Clean Green: using food as natural cleaners at home

I, The Steward, have a proposal for you that will cut your grocery bill, and also reduce your exposure to harmful and environmentally unfriendly cleaning products.   Are you interested? I bet you are!   Well, I hope not to disappoint you much, because what I am about to tell you, though it may sound novel to you, is not news for your mother or grandmother. You see, they were right all along. Aren’t they always?

Nowadays, we have gotten so used to buying a wide array of specially formulated pre-packaged products labelled for every possible use under the sun that we have lost touch with reality.  Pretty spray bottles containing coloured substances so pungent that they make your head hurt and your chest wheeze are not only dangerous for our health, but also for the environment.  And do we really need 5 different cleaners for every surface in the home?

I grew up in a simpler place and indeed a simpler time.  Back in those days, I saw people clean with organic food grade products.  Every part of produce would be used and certain pantry staples would be always be in abundance, not only for their use in cookery, but also for cleaning the home!  Almost every house had at least one lime tree – remember I am from the Caribbean and over there, life throws us limes, not lemons in abundance.  It made perfect sense to have a lime tree as it grew easily was watered with kitchen wastewater and limes were used extensively in daily living.

Vinegar, Lemon & Lime

We grew sugar canes and from the harvest not only made unrefined cane sugar, but sugar cane vinegar. This became not only essential for our variety of pickled dishes and famous Caribbean ceviche, but also for the cleansing of meat, kitchen and the general home.

In fact, in older recipes, cooks would often be encouraged to wash the poultry, meat or fish with lime or vinegar and water.  Many of us saw this in the day-to-day cooking.  It turns out that there are several great reasons for this.  Lemons and vinegar kill bacteria as well as reduce the “raw” smell of meat, making it more appetising to culinary cultures that prefer not to enhance the “raw” nature of the ingredient.  They clean surfaces very well and vinegar is just as or even more effective than bleach in killing common household germs!  Now you see why those limes, lemons and vinegar were always squeezed over washcloths, dishes, cutting boards and countertops and even in the cleaning buckets to wipe the floors!

Lemon also brightens whites and reduces unsightly deodorants stains. Plus it smells awesome!

coarse salt

Add some course salt to your cutting boards and rub with the cut side of a lemon or lime while squeezing out the juice to get germs out of the crevices and creases for a very clean yet natural surface. Coarse salt may also be used where an abrasive cleaner is needed due to its texture. Be careful as it will scratch the surface, so use wisely.

Baking Soda

I have stopped using bleach in our home some time ago and went back to the trick that my dear granny used: good old baking soda!  Baking soda whitens whites and also helps to clean harder to clean surfaces like stovetops.  I have even used to polish my silver!  I also use it to absorb household odours and have even showed my chef hubby how to treat minor burns by making a paste with a little water and applying.   Plus, I use it as a leavening agent in baking!  My only complaint is that shops in the UAE only sell it in small little containers when I would prefer to buy bigger quantities.

Essential Oils

These are natures purest and most potent plant elixirs and if you learn to use them, they will go a long way. They are extremely concentrated and are great to use around the house as well as for topical medicinal purposes. Just look out for the 100% pure essential oils especially if you will also be using for cosmetic or medicinal purposes.  Instead of deodorizing your clothes with fabric softener, you can soften your clothes in the dryer with wool balls and simply drop 4-6 drops of your favourite essential oil in the fabric softener dispenser of your machine.

Avoid purchasing aerosol air fresheners or those awful smelly toilet flushable deodorisers and get a few oil diffusers and place in each bathroom and in rooms in your home.  You can add pure essential oils for fresh clean smells that have the power of aroma therapy. Three little drops will do wonders. Top up with water and add a tea light and you could be the next Martha Stewart. For a few basic scents tips , remember  lemongrass essential oil, rejuvenates, lavender relaxes, lemon energises (great for the kitchen).   Funky smells need not take over your house or bathroom ever again.

Tea tree essential oil (Australian Melaleuca) is also a great antibiotic, antimicrobial. Dilute it and spray it over the surfaces in the bathroom and you can even add a few drops to your wash load for disinfectant purposes.  You can also add it to your wet mops when you rinse them after use or even to clean your floors.

Cornstarch

Cornstarch is great for removing grease stains. Whether it is your lovely embossed cloth napkins,  a table towel, a shirt, rug, or a messy oil spill on the floor, applying cornstarch will soak up the grease. Use cornstartch to clean greasy stoves and back splashes by applying a paste and leave for a little while. You may also use to coat the inside of rubber gloves to make them dry and easier to slip on and off. It mixes with vinegar and water for a very effective natural window cleaner.

Somehow, we have departed from those things, preferring to use the fancy bottled stuff, not realizing that we are doing ourselves, pockets and planet more harm than we need to.  You see, not every advance in science has been to our benefit. Furthermore, most of these items are lying around your cupboards anyway!  As the saying goes “if it ‘aint broke, don’t fix it!”

What are some of the natural food cleaners you use or know of? Do share with us!