a difference.

7)Vacation close to home or in your own backyard. Find out what there is to see and do in your home state, city or neighborhood. One of our favorite activities is an afternoon at the state historical museum or Saturday morning at the farmer's market (where you can get those cheap local organic vegetables I talked about a couple of days ago).

Saving fuel (and thus keeping the air cleaner) is really a mindset more than anything. We don't have to deprive ourselves of fun activities; we just have to think and plan a little. And just think of what you can do with the money you save.

Heathy Housecleaning on a Budget

This is the second instalment of my earth week series on staying healthy on a budget. Like with organic foods, I forever hear the argument from people that chemically safe cleaning products are just too expensive. All I have to say to that is hogwash.

First of all, if you really want to do this right, get into your broom closet and under your kitchen and bathroom sinks and take out all those cleaning products you use. I'm guessing, if you're like I used to be, you have quite a number of items, which may include: spray glass cleaner, countertop spray, anti-bacterial wipes, toilet bowl cleaner, furniture polish, powdered cleanser, liquid cleanser, tile cleaner, shower scrub, carpet spot cleaner, oven cleaner, lime remover, chlorine mold spray, etc., etc. There are so many products on the market (and they have such cute advertisements--oh, those funny scrubbing bubbles!). Well, I'm about to make your life a lot simpler, not to mention less expensive, if you just follow some simple suggestions.

1) Go for multi-function and cut out all the unnecessary items. For the perfect (and cheap) all-purpose spray cleaner, mix vinegar with water (1 part vinegar to 2 parts water for most applications; 1 to 1 for tougher jobs) in a good spray bottle (available for $4.95 at Target). Label the bottle and use on windows, mirrors, countertops, and any other smooth waterproof surface, including your stove top.

2)For tub and tile surfaces and your toilet bowl that may need a little bit of abrasion, mix a little baking soda with water and scrub with a sponge. Or, try the following recipe:

2 cups baking soda
1/2 cup castile soap (Dr. Bronners works well)
4 teaspoons vegetable glycerin (works as a preservative)
5 or more drops essential oil (optional), like tea tree,, rosemary or lavender
Mix together and store in sealed glass jar for up to two years. Add more of the liquid soap or a little water to get the consistency of most store bought softscrubs.

Or, if you don't want to mix your own, Ecover makes a good softscrub cleanser and Bon Ami is an effective (and not very expensive) natural dry cleanser.

3) Buy a couple of microfiber dust cloths (available at K-Mart, WalMart, Target, etc.) and dust weekly. Wood furniture does not need regular waxing and most furniture sprays only make the wood attract more dust. If your fine wood is drying out and needs a little help, try using plain beeswax or beeswax mixed with a little olive oil rubbed in with a soft cloth.

4) To battle mold and germs, replace all those anti-bacterial products with one of the following sprays (mixed in good spray bottles and well-labeled):

A. 2 ounces tea tree oil mixed with 32 ounces water
Use on hard surfaces in kitchen and bathroom or around windows.

B. 50 drops GSE (grapefruit seed extract) mixed with 32 ounces water
This can be sprayed directly into the air (but not at people, please) as an air cleaner.

Yes, tea tree oil and GSE are expensive, but you don't need very much and these spray bottle mixtures will last you up to a year, because you don't need to use them very often if you're using the other products I suggested on a regular basis. Which leads me to the last suggestion:

5) Clean regularly and teach other household members to clean up after themselves. The beauty of using safe cleaning products is that they are safe for everyone to use. Even a four-year-old can clean a window with vinegar spray, and by seven he can be scrubbing the bathtub. Keep a pile of rags (a good way to use up old t-shirts and pajamas) under every sink to be used for spills and muddy footprints. Just plain water works fine in many cases.

Though Proctor and Gamble and the Johnsons would like us to believe that we NEED all their cleaning products, the truth is that we don't. Life can be so much simpler and healthier without them and every bit as clean.

[Note: if you have a particularly tough cleaning problem that I haven't addressed above, please feel free to email me and I'll help you find a safe solution.]

Eating Organic Foods on a Budget

Happy Earth Week to everyone! As this is the week (and Thursday, the day) we celebrate our beautiful earth, I'm going to use this blog to propose some things we can do to make the earth a healthier place for everyone.
One of the arguments I get from people all the time is that all the things we can do to protect the earth and ourselves--eating organic foods, using safe cleaning products, using less fossil fuels, etc.--are too expensive. Who can afford to live this way? Well, I'm going to give you all some ideas that I hope will motivate you to at least try some of these things. Because, as I have learned from my own and others' experiences, it really is cheaper in the long run to go earth-friendly.

To start off with, let's talk about eating organic foods, which protect the earth and our health by not using poisonous chemicals in the growing process. I will admit that if you walk into your local Safeway store you will find that a pound of organic bananas costs more than a pound of the inorganic ones (about 30 to 40 cents more sometimes), but there are some things you can do to save money and still eat healthy. Here are some suggestions I found on wikihow.com.

1) Buy food items in their raw, unprocessed form and cook from scratch. Processed organic foods (like crackers and bread) are really expensive, but buying the ingredients (organic, of course) and making your own from scratch is often cheaper than buying the same item in processed inorganic form. And, believe me, once you've made the same recipe a half dozen times, you'll be able to do it so quickly, you'll hardly notice the difference in the convenience. I always make a full batch of muffins, biscuits, etc. and freeze them individually for eating on the run (not a good way to eat, but inevitable sometimes).

2) Buy in bulk. Every health food store and many chain stores (like Safeway) have organic food in bulk bins. And don't forget Costco and other discount stores, which sell organic rice, beans and even raisins in bulk packages at prices equivalent to the non-organic.

3) Buy in season. Apples are harvested in the fall, oranges in the winter months and summer squash by mid-July, so it makes sense that these items are going to be at their least expensive when they are at their most plentiful. They are even more inexpensive at the end of the growing season. I bought organic oranges last week for 79 cents a pound and in December I was buying organic apples for even less than that.

4) Buy locally. Some of the cheapest organic produce I buy is at our local farmer's market every Saturday from May through October, and most health food stores sell local produce and meats as well. Local is almost always cheaper when it comes to organic.

5) Befriend an organic gardener or farmer. Come to my house in August and you can have all the zucchini you want.

6) Choose the foods that it is advisable to only ever eat organically, which include the following:
beef, chicken and pork
dairy products
strawberries, raspberries & cherries
apples & pears
tomatoes
spinach & salad greens
coffee
potatoes
peaches, nectarines & apricots
grapes
celery
peppers, green & red

7) Grow your own. If you have the time and space, this can be the best way for you to have organic vegetables. If you plant a large garden, this can require a significant outlay of cash at the beginning of the season for seeds, organic fertilizer and gardening equipment, but the payoff at harvest time can be phenomenal. You will also have to have some way to preserve the food if you want to save some for the winter months, but a good freezer or several dozen quart jars and a pressure canner will provide food storage for many years.

8) Remember that Rome was not built in a day. Most of us come to healthy eating one step at a time. The important thing is to make that step. Maybe this year you start with shopping at your farmer's market or growing some herbs in pots on the back porch. Every healthy food you eat is one less unhealthy food you eat, maybe more, because, at least for me, healthy food tastes better and makes me feel better, so I'm not as inclined to overeat. Plus, I have less desire for the really expensive snack foods, like chips and ice cream (well, maybe ice cream sometimes).

Happy organic eating!

Random Thoughts

The US Census Bureau has had a major computer glitch, so I haven't had much census work to do this week. Some interesting things have come through my email that I thought I would share.

There's a great checklist for a safe and healthy home over at the Environmental Working Group (one of my favorite websites).

May is MCS Awareness Month and MCS America has some great information you can pass on to family and friends, including some one-page handouts, which I intend to mail to all of my family members.

The buzz on the internet is that Congress is poised to reform the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), an antiquated law passed in 1976 which does little to control the use of toxic chemicals in products we use every day. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE contact your senators and representatives and tell them how important it is to you personally that they reform this law.

This week's "well duh" headline: "Exposure to air-polluted environment impacts children's health..." Actually the ensuing article (a news release from the University of Southern California dated April 6, 2010) was very interesting, especially this statement: "In a study that looked at statistics on children's health in Southern California communities, researchers found that those who attend schools near high-traffic areas are 45 percent more likely to develop asthma..." No surprise there, but it's nice to have scientific backing. The study was reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

And finally, I hope everyone reading this is enjoying spring, because here in Montana it is definitely still winter--cold and snowing today.