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Natural, Non Toxic Cleaning

May 4, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

A vast majority of cleaners have varying levels of toxicity. Not only can these cleaners seep in through your skin, you can also breath them in. Even many that are advertised as “green” can be quite toxic. Non toxic cleaning with essential oils and other natural substances can be just as effective if not more, pose no danger and smell divine.

Here are some simple formulas for the basic cleaning supplies you may need:

All Purpose Cleaner: Put 1 tablespoon of mild dishwashing liquid (or a good squirt) and 5 drops of lemon essential oil into an empty spray bottle and fill with water. Shake and use.

Floor Cleaner: 1/4 cup of distilled white vinegar, a quart of water and about 7 drops of lemon essential oil.

Window/Glass/Mirrors Cleaner: Put one cup of distilled white vinegar into a spray bottle and fill the rest with water (leaving some room at the top). Add 10 drops of lemon essential oil. Shake and use.

Toilet, sink, tub and shower cleaner: 3 cups of water plus 3 teaspoons of tea tree oil in a spray bottle. Shake. Spray on the surface and let it sit for 20-30 minutes and then scrub. It will clean easily and disinfect.

Also:

To make your laundered clothes smell incredible, put about 10 drops of lemon or peppermint or lavender essential oil onto a clean washcloth and put it in the dryer with your load of cleaned clothes to be dried.

You can add 20 drops of eucalyptus essential oil to your laundry detergent when washing bedding and this will help to kill and dust mites. Another option is using tea tree oil which has disinfecting properties.

You can deodorize your vacuum cleaner by putting some lemon or peppermint essential oil onto a small portion of tissue and vacuum it up. Do it just after changing the bag or emptying it and it will last until you dump it out again.

Here is an article with even more information: https://greatist.com/health/27-chemical-free-products-diy-spring-cleaning

Realize that non toxic cleaning is far more important than you may realize. More to tips come.

Be Kind to Your Spine

April 1, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

Tens of millions of people suffer from chronic back pain and they spend over 50 billion dollars on pain meds per year. That should give you some idea of how important it is for good spine health.

The number of people experiencing back pain, back injuries and back surgeries has grown to astronomical levels. Helping people with back problems is big business these days, between Chiropractors, Spine Surgeons, Spine Centers and Specialists, Acupuncture and Massage.

When you are younger, you don’t even think about it. Body-wise you often feel somewhat invincible. But it is not uncommon that injuries (both minor and major injuries) which occur when you are younger cause wear and tear on the connective tissue, discs and brain and are often paid for sorely later in life.

There has been quite a bit of news about the long-term effects from sports injuries. Concussions that can cause long-term brain damage as well as other spinal and neurological disorders can cause disabilities that one may have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Be smart about it – take good care of your spine and prevent what could otherwise end up as very painful situations later. Here are some basic tips:

* When lifting heavy things, keep your back straight and use your legs and arm muscles to lift.

* Avoid brutal sports that are more prone to serious damage to your spine, connective tissue, brain and nervous system.

* Practice good posture – don’t hump over a computer for long hours – keep your back and neck straight as much as possible.

* Exercise and strengthen your back and core muscles with safe exercises done at least 3 times per week. I will post some of the best back exercises that you can do – coming soon.

Whether you are young, old or somewhere in between – this is important for everyone. Your spine is fairly delicate and the entire nervous system for the body runs through the spine. Take good care of it so it can perform well and last you a full lifetime.

Cleaning with Essential Oils

March 25, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

Cleaning with essential oils in wonderful. In my opinion they work better than any cleaners you could buy, they are non-toxic, have disinfectant properties and shine things up beautifully. I recommend using a glass container or a glass spray bottle and labeling them clearly so you don’t mix them up.

Here are a few simple formulas you can use:

All Purpose Cleaner: 30 drops of lemon, lime or orange essential oil, 2 cups of water and 2 cups of white vinegar. Pour ingredients into a spray bottle and shake. Spray surface for cleaning, wipe with wet rag and then a dry towel.

Mop Solution: Start with a gallon of hot water, add 1 cup of white vinegar and 20 drops of lemon, lime or orange essential oil. Mop away.

Window Cleaner: Mix 1/2 cup of white vinegar, 1/2 cup of rubbing alcohol, 10 drops of lemon or lime essential oil and 1 teaspoon of corn starch. Combine in a spray bottle and shake. Spray onto windows or mirrors and wipe with paper towel or lint free rag.

Dusting Solution: Combine 1 1/2 cups olive oil, 1/2 cup of white vinegar and 50 drops of lemon or orange essential oil. Spray on furniture and buff with a dry, lint free cloth.

Carpet Deodorizer: One 8 ounce box of baking soda, mix in 5 – 10 drops of peppermint or lavender essential oil. Sprinkle lightly over carpet and let it sit for 30 to 60 minutes and then vacuum up.

Fabric Softener: Mix 1/2 cup of white vinegar and 3-5 drops of lavender essential oil. Put into the rinse cycle.

Sink/tile/grout scrub: Mix baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and 10 drops of tea tree oil to form a paste. Use a scrub sponge or brush and scrub and rinse.

For more information, you can visit a lovely website called We Got Real – https://wegotreal.com/cleaning-essential-oils/

And there is a book that you can buy and download that has a ton of wonderful formulas for cleaning with essential oils: https://www.mommypotamus.com/lp/diy-non-toxic-cleaning-supplies/

New Fibromyalgia Book

March 23, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

For several years I have been working on writing a book about recovering from Fibromyalgia. Based on 15 years of research and study about what might be causing it and how to recover my health. After reading a ton of books, visiting numerous clinics, following many different treatment protocols with different drugs, diets, supplements and exercises, I have composed a summary of findings of what improved my health and eased the symptoms.

Unfortunately the drug companies, with their big budgets and huge profits, spend much more on advertising than on research to find the cause and cure. Most of the promoted drugs to treat Fibromyalgia have side-effects that I just couldn’t tolerate. And at best they only serve to mask the problem rather than fix it.

There are however solutions that do improve symptoms and ways you can recover your health. There isn’t a one shot cure, at least not that I have found. It takes some real determination and persistence. It also takes an intelligent assessment of what’s important and the best sequence with which to address the complexities of this illness.

My hope is that I can help ease the suffering that so many people with Fibromyalgia go through. If I can help ease the pain for my fibro-friends by providing helpful information, then I will have accomplished something truly worthwhile.

The book will be coming soon, a few weeks from now and will be pushing on Kindle. I am doing a final editing to make sure it is streamlined, easy to read and full of pearls of wisdom gleaned over my 15 year battle with this chronic illness.

Meanwhile, some information is available on my website: https://fibro-free.com/

Shopping Healthy on a Budget

March 21, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

You don’t need to buy everything from Whole Foods to get high quality organic foods and products. I do occasionally go to Whole Foods, but it is usually to only pick up a few choice items. There are much more economical means of shopping healthy to stock your fridge and pantry on a tight budget.

Local Farmer’s Markets can be a good option for shopping healthy while supporting your local farmers. Find out if you have one in your town or a nearby town and try to frequent it each week. Look for any organic produce or for those items on the clean 15 list that aren’t vital to get organically grown.

Amazon Pantry is a great option to buy some products. There are more and more organic and healthy products being offered through this service. You order and try to fill a box for one low shipping rate and it is delivered right to your door. It’s really convenient and mostly low prices. You can read about it and use it through this link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/pantry/info/

Walmart now offers numerous organic options at low prices. I can get chicken and turkey meats that are hormone and antibiotic-free, organic olive oil, broccoli, cauliflower, baby spinach, carrots, celery, almond milk, onions, apples and more at the local Walmart in a small Texas town.

Costco is offering more and more organic items, including organic chicken, eggs, beef, numerous fruits and veggies in the produce section as well as in the frozen foods section, making this another great option for shopping healthy.

Trader Joe’s, Sprouts and other health-food-oriented stores often offer lower prices on many of the healthier natural and organic products and produce.

Local grocery stores vary as to how much organic and all natural products they sell. But overall things are improving with many local grocery stores offering such choices. In Texas we have HEB Grocery Stores and they offer quite a large selection of organic produce and other products at decent prices.

Once you scope out what is available in your local area, it isn’t hard to get into a routine where you know what to get from where to get the best prices. I don’t spend any more money grocery shopping now (getting much healthier choices) than I did when I was oblivious to these health issues. I just learned the how-to of shopping healthy in my own area.

Is Sugar Killing Us?

March 16, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

It has been estimated by the United States Department of Agriculture that the average American consumes between 130 and 170 pounds of sugar per year. At the turn of the 20th century the average consumption was recorded at 40 pounds per year. Now this begs the question whether the increase in diabetes, obesity and several other health problems over the last couple of decades is merely a coincidence? I don’t think so. The inconvenient truth is that something as innocent as a grain of sugar has been scientifically proven to be just as addictive as cocaine and food manufacturers are exploiting this legal drug.

The biggest culprits are soft drinks, which make up about 33% of overall sugar intake for the average American. People who argue that switching to energy drinks are healthier would be wrong, because energy drinks pretty much consist of water, sugar and artificial flavors. In fact, manufacturers are hiding sugar in products we never even thought contained sugar in the first place, such as almond milk, ketchup, barbecue sauce, salad dressings, packaged meats and too many more to list here.

In order to save money, food industries started to replace sugar with fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup, which looks like honey, is 24% water and 76% sugar. To make matters worse, 83% of teenagers go to a school where soft drinks, energy drinks and candy are actively promoted. The constant advertising on television, radio and the internet is astonishing. It shouldn’t be difficult to understand why so many people are struggling to lose weight. It’s in their faces constantly, they are tricked into thinking some things are healthy and they are consuming sugar without even knowing it.

There is no pretty way to say that a high intake can lead to death. According to a 15 year long Harvard study, the current levels of sugar intake doesn’t just add 10% of calories per day, but it also doubles your chances of dying from heart disease. As well, more than 10 million Americans suffer from some form of diabetes and about 4 million more are unaware they even have it. If it wasn’t for Mexico, America would be on top of the list for the country with the highest obesity rates, and everyone knows the consequences of being obese. Sugar ultimately creates an imbalance in the body that can lead to organ failure and several other pathological conditions.

And don’t get me started on artificial sweeteners as they are even worse!! I’ll cover more of that in another post.

But there are solutions. Ways you can have your cake and eat it without the health risks. Check out the section of this website called Sugars and Sweeteners for some great solutions.

Build a Strong Immune System

March 13, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

Here is a summary of what I have gleaned from various studies as some of the most important steps to take in building a robust and strong immune system:

1. Probiotics are vital for a strong immune system. I have found that raw probiotics are far more effective than the kind you buy off the shelf that are not live. In most health food stores you can find a refrigerated section of probiotics. You want one that has numerous strains and are in the billions. I like Garden of Life.

If you just completed a round of antibiotics or you have been a frequent user of antibiotics, I would recommend that you do something intense for a short period to repopulate your gut with good bacteria as fast as possible to avoid an overgrowth of bad bacteria. Something like Garden of Life Raw Probiotics 5-Day Max Care. After that you should go onto a regular daily dose that you always take just like daily vitamins.

Even better, you can make your own kefir using raw goat or cow’s milk. The strains of good bacteria that you get from this are in the trillions with as many as 30 different strains. There are numerous videos on YouTube that show you how to make it. It’s quite easy and very healthy to drink a glass of it each morning. It’s one of the best things you can do to build a strong immune system. Here is a website with more information: https://www.naturehaditfirst.com/products/health-wellness/kefir-grains/ There is also a website that will help you find where you can get raw milk – www.realmilk.com

2. Decrease toxic load into your body – that means no smoking, no pollution, no toxic chemicals ingested, inhaled or absorbed through your skin (cleaning agents, hair dye, etc.).

3. Cut out all junk food, sugar, processed foods. Eat organic produce, meats, etc. Minimally follow the points laid out in my book entitled “HealthKick, Extraordinarily Easy Healthy Living Hacks for Ordinary People”.

4. Drink a lot of water daily as well as green tea. Green tea (Camellia sinensis) has been considered a medicinal remedy in Chinese tradition for over 4000 years and its many health benefits have recently been validated by scientific methods. Green tea contains a group of flavonoids which appear to inhibit viral infections.

5. Get good sleep.

6. Testing for environmental and food allergies and sensitivities can also help. Allergies and sensitivities can overwork the immune system and weaken it.

Building a strong immune system can have many health benefits including getting sick less, keeping viruses at bay, improved digestion and even improved energy levels.

Sleep Quality

March 5, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

Improve Sleep Quality

Getting a good night sleep is how your body recovers from stress and activity during the day. Sleep quality makes a world of difference on your energy level and performance the next day. It’s vital to having a strong immune system. Being tired can also encourage unhealthy “solutions” due to sugar cravings, caffeine cravings and other unhealthy desires, just because you are trying to give your body an extra jolt to compensate for being tired.

There are some things that can help your sleep quality. Melatonin is one. This is a hormone that you can get in most Health Food stores or areas where vitamins are sold. I use the kind that is time released as I use to have a problem of waking up during the night and not being able to get back to sleep. You need to find the right dose that works best for you. I use 5 mg time released. My brother takes twice that amount. My husband, when he uses it takes a much smaller dose.

Sleep schedule: Having a stable sleep schedule helps a lot too. You need to find your sweet spot as to your best schedule. I tend to wake up early, so I have found it is best for me to go to sleep around 10 or 10:30 at night. I wake up at 6 or 6:30 with a good night’s sleep. If I stay up much later than that I usually find I get a crappy night of sleep. If you want to sleep later in the morning past sunrise, then I recommend black out curtains or shades to keep the room dark.

There are also things that can put a real damper on sleep quality. Consuming a lot of MSG in your food is one. Another is alcohol. And of course caffeine or dark chocolate late in the day or evening as stimulants can keep you from going to sleep or sleeping restfully.

If none of the above easy remedies help you sleep, please don’t resort to taking OTC sleeping meds. A new study has found a definite link between high use of anticholinergic drugs (including popular non-prescription sleep aids and antihistamines such as diphenhydramine) – and increased risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Here’s a link to one of many articles on the subject: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288546.php

There is another solution that may be applicable to many women with consistent sleep quality issues. It completely handled my sleep problems (which started just as I was headed toward menopause). Progesterone in capsules or caplets, which must be prescribed by a doctor, that you can take each night at bedtime. You can also use a cream, but I found that taking it orally was much better for sleep. Of course this would require proper hormone testing and a doctor’s prescription. But it is well worth the trouble if you aren’t sleeping well and usual supplements don’t help. And it is much better than OTC sleep meds.

How much sugar is in fruit juice?

March 1, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

There is one major point about fruit juice that I would like to make. Many people think that drinking fruit juices is a healthy option to sodas and things. Drinking fruit juices is not the same as eating fruit. These juices have been strained of their fiber and just the fruit juice alone is very high in sugar content. With no fiber, this fruit juice sugar goes directly into your bloodstream.

Here’s a short excerpt from the website: https://www.hookedonjuice.com/

12 ounces of >>>>>>>	Coca-Cola	Orange Juice	Apple Juice	Cherry Juice	Grape Juice
Total carbohydrates	40 g	39 g	42 g	49.5 g	60 g
Carbs from sugar	40 g	33 g	39 g	37.5 g	58.5 g
Sugar (teaspoons)	10 tsp	8 tsp	10 tsp	9 tsp	15 tsp
Calories	145	165	165	210	240

“WHAT DOES THE CHART TELL US? It tells us that no matter which fruit juice you choose, they all have more calories than the same amount of Coke. It tells us that juice — 100 percent juice, no sugar added — contains about the same amount of sugar (or even more — 50 percent more for grape juice) as the same volume of Coke. For this comparison we used: Classic Coke, Tropicana HomeStyle Orange Juice, Walnut Acres Organic 100 Percent Apple Juice, Eden Organic Montmorency Cherry Juice (no sweetener added) and R.W. Knudsen Unsweetened Concord Grape Juice. The numbers in the chart were calculated from the nutrition labels on the containers.”

Eating fruit is not the same as just drinking the juice. When you eat the fruit, you get much less juice and you get all of the fiber. So while you are getting some sugar, it is a much lower dose and it is absorbed much more slowly. I do recommend eating more of the low glycemic impact fruits such as berries and melons.

Easy ways to eat more raw veggies

February 27, 2015 By Debbie Baumgarten Leave a Comment

Here are some ways I have worked more raw veggies into my daily routine that made it easy to eat them more often:

Veggie smoothies – I make these in my blender so as to still get all of the fiber (as opposed to juicing). I use spinach, kale, avocado and 4-5 cups of water as a base. Then I add different fruit combinations such as strawberries or a berry medley, mango, pineapple/coconut, kiwi fruit and green apples, etc. I add some stevia and blend really well. They taste great and I love them. My husband slurps them down too and that’s saying a lot. The fruit and stevia sweeten the drink up and you would be surprised how good it tastes. There are literally tons of recipes for these if you do a Google search, not to mention books on Amazon.

Veggie snack plates – There are easy. Just get a bag of those baby carrots, some celery, cucumbers and some broccoli. Chop up the celery, cucumbers and broccoli. Arrange them on a plate and put some reduced fat cream cheese in the center. Have them in the fridge or put them out on the counter at snack time. Chomp on these when you get those mid afternoon and evening hunger pangs.

Salads – if you make a great tasting salad (that is creative and tasty), make enough to last you (and anyone else that you are feeding) for 2 days of lunch and dinner. Then you can eat salad as part of lunch and dinner as the first course. You get your raw veggies in and you help curb your appetite to be able to eat smaller portions of the rest of the meal.

Snack packs to take to work or on the go – baby carrots and other chopped veggies (celery, cucumber, etc.) and fruits – make a bunch of packs at once in ziplock bags so they are easy to grab and take with you when you are rushing to get to work or whatever. Or you can use a jar and put some humus or dip in the bottom of the jar and put some chopped veggies in.

Juicing – once a week I will usually do a big batch of juice. It is so rich in nutrients and very alkalizing for the body. The mean green juice recipe is usually what I use.

I found the more veggies I work into my diet, the less I eat other not-so-heathy things and the better I feel.

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