So we have recently tried out a Born Free sippy cup as well as the Foogo thermos cup in an effort to provide Keegan with BPA-free plastics to drink out of. Both of them were leaky and in general were not very functional spill-proof sippy cups.
I went online to look for some better options. Imagine my surprise when I was on diapers.com ordering diapers and found that many of the cheaper everyday sippy cups out there *are* BPA free but just aren't advertised as such. In fact many of the Gerber sippy cups, Sassy sippy cups, Nuby sippy cups, and Munchkin sippy cups are BPA free. These cups are much cheaper, more functional, and more readily available.
You can go onto diapers.com and search for BPA free. Or here is a comprehensive list:
http://amomsblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/bpa-free-bottles-and-sippy-cups/
Interesting to know. Might save parents some money if they knew that a 2 pack of Gerber cups for $4.99 was just as effective and BPA free as a $8.99 Born Free cup. Just drives home the fact that buyers need to beware.
As for the whole BPA free issue I am still unsure how important it really it. I mean if you make sippy cups and bottles out of a different plastic most likely these plastics will just leach different cmpds into the beverage. Who is to say if these leachables will be better or worse than BPA? Truth is we just don't know and won't have evidence of these plastics being completely safe for quite some time. So if you are buying new cups it probably doesn't hurt to make them BPA free, but should you trash all your current cups to replace then with BPA free cups. I guess I wouldn't.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Keegan's First Tattoo
Last Thursday afternoon Keegan's daycare had there Summer Party. From 4:30-6:30pm they had hot dogs, cake, chips, veggies along with an inflatable slide and some other smaller games for the kids to play.
Lyle and I had done our hybrid of driving and biking into work and Keegan was with my mom on Thursday, so we didn't get over to the party until a bit after 5pm. Keegan was running a fever of around 102 and hadn't been feeling well. We stopped by the party anyway, mainly because it meant that I got out of making dinner :-) Keegan mainly just stood around looking sort of spacey. Which was a bit of a bummer since every teacher there knows who he was and came up to say "hi" to him. So, we didn't really do much. I got to meet his morning teacher Kylie and Lyle got to meet his afternoon teacher Amber.
Amber of face-painting. She painted a little basketball on Keegan's hand of him. He promptly sucked on it and wiped most of it off. Then at the next station he got his first ever temporary tattoo. It was a pretty cool tattoo, a circle of little ying-yang symbols on his arm. Little did we know how much it would bug him. He kept holding his arm up to me so that I could look at it. He wanted me to get it off of him and he kept trying to pull it off with his fingers. After a while he just gave up but it was kind of funny.
Keegan continued to not feel really great throughout the night and so Lyle and I were alternating on who got up to rock him back to sleep when he woke up sick and coughing. I was sitting in the glider rocking him to sleep when I noticed his arm was glowing in the dark. Ends up the white yangs on the ying-yang symbol glowed in the dark. I thought this was funny; it probably just freaked Keegan out :-(
So that was his first tattoo; we finally scrubbed it off of his arm last night. Every morning when he woke up he would point to it and say "Dat?" Which his way of saying "what's that?" It was an interesting experience for us all.
Lyle and I had done our hybrid of driving and biking into work and Keegan was with my mom on Thursday, so we didn't get over to the party until a bit after 5pm. Keegan was running a fever of around 102 and hadn't been feeling well. We stopped by the party anyway, mainly because it meant that I got out of making dinner :-) Keegan mainly just stood around looking sort of spacey. Which was a bit of a bummer since every teacher there knows who he was and came up to say "hi" to him. So, we didn't really do much. I got to meet his morning teacher Kylie and Lyle got to meet his afternoon teacher Amber.
Amber of face-painting. She painted a little basketball on Keegan's hand of him. He promptly sucked on it and wiped most of it off. Then at the next station he got his first ever temporary tattoo. It was a pretty cool tattoo, a circle of little ying-yang symbols on his arm. Little did we know how much it would bug him. He kept holding his arm up to me so that I could look at it. He wanted me to get it off of him and he kept trying to pull it off with his fingers. After a while he just gave up but it was kind of funny.
Keegan continued to not feel really great throughout the night and so Lyle and I were alternating on who got up to rock him back to sleep when he woke up sick and coughing. I was sitting in the glider rocking him to sleep when I noticed his arm was glowing in the dark. Ends up the white yangs on the ying-yang symbol glowed in the dark. I thought this was funny; it probably just freaked Keegan out :-(
So that was his first tattoo; we finally scrubbed it off of his arm last night. Every morning when he woke up he would point to it and say "Dat?" Which his way of saying "what's that?" It was an interesting experience for us all.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Bye Bye Baby Fat...Hello Bike
So when I got pregnant the doctor told me that I would probably gain around 30 pounds during my pregnancy. I did gain 30 pounds...by my 6th month pregnant. Then I gained another 30 pounds in the last 3 months. I started out at 5' 7" and 138 lbs and ended at 5' 7" and 198 lbs. I still remember stepping on the scale at the hospital during labor and my mother exclaiming "You don't really weigh that much; do you?!" To her credit it was out of pure surprise since apparently I was wearing my extra 60 pounds well :-)
People who know me know I am have a more slender build. I have never really had trouble with gaining too much weight and it's not because I exercise a lot; that's just how I am. I had never even bothered calculating my BMI until I started gaining a gross amount of weight during my pregnancy. During the end of pregnancy; I just hurt so much. My joints hurt, my feet hurt, I had trouble completing a mere 2 mile walk around the lake. To add to this was the love of dessert. I have always loved eating dessert but while I was pregnant it was an obsession. Me and the bakery department at Super Target were good friends by the time Keegan was born. I told myself I would worry about it after Keegan was born.
So that's what I did. After Keegan was born I lost 30 pounds in the next three weeks. Part of this was due to sleep deprivation, forgetting to eat (because of frantically try to take care of the colicky baby that was Keegan), and a lot of the weight was just plain old water weight so it came off fast.
The next 15 pounds was just pure determination. I limited myself to 1600 calories a day and spent an hour each day walking on the treadmill with Keegan strapped to my chest. This was one of the few things that would make Keegan stop crying and let him go to sleep. He loved riding in his baby bjorn while I walked on the treadmill. So by the time Keegan was 6 months old I had lost another 15 pounds. This was not easy; I had school at night and was working 50% time and of course all that other baby stuff but I did it!
I remember showing up to a party with some friends when Keegan was around 6 months. One of my girlfriends said "You are so lucky that you drop your baby weight off like that; I wish I was so lucky." It was all I could do to not to shout "It wasn't all luck!"; I was exercising at least an hour a day and watching my diet and felt like I was working my a** off; there was no luck here. Although since my body prefers to be slender I am probably somewhat genetically disposed to *not* being overweight; so that might be something. Well...tell that to the last 15 pounds.
Up until Keegan was a year old I kept telling myself; "They say you should take as long to get the weight off as it took to put the weight on." After Keegan's first bday I had no more excuses. I was still 15 pounds heavier that I had been and I hated it. It took a series of pictures of me in Florida with my belly pudging out over my shorts to put me over the edge. I *had* to loose this weight if I was going to feel good about myself again. I *would not* accept that I could not get rid of this weight. If I had to stop eating and run 10 miles a day I *would* loss it.
Being an engineer, I know that losing weight is a simple matter of energy mass balance. We studied this a ton as chemical engineers. You can't make something out of nothing. Of course this is complicated by other human factors such as being tired, craving things, eating out, etc. etc. So I did some research and decided on a plan of action. I really had no more excuses; I wasn't in school at night, I wasn't breastfeeding every other hour, and I was working my normal 40 hours a week.
I decided I would start weightlifting. Muscles burns oodles more calories than fat; around 3x more. So I started lifting every night and I brought free-weights into work and lifted them for 15 minutes twice a day. I also started walking more. Me and one of my co-workers went out and did a 35 minute 2.5 mile walk everyday. Lyle and I have always done our 2-3 mile walk every night. My ultimate goal was to start running again. Would weightlifting and walking 4-6 miles a day be enough? Probably not; so I started honestly keeping track of what calories I ate a day (this included snacking with Keegan, grabbing a cookie here or there, stuff like that). It's amazing what you won't eat if you realize that you have to go through the troubel of recording it. For a few weeks I limited myself to 1400 calories a day. This pretty much sucked. I was always hungry. My only saving grace was I didn't keep track of calories on Sat. and Sunday. This helped me through such a severe calorie restriction.
After a few weeks of the above routine the weight started to melt off. One week I was 150, then 148, 145, etc, etc. A couple weeks ago I got on the scale and it said 137 lbs. Wow, was I excited. I can wear all my old jeans and it feels good. So I stopped restricting calories. Suddenly the next week I was back up to 141 lbs. Wow...suck. Unfortunately I *really* like to eat. I love food. I know that I could never live on a limited calorie diet for more than a month or two. So what to do?
Well if I want to eat more I have to exercise more, right? Simple mass energy balance. So last week Lyle and I came up with a plan. We each work 25 miles from home but we only work 10 miles from each other. Could we possibly drive the car 20 miles to a park in between our works? Then we could carpool and each bike 5 miles to work. Less gas, more exercise. How can you loose?
Well you loose when it rains as we found out last week. Still it has been working out pretty well. The biggest problem is it takes 25 minutes longer to get to work in the morning. Oh yeah and you get really really hungry after biking 5 miles. Which is actually awesome because you can eat more and not gain weight!
So now the exercise routine is:
bike 5 miles to work
lift free-weight 15 minutes
walk 2.5 miles
bike 5 miles to car
walk 2.5 miles
lift free-weights 30 minutes
I am eating around 2000 calories a day and losing weight again. Being curious about how much calories I should be intaking to maintain my weight I checked it out online at:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/calories-burned
According to this I need 1900 calories a day if leading a sedentary life style (can you call life with a toddler sedentary?). With the biking and walking and weightlifting I need and extra 1100 calories a day. I mean wow! That is amazing! That means I can eat some pizza and we can go for ice cream and I can feel awesome about it because I'll still be losing weight (albeit maybe not eating super healthy).
As for the running thing; after having MRIs done on my knees I will probably never be running again. But I think the bike is a wonderful substitute. I am beginning to see muscle definition in my legs and my knees never hurt. So right now I am a big fan of bikes :-) I can also finally say bye bye to all that baby fat I put on and I can keep up with crazy little Keegan even better than before.
The cumulation of all this wonderful working out happened on Saturday while we were camping. We climbed around a mile of stairs at Whitewater Park. Last year I would have been huffing and puffing, my knees would have hurt, and I would have been exhausted. I bound up those stairs with vigor, was never short or breath, and my knees felt great; I was so excited I told Lyle "SO this is why we do all this working out!" Lyle wasn't quite as excited since he had Keegan strapped to his back; but I *did* offer to carry the kid.
So I guess I just wanted to share. I was excited to finally reach my weight goal and excited about having a more active lifestyle. Now the tough part will be sticking to it. It takes quite an effort of will to get on that bike and ride at 7am...I am really not much of a morning person. Especially since my ride in starts with a colossal hill. I started the ride with thoughts like "I am saving 60 miles of driving by doing this 5 mile ride, I am getting in shape, I am getting healthier, I can have ice cream tonight when I get home" The last bit to the top of the hill was punctuated with thoughts like "I hate this bike, I hate this hill, I think it's worth $10 in gas to not have to go over this hill, I need to work closer to the park, I need a taxi, I need a nap." Then after that initial hill things were much better :-)
Hope everyone is having a great day!
People who know me know I am have a more slender build. I have never really had trouble with gaining too much weight and it's not because I exercise a lot; that's just how I am. I had never even bothered calculating my BMI until I started gaining a gross amount of weight during my pregnancy. During the end of pregnancy; I just hurt so much. My joints hurt, my feet hurt, I had trouble completing a mere 2 mile walk around the lake. To add to this was the love of dessert. I have always loved eating dessert but while I was pregnant it was an obsession. Me and the bakery department at Super Target were good friends by the time Keegan was born. I told myself I would worry about it after Keegan was born.
So that's what I did. After Keegan was born I lost 30 pounds in the next three weeks. Part of this was due to sleep deprivation, forgetting to eat (because of frantically try to take care of the colicky baby that was Keegan), and a lot of the weight was just plain old water weight so it came off fast.
The next 15 pounds was just pure determination. I limited myself to 1600 calories a day and spent an hour each day walking on the treadmill with Keegan strapped to my chest. This was one of the few things that would make Keegan stop crying and let him go to sleep. He loved riding in his baby bjorn while I walked on the treadmill. So by the time Keegan was 6 months old I had lost another 15 pounds. This was not easy; I had school at night and was working 50% time and of course all that other baby stuff but I did it!
I remember showing up to a party with some friends when Keegan was around 6 months. One of my girlfriends said "You are so lucky that you drop your baby weight off like that; I wish I was so lucky." It was all I could do to not to shout "It wasn't all luck!"; I was exercising at least an hour a day and watching my diet and felt like I was working my a** off; there was no luck here. Although since my body prefers to be slender I am probably somewhat genetically disposed to *not* being overweight; so that might be something. Well...tell that to the last 15 pounds.
Up until Keegan was a year old I kept telling myself; "They say you should take as long to get the weight off as it took to put the weight on." After Keegan's first bday I had no more excuses. I was still 15 pounds heavier that I had been and I hated it. It took a series of pictures of me in Florida with my belly pudging out over my shorts to put me over the edge. I *had* to loose this weight if I was going to feel good about myself again. I *would not* accept that I could not get rid of this weight. If I had to stop eating and run 10 miles a day I *would* loss it.
Being an engineer, I know that losing weight is a simple matter of energy mass balance. We studied this a ton as chemical engineers. You can't make something out of nothing. Of course this is complicated by other human factors such as being tired, craving things, eating out, etc. etc. So I did some research and decided on a plan of action. I really had no more excuses; I wasn't in school at night, I wasn't breastfeeding every other hour, and I was working my normal 40 hours a week.
I decided I would start weightlifting. Muscles burns oodles more calories than fat; around 3x more. So I started lifting every night and I brought free-weights into work and lifted them for 15 minutes twice a day. I also started walking more. Me and one of my co-workers went out and did a 35 minute 2.5 mile walk everyday. Lyle and I have always done our 2-3 mile walk every night. My ultimate goal was to start running again. Would weightlifting and walking 4-6 miles a day be enough? Probably not; so I started honestly keeping track of what calories I ate a day (this included snacking with Keegan, grabbing a cookie here or there, stuff like that). It's amazing what you won't eat if you realize that you have to go through the troubel of recording it. For a few weeks I limited myself to 1400 calories a day. This pretty much sucked. I was always hungry. My only saving grace was I didn't keep track of calories on Sat. and Sunday. This helped me through such a severe calorie restriction.
After a few weeks of the above routine the weight started to melt off. One week I was 150, then 148, 145, etc, etc. A couple weeks ago I got on the scale and it said 137 lbs. Wow, was I excited. I can wear all my old jeans and it feels good. So I stopped restricting calories. Suddenly the next week I was back up to 141 lbs. Wow...suck. Unfortunately I *really* like to eat. I love food. I know that I could never live on a limited calorie diet for more than a month or two. So what to do?
Well if I want to eat more I have to exercise more, right? Simple mass energy balance. So last week Lyle and I came up with a plan. We each work 25 miles from home but we only work 10 miles from each other. Could we possibly drive the car 20 miles to a park in between our works? Then we could carpool and each bike 5 miles to work. Less gas, more exercise. How can you loose?
Well you loose when it rains as we found out last week. Still it has been working out pretty well. The biggest problem is it takes 25 minutes longer to get to work in the morning. Oh yeah and you get really really hungry after biking 5 miles. Which is actually awesome because you can eat more and not gain weight!
So now the exercise routine is:
bike 5 miles to work
lift free-weight 15 minutes
walk 2.5 miles
bike 5 miles to car
walk 2.5 miles
lift free-weights 30 minutes
I am eating around 2000 calories a day and losing weight again. Being curious about how much calories I should be intaking to maintain my weight I checked it out online at:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/calories-burned
According to this I need 1900 calories a day if leading a sedentary life style (can you call life with a toddler sedentary?). With the biking and walking and weightlifting I need and extra 1100 calories a day. I mean wow! That is amazing! That means I can eat some pizza and we can go for ice cream and I can feel awesome about it because I'll still be losing weight (albeit maybe not eating super healthy).
As for the running thing; after having MRIs done on my knees I will probably never be running again. But I think the bike is a wonderful substitute. I am beginning to see muscle definition in my legs and my knees never hurt. So right now I am a big fan of bikes :-) I can also finally say bye bye to all that baby fat I put on and I can keep up with crazy little Keegan even better than before.
The cumulation of all this wonderful working out happened on Saturday while we were camping. We climbed around a mile of stairs at Whitewater Park. Last year I would have been huffing and puffing, my knees would have hurt, and I would have been exhausted. I bound up those stairs with vigor, was never short or breath, and my knees felt great; I was so excited I told Lyle "SO this is why we do all this working out!" Lyle wasn't quite as excited since he had Keegan strapped to his back; but I *did* offer to carry the kid.
So I guess I just wanted to share. I was excited to finally reach my weight goal and excited about having a more active lifestyle. Now the tough part will be sticking to it. It takes quite an effort of will to get on that bike and ride at 7am...I am really not much of a morning person. Especially since my ride in starts with a colossal hill. I started the ride with thoughts like "I am saving 60 miles of driving by doing this 5 mile ride, I am getting in shape, I am getting healthier, I can have ice cream tonight when I get home" The last bit to the top of the hill was punctuated with thoughts like "I hate this bike, I hate this hill, I think it's worth $10 in gas to not have to go over this hill, I need to work closer to the park, I need a taxi, I need a nap." Then after that initial hill things were much better :-)
Hope everyone is having a great day!
Monday, June 02, 2008
Toddler Talking and Nutty for Soapnuts...
Keegan had his first full day in toddler today. Guess what? He *loved* it! And that is an understatement. Despite being a bit bewildered about being dropped off in the toddler room by Lyle this morning; he had a great time. I had numerous teachers at daycare stop me to tell me (again) how much he loves playing outside. He loves the new activities and is still taking a solid 2 hour nap on the cot. I think having all the kids nap at the same time is really helping with his naps.
When I went to pick him up he was trying to swing from the fence and had a lot of sand in his hair :-) The teacher told me he had a super fun time today. Keegan gave me a big grin and walked out of the playground without any fuss. I don't know what the deal was but Keegan was like a different boy. He was super happy, super talkative, and even more confident than normal. He listened to me really well, didn't seem over tired, and was just so happy. Usually his daycare days are hard because he comes home sort of tired and frustrated. Today was amazing! He was such a joy to be around all afternoon.
We are also noticing that sometimes when Keegan talks he is pronunciating very well and sounds, well, like a little boy. There have been a couple times when he says something in such a reasonable mature well-pronounced tone that we look around to see if someone else is there. Not to mention the talking in general; he is starting to "say" a lot of new sounds and he just never stops talking. I am thinking some of this might also be attributed to him being around a lot of kids that talk.
Okay onto my new favorite topic of the day. Soapnuts. My 7th generation fabric softener was sold out on amazon.com But these funny brown soapnuts kept popping up when I did eco-friendly fabric softener searches. So what are soapnuts? The are berries with a high amount of saporin; which is a natural surfactant. Saporin has some properties of lye (although gentler) and can also be used as a antibacterial or delouser. This is interesting news considering the latest reports that Triclosan (the antibaterial used in many soaps) is accumulating in water sources and could be possibly a bio-accumulating substance.
Supposedly you put some of these nuts in a little cloth baggie and throw them in the wash. You don't need to use fabric softener. You can use them with septic systems and with delicate materials like silk. Okay...as I read all of this I am thinking it is seriously a joke. I mean really if something like this was around why was I adding a cocktail of chemicals to my wash (besides the fact that it supports my career as a chemist)?
I mean on top of all the above they are super cheap; way cheaper than an eco-friendly detergent. So I did some research. Everyone who tries these little fruits seems to love them. I ran across three complaints: 1) They taste horrible (duh), 2) They don't work well if they can't agitate (so for big loads like a comforter), and 3) If you have super tough stains you should treat them with vinegar before washing with the soapnuts.
Here are some really interesting links that I found:
http://globalecoharvest.com/soapnuts/
If you scroll to the bottom of this one it has other soapnut uses...
http://www.helium.com/items/984369-recycle-plastic-shopping-using
Interesting review on soapnuts.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/590247/soap_nuts_soapnuts_a_natural_detergent.html?cat=5
Another interesting review full of information.
http://www.smartplanet.com/reviews/household/10000865/review/soapods.htm
One more review just for fun :-)
Okay so next the question comes to mind. Where do I get these things? Well amazon.com sells them and they qualify for free super saver shipping or for amazon Prime if you use that.
Next you are thinking harder about the ethics, right? Are these nuts harvested in sweatshops by under age people? So I read some about that. It sounds like people were actually suffering because they couldn't make a living off of their 80 year old soapnut trees; so they ended up starting to cut down the trees to sell for firewood. I mean that's kind of sad; wouldn't it be better to have a renewable product to sell? So, well I ordered my soapnuts and I guess we will see how it goes.
Just in case you don't already think I am off my rocker; I have to add to Lyle's comments about the bamboo towels. I have come to the conclusion that I love those towels. We only bought one set and are now using cotton towels again. Where the bamboo towels sucked the water right off of my skin and never smelled musty, the cotton towels take a lot more effort to dry off with and are smelling sour by the end of the week. True, it doesn't smell like wet bamboo in the bathroom after a bath, but the smell was kind of growing on me. Those bamboo towels are so soft too; it was like drying off with super absorbent silk. I want more of them but they are kind of pricey.
Okay one last eco-friendly thing. I am addicted to sugar scrub. When you buy it at the store it's super expensive usually $20-$30 for a little jar of it. So I found a recipe for it online.
3/4 cup oil
1 cup granulated white sugar or brown sugar
add fragrance of choice
This is slightly modified from the recipe I found at the link below. I like a little more oil in my scrub.
http://www.recipezaar.com/92027
I actually added some vanilla and some lavender essential oil. It smells super yummy and leaves my legs and arms very soft. Very cheap too. I actually used walnut oil because I had some sitting around. Any oil except for mineral oil (baby oil) should work great. Another great site that has additives you can put into homemade sugar scrub is listed here:
http://www.cancerlynx.com/bodyscrub.html
I like the above site because it takes a very formulation-like approach to the whole body scrub recipe. Right now I am putting the body scrub into Keegan's extra baby food bowls because they have nice lids. It's not glamorous but it works. I keep meaning to grab some nice non-breakable glass jars from work but have yet to actually remember.
Okay well there's your eco friendly Keegan update for the day!
When I went to pick him up he was trying to swing from the fence and had a lot of sand in his hair :-) The teacher told me he had a super fun time today. Keegan gave me a big grin and walked out of the playground without any fuss. I don't know what the deal was but Keegan was like a different boy. He was super happy, super talkative, and even more confident than normal. He listened to me really well, didn't seem over tired, and was just so happy. Usually his daycare days are hard because he comes home sort of tired and frustrated. Today was amazing! He was such a joy to be around all afternoon.
We are also noticing that sometimes when Keegan talks he is pronunciating very well and sounds, well, like a little boy. There have been a couple times when he says something in such a reasonable mature well-pronounced tone that we look around to see if someone else is there. Not to mention the talking in general; he is starting to "say" a lot of new sounds and he just never stops talking. I am thinking some of this might also be attributed to him being around a lot of kids that talk.
Okay onto my new favorite topic of the day. Soapnuts. My 7th generation fabric softener was sold out on amazon.com But these funny brown soapnuts kept popping up when I did eco-friendly fabric softener searches. So what are soapnuts? The are berries with a high amount of saporin; which is a natural surfactant. Saporin has some properties of lye (although gentler) and can also be used as a antibacterial or delouser. This is interesting news considering the latest reports that Triclosan (the antibaterial used in many soaps) is accumulating in water sources and could be possibly a bio-accumulating substance.
Supposedly you put some of these nuts in a little cloth baggie and throw them in the wash. You don't need to use fabric softener. You can use them with septic systems and with delicate materials like silk. Okay...as I read all of this I am thinking it is seriously a joke. I mean really if something like this was around why was I adding a cocktail of chemicals to my wash (besides the fact that it supports my career as a chemist)?
I mean on top of all the above they are super cheap; way cheaper than an eco-friendly detergent. So I did some research. Everyone who tries these little fruits seems to love them. I ran across three complaints: 1) They taste horrible (duh), 2) They don't work well if they can't agitate (so for big loads like a comforter), and 3) If you have super tough stains you should treat them with vinegar before washing with the soapnuts.
Here are some really interesting links that I found:
http://globalecoharvest.com/soapnuts/
If you scroll to the bottom of this one it has other soapnut uses...
http://www.helium.com/items/984369-recycle-plastic-shopping-using
Interesting review on soapnuts.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/590247/soap_nuts_soapnuts_a_natural_detergent.html?cat=5
Another interesting review full of information.
http://www.smartplanet.com/reviews/household/10000865/review/soapods.htm
One more review just for fun :-)
Okay so next the question comes to mind. Where do I get these things? Well amazon.com sells them and they qualify for free super saver shipping or for amazon Prime if you use that.
Next you are thinking harder about the ethics, right? Are these nuts harvested in sweatshops by under age people? So I read some about that. It sounds like people were actually suffering because they couldn't make a living off of their 80 year old soapnut trees; so they ended up starting to cut down the trees to sell for firewood. I mean that's kind of sad; wouldn't it be better to have a renewable product to sell? So, well I ordered my soapnuts and I guess we will see how it goes.
Just in case you don't already think I am off my rocker; I have to add to Lyle's comments about the bamboo towels. I have come to the conclusion that I love those towels. We only bought one set and are now using cotton towels again. Where the bamboo towels sucked the water right off of my skin and never smelled musty, the cotton towels take a lot more effort to dry off with and are smelling sour by the end of the week. True, it doesn't smell like wet bamboo in the bathroom after a bath, but the smell was kind of growing on me. Those bamboo towels are so soft too; it was like drying off with super absorbent silk. I want more of them but they are kind of pricey.
Okay one last eco-friendly thing. I am addicted to sugar scrub. When you buy it at the store it's super expensive usually $20-$30 for a little jar of it. So I found a recipe for it online.
3/4 cup oil
1 cup granulated white sugar or brown sugar
add fragrance of choice
This is slightly modified from the recipe I found at the link below. I like a little more oil in my scrub.
http://www.recipezaar.com/92027
I actually added some vanilla and some lavender essential oil. It smells super yummy and leaves my legs and arms very soft. Very cheap too. I actually used walnut oil because I had some sitting around. Any oil except for mineral oil (baby oil) should work great. Another great site that has additives you can put into homemade sugar scrub is listed here:
http://www.cancerlynx.com/bodyscrub.html
I like the above site because it takes a very formulation-like approach to the whole body scrub recipe. Right now I am putting the body scrub into Keegan's extra baby food bowls because they have nice lids. It's not glamorous but it works. I keep meaning to grab some nice non-breakable glass jars from work but have yet to actually remember.
Okay well there's your eco friendly Keegan update for the day!
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