Once you have started using a deep freeze, you will not want to live without one. Having a deep freeze means that you will be able to store up edibles during times of plenty (whether this plenty means a bumper crop in the garden or some top-notch specials at the supermarket) for when times are tough. However, if you’ve got one, you have to treat it properly in order to get the best out of it.
First of all: some basic energy-saving tips. Don’t put hot food in the freezer, but allow it to cool down first so the freezing unit doesn’t have to work overtime to get things down to the right temperature. Also, a full freezer is more efficient – frozen meat and containers of soup don’t rush out the door when it opens, but air does. The new air will then have to be cooled.
You will also have to defrost the deep freeze regularly – about once a year is enough for most people with busy lives to lead. The main thing is to defrost the freezer before the ice builds up to a level that stops you shutting the door properly. A defrosting session as part of your domestic cleaning London is also a good chance to check through your frozen goods and make sure that nothing’s been sitting there too long.
How long is too long in the freezer? Leaving aside the palaeontologists who claim that mammoth meat frozen since the ice age is perfectly preserved and edible, if you don’t mind a little “freezer burn”, here are some rough guidelines:
Fruit and vegetables: 8 months (although they are still good after two years, from personal experience with a batch of frozen stewed plums). Freezing slows down enzyme reactions rather than stopping them, so blanching fruit and veg lightly or cooking them before they go into the freezer helps them stay good for longer. Berries are excellent to freeze and can be kept safely for up to a year.
Meat: up to 1 year, but less if the meat has been sliced or minced. For things you buy frozen (e.g. fish fingers), check the expiry date on the packet.
Eggs: Don’t freeze them at all – they can’t handle it.
Dairy products: up to 9 months, depending on what it is. If you have frozen a bottle of milk, wait until it thaws completely before drinking or using it, as the water part of it thaws out last.
Baked goods: three months for bread and the like, but biscuits can stay frozen for a year safely.
Some things don’t freeze well. Lettuces, bananas and all egg products shouldn’t be frozen, as they turn quite peculiar when they thaw out. It is also unwise to freeze stuffed poultry, as the stuffing can sometimes fail to freeze for some time and turn nasty in the process.
Don’t freeze anything that was in bad condition before it went in – it will still be bad when it comes out and you will have wasted valuable freezer space.
Make sure that you thaw out items you want to use properly before you start cooking them, especially meat. The exceptions here are berries or cut up pieces of fruit to be used in muffins, as they keep their shape for longer if they go into the mixture frozen; meat to be put through a mincer, which should be partially thawed, as it grinds more efficiently when half frozen; and frozen vegetables to be boiled, steamed or cooked in the microwave. Never put something back in the freezer once it’s thawed out.
If a power cut happens, your freezer will be good for a few days before things start thawing. Keep the door closed to keep the chill in for as long as possible. After about four days, things will begin to thaw. If the power is still out and your freezer was full of meat, this is the moment to get out your barbecue or light a fire, and to call all your neighbours around for a king-sized feast. It will cheer you all up during a crisis (which is what must be going on if the power has been out this long) so it won’t be a total waste of money.
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The majority of natural domestic cleaning London products and methods are very old-fashioned. Baking soda. Vinegar. Soap, water and elbow grease. Essential oils. These methods were temporarily pushed to one side from about the 1950s onwards as advertisers sold consumers the story that our homes should be 100% germ free and you needed Brand X to get everything gleaming and healthy, tackling the hidden dirt and germs… with ostracism and disease being the penalty for not using Brand X. Now, people who want to reduce environmental toxins and live more sustainably – or more frugally – are rediscovering the cleaning methods our grandmothers used and stayed perfectly healthy (or maybe our great-grandmothers – this writer’s grandmother was of the pre-Silent Spring generation when everyone chucked DDT around the place and put all sorts of vile chemicals into the garden).
But with the move towards toxin-free environmentally friendly ways to clean and care for our houses, researchers have been investigating new ways to keep clean and healthy without pouring chemicals around the place with glib abandon. Some of these more sustainable ways of cleaning and living naturally are things that our grandmothers never even dreamed of.
Here’s a selection of high-tech (or exotic) natural products:
* Disinfectant essential oils now go beyond good old lavender and thyme and other European herbs. Essential oils that also do a good job of killing germs and smelling great come from much further afield – tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil originate from Down Under, while Neem oil, which acts as an organic pest control, an antiseptic and even as a medicine.
* Microfibre cleaning cloths use (as the name suggests) tiny cloth fibres that get into microscopic cracks in all surfaces to scoop out all dirt and gunge, with only water as an additional product. Enjo is the best known manufacturer of these products, and they have a large range of cleaning tools, including dish brushes, mops, mitts and cloths.
* Stainless steel absorbs unpleasant odours (or somehow neutralises stinks). A stainless steel disk can be used in toilets, in shoes or in refrigerators (not the same disk, obviously – a separate one for each place) to deal with pongs.
* Laundry balls do the same job as soap – making water wetter by changing the molecular structure and thus reducing the surface tension – but use ions rather than chemicals. These also save water as well as reducing the amount of chemicals in your environment, as you don’t need to rinse clothes twice to make sure all the soap residue is out.
* Solar power is being improved continually and becoming more and more available. While these don’t reduce immediate toxins in the environment, they are certainly more sustainable ways of producing energy than others. Both solar panels for generating electricity and solar water heaters are becoming widely used, and designs are improving.
* Women can use reusable items for that time of the month. The Mooncup is one popular option that reduces the amount of bleached and scented this and that applied to sensitive tissues, and also reduces waste.
* Ionizers put out negative ions, which counteract the amount of positive ions put out by electronic and electrical equipment. Positive ions and EMFs can cause sleep disruption, headaches and grumpiness, and may also have an effect on the body’s cells, even to the point of triggering tumour development, although the jury’s still out on this one. Moving water also puts out negative ions, and miniature waterfalls to be used as desk ornaments are now available.
* Paints have come a long way from the lead-based ones of the past, with many lines of low-toxin eco-paints or even organic paints. Wallpaper has also improved vastly in modern times (by way of contrast, Napoleon’s chambers had arsenic-impregnated wallpaper – arsenic produced a very popular shade of green) and you can buy wallpaper that is free of solvents, chlorine bleach, fungicide and all the rest of the muck they put in standard wallpaper, even if they don’t use arsenic.
One thing to remember when shopping around for modern high-tech ways of living naturally or for sustainable solutions for our homes is to watch out for modern jargon used to describe old-fashioned products. A “solar-powered exterior clothes dehydrator” sounds high-tech but is just a fancy way of describing a washing line.
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We all hoard junk. I have had a poke through my cupboards and have come up with some items that I just can’t bear to throw out and probably ought to. But why was I holding onto them in the first place? What was I thinking?
I’m probably not alone in this hoarding habit. We all do it – it’s human nature, especially if you’re thrifty or have experienced poverty – or even if you don’t like the throwaway disposable culture that has led to so much pollution. See how many of the items below ring a bell with you.
1. An old, frayed alpaca wool jersey that’s full of unrepairable holes. I keep meaning to unravel it and roll the wool into balls for re-use. After all, it’s lovely soft grey alpaca wool and it would cost a packet to buy it at the shop… The jersey has now been sitting up there for two years. Verdict: either get on with it and unravel the jersey, or else bite the bullet and take it down to the local rag trader/charity so they can recycle it how they see fit (some charities and volunteer organisations do unravel old jerseys and knit blankets for foreign aid organisations).
2. A pair of blue curtains with pink and white flowers that don’t fit any of the windows in my house and I don’t particularly like the look of. These were given to me and it seems a real waste to just throw them away. Besides, my mother was on the lookout for second-hand curtains for the house my parents have just built and I’m keeping them for her. Verdict: give them away or give them to your mother this weekend.
3. Some articles and magazines aimed at the parents of babies – and the younger of my children is now eight years old. They seemed really helpful at the time, but I haven’t looked at them for ages and can hardly remember what’s in them. Verdict: scan over them to see if I can reuse the material for another article Anyclean can use, then chuck the articles and the magazines in the recycling bin.
4. A fountain pen with no ink cartridges left. Cartridges are expensive if all you want is plain black or blue, and I always seem to get ink all over my fingers when I use the pen. However, the pen’s a very good one and looks stylish. Verdict: look out for some fancy ink cartridges or ink (you can refill a fountain pen cartridge with bottled ink by using a syringe, if you have one handy) and learn to write more neatly. Then use the pen with the fancy ink for signing cheques like a high-flying corporate.
5. A cornflower blue sweatshirt that is too small for my husband and that I used to wear but now have rejected as being unflattering. It does cover a lot up when doing dirty jobs like domestic cleaning London or painting the house – and I’ve got the paint on it to prove it. Keep it for this purpose, but don’t keep any other old clothes with the same excuse. One cover-up’s enough.
6. Empty yoghurt pottles, the one-litre variety, with lids. They’re very handy for freezing things and storing leftovers. I got into the habit of keeping them when a friend of mine with five children was hospitalised with cancer and all of us were rallying around the family with meals. The pottles could fit food in easily, I could freeze things in them without any trouble, and because they were “free gifts with the purchase of a litre of yoghurt”, I didn’t have to worry about getting them back from my friend later, like I would with a “good” dish. However, my friend’s now out of hospital and has even got a good crop of hair back, but I’m still saving large yoghurt pottles, which are starting to pile up. Verdict: keep some for freezing things, but get rid of the rest – preferably by sending them to the plastic recycling depot or by giving them to a charity (women’s refuge? food bank?) with something in them.
7. Ziplock bags from the bulk-bin department at my local supermarket. They’re great for packed lunches. Sandwiches can be made up in bulk and frozen ready to go, along with a muffin – they thaw out without any bother, unless they contain lettuce or something else that will go soggy. If you’re not fussy, this won’t matter. The crumbs can be shaken out and the bag can be washed and re-used. Vegetables and fruits can also be block frozen for later use (e.g. peas, beans, stir-fry mixes, berryfruit and chopped up rhubarb).
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Why would anyone want to make their own bath products when there are so many lovely products with delicious scents available on the market today? Well, it could be because you have sensitive skin and commercial products always make your skin itchy and uncomfortable, and you want to know exactly what is going on your skin. Or you could just like making things as a hobby – home-made bath products make great gifts and they could earn you a little if you sell them at a stall or something of that kind.
For best results, use proper essential oils rather than cheap fragrant oils. The “el cheapo” fragrances are artificial and don’t have the aromatherapeutic properties of real essential oils. When choosing essential oils to use for making bath products, let your nose be your best guide and choose what you like best. Having said that, remember to follow all precautions if you are pregnant or if the products will be used by small children. Experiment a little to find a blend of oils that works for you.
Bath oil: This is one of the simplest bath products to make. Simply mix about ten or so drops of the essential oil(s) of your choice in a bottle with some light oil such as almond oil, sunflower oil or even the sort of light oil you’d use for cooking such as soya oil or canola oil. Shake the oil together with the essential oil and leave it to “sit” for a little before using. You can tint the oil lightly with food colouring, but don’t use too much, as it can stain the bath.
Bath salts: Another easy one. Use either plain table salt or Epsom salts. Again, mix ten or so drops of essential oil(s) with about a cup or so of the salt. Stir together thoroughly. Once again, you can add a drop or two of food colouring to tint the bath salts. This mixture can be decanted into a pretty bottle or container (you can soak off the label from a jam jar or another suitable bottle with a paper label and re-use it for this).
Bath bombs are a bit trickier. To make a bath bomb, mix 3 T of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) with 1½ T of citric acid. Add about 10 drops of essential oil(s). Mix together well, then add a tiny bit of water to make a stiff paste you can mould and shape. You can also add a tiny touch of food colouring, powdered petals or even some salt for a bit of extra. Stir well then shape it and leave it to dry. Store in an airtight container until use. In a similar way you can also make your own domestic cleaning London products.
Bath bags need two things to be made up. Firstly, you will need the bag itself. For your own use, you can just tie the contents of the bag inside an ordinary face flannel. But if you want to give them as gifts or sell them, you will need something a little fancier. Cut up a hand towel and sew it into a bag, remembering to hem the top opening. Cut a few little holes near to the top of the bag going around the circumference and thread a ribbon through, leaving enough ribbon to pull it tight. Next, mix up the ingredients and put them into the bath bag before tying it shut. Milk powder and oatmeal make excellent soap-free cleansers, and you can also add minerals salts, the essential oils (of course), ground almonds or some dried herbs. To use a bath bag, simply drop it in the bath as it is filling. This will release some of the scent and cleaners in the bag into the water. Use the bath bag as you would soap – the flannel has excellent exfoliating properties. You will only get two (at most) uses out of the bath bag contents. Shake the old contents out, preferably into a compost heap, then wash the bag thoroughly after turning it inside out. Then refill for another use.
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If you ask people to give a list of ten fruits, there’s a very high chance that they’ll list bananas – if you ask for a list in alphabetical order, bananas nearly always are used for B (rather than blueberries, breadfruit or blackberries). Most of us love the smell of bananas – some list the scent of banana as a favourite smell – and they’ve been the subject of numerous slapstick jokes involving the slipperiness of the peels.
Bananas are the fruit from trees of the Musa genus, with several species being used for food. “Cavendish” is the variety used most widely used as a dessert or sweet banana, with its Latin name being Musa acuminate.
Bananas are a rich source of complex carbohydrates –they have triple the amount of complex carbs compared to most (if not all) other fruits. This is why they make a great snack and a good supply of long-lasting energy.
A banana provides enough energy for the average person to walk two kilometres.
Bananas are usually picked green and the ripening process is hurried up by washing ethylene gas over them. The flavour is improved, however, if the bananas are “ungassed” and allowed to ripen by themselves. However, the ethylene gas is not harmful – apples give off this gas naturally. For this reason, if you want bananas to last longer without over-ripening, don’t store them with apples. You can buy special fruit bowls that have a special hook for bananas above the main part of the bowl so they don’t spoil quickly. Conversely, if you have bought bananas a little green and want to hurry them along a bit, pop them in an airtight container with some apples and let the natural ethylene from the apples ripen them.
Bananas are rich in vitamins and minerals. Unlike many other fruits, they contain all six major vitamin groups, being particularly rich in vitamin B6 (one banana can provide roughly one third of an adult’s recommended daily intake). They are also a rich source of potassium, which is essential for healthy muscle tissue.
Bananas contain serotonin, which promotes sleep and is also a natural anti-depressant.
Bananas can be frozen. The skin will turn black, but the flesh will be fine. A delicious (and reasonably healthy) snack for children and adults involved skewering bananas (halved or whole) and dipping them in melted chocolate before freezing.
Because of their high vitamin, carbohydrate and mineral content, mashed bananas are excellent “first foods” for infants just starting on solids. They’re easy to digest, too. Only very few people are allergic to bananas so it is usually a safe food to give babies.
Banana stains are difficult to remove – unlike other fruit spills and splashes, they don’t just wash off in the regular wash. Suggestions to remove banana stains from clothing include dabbing it with tea tree oil before washing, rubbing it with a natural domestic cleaner London like lemon juice (which is a mild bleach) or rubbing with a mixture of glycerine and water. Washing with a biological washing powder in warm water can work. With white clothing and an old stain (baby clothes spring to mind), chlorine bleach can be used.
Banana peels can be used as an emergency shoe polish as it contains a natural lubricant – yes, the same lubricant that makes the banana peels so slippery. Banana peels are also supposed to be good for buffing leather upholstery and even for cleaning silverware. Do a patch test on an inconspicuous spot first.
Banana peels are also rich in nutrients. Roses, in particular, like banana peels, so instead of throwing out your banana peels into the rubbish, tuck the peels around the roots of your rose bushes. At the very least, compost those banana peels – they’re so full of goodies for your garden it’s a shame to waste them on a landfill.
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I must say at the outset that I don’t mean to imply by the title that my mother taught me nothing at all about washing hands or that hygiene was a low priority when I was growing up. Quite the contrary. I grew up hearing “wash your hands before you sit up to the table” as much as you did.
However, while I distinctly remember being told to wash my hands and being taught how to clean the sink out after I’d finished washing my hands after playing in mud so I didn’t leave muddy smears all over the soap and the sink (“Always leave it better than you found it,” was a favourite dictum of my mother’s), I have no memory of being taught how to wash my hands properly.
So how do you wash your hands properly? Handwashing is the oldest and by far the best method of preventing the spread of disease, and it is also the easiest way to limit the spread of harmful viruses and bacteria – much easier than wearing facemasks or spraying disinfectant around everything you might come in contact with, and much easier than trying to open public toilet doors with your elbow.
Let’s start with when you wash your hands. Most of us know that we ought to wash our hands after going to the lavatory or before we eat. However, you should also wash your hands after coughing or sneezing, after handling animals, after handling raw meat, chicken or fish, before cooking or handling food, before AND after changing a baby’s nappies, and before AND after caring for a sick person. And, obviously, if you get anything revolting on your hands that you wouldn’t want to put in your mouth, you should wash it off.
Now for how to wash your hands properly. A frightening amount of people consider their hands to be washed if they vaguely wipe a thumb over the soap then stick their fingers under running water for half a second before rubbing like billy-oh on a towel. This will remove a bit of dirt, but won’t reach the full potential for removing germs.
Yes, you should use soap. You don’t have to use special anti-bacterial soap to wash your hands properly and hygienically. Ordinary soap – bar or liquid – will do. But for the soap to work properly, it needs to lather. Wet your hands first, preferably with warm water, to get a good lather going.
Once you have rubbed your hands together to get plenty of lather, keep on rubbing. Rub your palms together first, and then move onto the backs. The more you move and scrub your hands together, the better, the more effectively you will remove dirt, bacteria and other nasties. This step of rubbing with lather should take about 20 seconds. How do you know you’ve spent long enough? You can count it out, but for little children, it may be easier to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” as an indication of the time. Or you could take a tip from the medieval monks and wash your hands for one Paternoster – the amount of time that it takes to pray the Lord’s Prayer.
If you have been doing a dirty job like domestic cleaning London, garden cleaning or changing the oil in your car, you may need to use a scrubbing brush as well. This is a must for dirt stuck under the nails. However, you can prevent dirt getting under your nails when you’re gardening by ramming your nails into a bar of soap before you start. This will wedge soap under your fingernails, which will block the dirt from getting in and also washes out easily. Soap with ground pumice or sand in it also helps scrub out deep dirt after a really grimy job.
Rinse off the soapy lather thoroughly. If water is short, you can do the scrubbing step with the tap turned off, or else in a basin of water. But the rinsing should be done under fresh running water, hot or cold. Make sure all the soap is off.
Lastly, you should dry your hands thoroughly. Paper towels are the most hygienic, but they are wasteful and expensive for everyday home use. Just remember to change your hand towels frequently – they shouldn’t be damp or discoloured. Changing them daily is ideal, but in the real world, twice a week is more realistic. Or have a series of little hand towels that you can use once and wash after using.
The alcohol-based hand sanitizers do a good job of killing the germs on your hands if you are out and about and can’t wash your hands properly. But they won’t actually remove grime off your hands, and using them too often can be tough on your skin, especially if you have sensitive skin. In this writer’s opinion, they’re good for if you find that the public loo you’ve just had to use is out of soap (it happens only too frequently) or if you decide on the spur of the moment to have a picnic but don’t have anywhere to wash your hands. Like space-saver tyres, they’re for emergencies, not as an everyday option.
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The standard first reaction from most people when confronted with a sink full of dirty grey water that just won’t go down the plughole is either to (a) phone the plumber or (b) run down to the nearest hardware store for a bottle of Drano™ or some other ferocious chemical to tip down the hole and obliterate the gunk doing the blocking. However, neither of these methods is really necessary for the majority of blockages, and it is quite possible to get things going again without reaching for the chemicals.
Drano™ and the like are strong chemicals that dissolve the substances (usually organic substances) that are causing the blockage. However, the Drano™ will keep working and dissolving organic substances after the water is gurgling freely down the sink. Just stop and think for a moment what this is likely to do to the aquatic ecosystem. Yes, your drain commercial cleaning chemical of choice is probably biodegradable (these days, anyway) and will break down and be less noxious after a while, but it won’t do this straight away and it will have some effect. These fierce chemicals should definitely not be used if you have a septic tank system – they will kill the anaerobic bacteria that break down the waste solids.
The most common cause of blockages down sinks is a gunky mixture of soap scum and hair, often caused by people washing their hair in the sink or wet shaving. While letting beards, armpit hair and leg hair grow wild and leaving it unwashed is probably going a bit too far in the quest for an unblocked sink, it is possible to minimize the amount of hair that goes down. Most plugs have a trap at the top of them to prevent large objects going down and a good amount of hair gets stuck here, especially long hair. Clean hair off the trap regularly. Sometimes, if the water is a little sluggish to go out, pulling out any hairs from the trap can work wonders. The hairs will come up covered with thick black or grey goo that smells vile – chuck this down the lavatory or in the compost heap (toilets have wider pipes for obvious reasons and can handle this sort of muck). Waxing and dry shaving with electric shavers can also minimize the amount of hair going down, but this is a matter of personal preference.
The other common cause of blocked drains is the stupid habit of tipping hot fat in its liquid state down the kitchen sink. A plumber of this writer’s acquaintance says that this is the most frequent reason he is called out to a job. Don’t do it. Instead, give that liquid fat to the dog, pour it into the compost heap, use it to make a bird feeder or save it for making soap (the soap produced won’t be perfect, but it will be good enough soap).
OK, that’s how to prevent a sink getting blocked, or at least reduce the likelihood of it getting blocked. But what if you’re sitting there with a sullen grey puddle that won’t go down?
First of all, try the force of air pressure. For this, use a plunger or plumber’s mate – one of those sticks with a big rubber cup on the end. A big one works better than the small ones – the idea of these things is to force air up and down the pipe, which will dislodge and/or break up the blockage, so the more air pushed, the better. Place the cup over the plug hole and get pumping up and down. You will hear a swirling, swooshing gurgling sound, and (all going well) the drain will be clear.
Still no luck? Now its time to try chemical action, but you can use natural products for this. Boiling water will melt fat so it can get down, so this can be your first line of defence if you suspect that fat is blocking the drains. But better still is the baking soda and hot vinegar method. First of all, pour about a cup full of baking soda down the plughole. Make sure it all goes down – use a bit of boiling water to help it on its way. Follow this with a cup of vinegar, preferably heated or even boiling, as heat speeds the reaction between the acid and the base. The resulting reaction will force the blockage apart, and the acid in the vinegar will also have some effect on the alkaline soap. Wait a few minutes and repeat.
If you still don’t have any luck, you may need to physically remove the blockage. This is a nasty job and you can only do it if you can see the S-bend (or U-bend) in the pipe – try the cupboard under the sink or basin. Remove anything in this cupboard and put a bucket underneath where the pipe comes down from the top. Now unscrew the bottom of the U-bend – you may need some help from a pipe wrench. Then unscrew the top and stand clear as the water from above comes splashing into the bucket. Tip any excess water from the bend into the bucket as well. Now comes the really nasty bit: you will have to poke around and find what’s blocking the pipe. If some idiot has poked cotton buds down the sink (it happens!) or if there’s a very thick plug of fat/hair/soap/gunge, you will have to remove this. Wear rubber gloves. When you’re done, screw the pipe back on nice and securely, and go and throw the bucket of dirty water onto some unobtrusive place in the garden.
And don’t ever tip fat down the sink again.
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There are many things we call irreplaceable, but of them all, perhaps old photographs are the most important. Old photos are your only visual link to people and places that belong to the past. You cannot take these pictures again. Because treasured old photos are looked at so often, they are subject to a lot of wear and tear and need a great deal of cleaning and maintenance to keep them going for years to come. This is something you will have to do yourself and cannot expect cleaning services to do for you. Cleaning old photos takes just a little time and patience, nothing expensive or complicated is needed.
Before beginning, have a high quality scan done of the old photos. This will not only be a back up is something should go wrong in the cleaning process, the digitally stored images will always be available for on screen viewing when you don’t want to disturb the originals.
* Lay a soft clean towel on the work surface you plan to use.
* Put on a pair of soft white (so you can see if they get dirty) lint free cotton gloves.
* Hold the photos only by the edges.
* Use a very soft brush to gently brush dirt away from the photo surface. Start in the middle and brush outwards. If you have a can of compressed air – like that used to blow dirt away from computer keyboards – use that after the brushing.
* If there is any adhesive or other residue on the surface of the photos, continue brushing gently to remove as much of it as you can without damaging the photo.
* Now we come to the only specialized material you will need. Ask a photographic supply shop to recommend a good photo cleaning spray or solution because if you use a general domestic cleaning detergent you may damage the photo. Read the instructions carefully and use it to clean any stains and ingrained dirt from the photo. Make sure that you use only the specified material to wipe the pictures.
* If there is any slight residual dampness, allow the photos to air dry and once that is done, store them in a way that ensures that while the can be seen, they are protected.
* If you find that there are marks or stained on the old photos that you are unable to remove, do not try and experiment yourself-You could end up destroying the photos. Ask a professional photographer for help.
* You could also try scanning the photos and using photo editing software to clean up the marks and then printing out new copies.
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Type 1 diabetes (also known as juvenile onset diabetes or insulin-diabetes) seems to strike out of the blue. Unlike the other, more common form of diabetes (Type 2 or adult onset), being diagnosed with this condition isn’t dependent on what you have eaten in the past.
This article is not supposed to take the place of the advice you get from your doctor and specialists, but it is written from the perspective of someone who has an insulin-diabetic child. And yes – this medical condition does have something to do with the domestic cleaning and keeping the house organised!
Firstly, regarding cooking and reducing sugar in your meals. Your dietician (chances are you will have a session with a dietician shortly after you or your child is diagnosed) will give you the best advice on what to eat. But, personally speaking, I have found that it’s not that hard to keep cooking the same things as normal – just reduce the sugar. You can still cook cakes and muffins quite easily. I’ve found that you can halve the amount of sugar in most recipes and still have the result taste good in the end. Here are a few low-sugar treat foods that are good for children’s parties:
Instead of regular icing on birthday cakes(the sort that uses icing sugar and water or icing sugar and egg white), use cream cheese icing. This is only 50% sugar instead of nearly 100% sugar. The slightly acidic flavour goes with most basic cakes, including chocolate, and you can colour it as usual. Yes, it’s higher in fat than regular icing, but it is lower in sugar.
Make your own ice-cream by mixing whipped cream and a little sugar with fruit puree. Blackcurrants work brilliantly, as do other berry fruits. You could also try freezing yoghurt.
Never add sugar to meat, even as a marinade. You don’t need it at all.
If you have an insulin dependent person, you will find very quickly that the process of testing blood sugar levels and injections creates a lot of debris. You will have to deal with the little test strips, the foil packets (and other packaging) that the test strips came in, syringes, the caps off the syringes and all other packaging for the syringes. While the testing strips and the packaging may be able to be disposed of in the regular rubbish system, the syringes can be a health hazard. Where I live, the local council provides proper “sharps” bins for people on the needle exchange or the methadone programme for drug rehabilitation, but doesn’t provide them for diabetics (unfair, really, as diabetics can’t help having to use insulin, but drugs are a deliberate choice). We have the choice of paying for proper bins or supplying our own. The best substitute sharps bins are old containers for dishwasher powder or bleach (bottles made from Number 2 plastic – look inside the recycling symbol to check). However, you may be luckier about being provided with sharps bins – find out what applies locally.
The little bits from doing blood tests seem to go everywhere. Corral them in their own mini bin (a one-litre yoghurt container works well). Keep this mini bin near where you keep your insulin gear.
Speaking of the gear, it’s best to dedicate a special cupboard or box to the equipment to keep it all together. Insulin vials that aren’t in everyday use will need to be kept in the fridge, as will the hypo/glucagon kits, but everything else should be easily obtainable.
When you go out and about, it’s important to take your blood glucose monitor and some “quick fix” form of sugar with you for every trip (usually jelly beans). For longer trips when you’re likely to go out for a meal, you may need to take your insulin as well. Have a series of containers – a small one with the testing kit and the jelly beans that goes in a slightly larger one that contains the insulin and syringes (or a pen).
Don’t carry loose jelly beans in your pockets. The sugar goes everywhere and the jelly beans get covered in fluff. They are also a nuisance if they go through the washing machine.
To be able to keep a proper record of blood glucose levels during the day, keep a pen or pencil in the container that holds your insulin, preferably tied to your record book.
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Natural cleaning and natural products aren’t just limited to your home and to your own grooming. You can also use natural recipes and products to look after your pet. Because if an animal such as a cat or dog isn’t part of nature and the natural world, what is? And your pet is just as affected by toxins in the home environment as you are, if not more so (what some of our domestic cleaning products and “air fresheners” smell like to the highly sensitive nose of a dog doesn’t bear thinking about).
Flea control is the one aspect of pet care that involves the most toxins. The average flea control treatment contains a high amount of toxins – it poisons the fleas after all. This is why the sort of flea powder or liquid you can buy over the counter at the supermarket – or even at the pet shop – often has warnings not to use it on puppies or kittens under a certain age. A much better solution is to use herbal remedies. The best flea remedy by far is pennyroyal, either as an essential oil or by using the dried (or fresh) herb. Pennyroyal’s scientific name is Mentha pulgefugium, which means “mint that makes fleas flee” and it is very easy to grow in damp, shady parts of the garden, so there’s no excuse for any pet owner not to have and use this handy herb. Simply pick a sprig or two and rub it over your pet’s coat to deter fleas, and tuck a few sprigs (maybe the ones you’ve already used to rub on the pet’s coat) into your pet’s bedding. Regular vacuuming is another way to keep fleas to a minimum, if not totally under control, as the powerful air currents and turbulence created by a vacuum cleaner kill fleas. If you use essential oil of pennyroyal, dab a bit on some cotton wool and/or onto the bristles of a grooming brush, and groom your pet as normal. This will transfer the oil into the animal’s fur and thus get rid of the fleas.
Your pet should live as normal a life as possible. Cats should never be de-clawed. This is a cruel and unnatural practice, even if the declawing is done under anaesthetic. Cats need claws to defend themselves and to climb, and their climbing instincts will still be there even if their claws aren’t, and he/she will suffer falls and a lot of frustration. If you want to keep your sofa and curtains safe, provide a scratching post if your cat can’t get outside to sharpen his/her claws. The scratching post should be covered with a fabric or material that they can get their claws decently into – this writer’s cats find the dense foam used for exercise mats irresistible for scratching. Encourage your cat to use it by judicious addition of pennyroyal.
Another feline instinct – natural behaviour for a cat – is hunting. To prevent birds and lizards being butchered and left around your house, put a collar on your cat with a bell. Make sure the collar is elasticated so if it gets hooked while the cat is climbing or jumping, it will not strangle the cat. The bell does mean that the cat won’t be able to act as a rodent control agent, however.
You can make your own pet food that avoids the additives and preservatives that are found in many commercial pet foods. All you need is a quick trip down to the supermarket, the greengrocer and/or the butcher’s shop. Cats need more protein in their diet, so don’t attempt to feed a cat on the same home-made pet food as you do a dog. The easiest home-made cat food is plain mince, but to give the cat a bit more variety, add some chopped organ meat and maybe some chicken meat – cooked is OK but raw is also good for cats and has a higher level of nutrients. And don’t forget raw fish… cat heaven!
Dogs can have a wider variety of items in their diet, including some starch and vegetables along with meat. Raw bones and raw meat are delicious for a dog and close to the diet of its wild-living relatives, but organ meat should be cooked before feeding to a dog. Large cooked bones may splinter when chewed, but raw ones are splendid – and they are also good for the dog’s teeth – they almost act as a toothbrush. Good vegetables and starch to add to a dog’s diet are rice, potatoes, pumpkin and peas, but avoid onions, too much wheat flour (a bit is OK) or anything containing chocolate. Dairy food is OK to give to dogs (cats should only have it in moderation – water is the best drink for cats), but don’t overdo it. You can also mix table scraps into a dog’s regular food – they will love this!
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