To Buy Organic, Or Not? That Is The Question.

It seems these days that every time I go to the grocery store, I see more and more items with the claim of "organic" on the label. These items are almost always more expensive (sometimes MUCH more expensive) but I often feel compelled to shell out the extra dough to make myself healthier.

The fact of the matter is, there are some foods that are much safer for both you and the environment, if they are purchased organically. Then there are some with fewer health risks that can still be purchased in the traditional manor.

If you find yourself in the grocery store isle, debating over the organic version of your favorite food and its cheaper, non-organic counterpart, there are a few questions you could ask yourself to help make the decision.
-If a fruit or vegetable, how thick is its skin or covering? Would it be easy to puncture?
-What part of the world did this food travel from and what might be their standards for using chemicals/pesticides?
-Is this fruit or vegetable in season in this part of the world?

The following is a list compiled from several websites, including www.thedailygreen.com and it contains the foods that would be best purchased in their organic forms.

• Meat Animals that are raised for meat production are typically fed grains treated with pesticides, also are given antibiotics, and growth hormones. Some cows also are fed parts of other cows, which is a common cause of Mad Cow disease. If a meat product is certified organic, the USDA states that it will be free of pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics.
• Milk Organic dairies feed cows only grains that are free from pesticides, and these cows are not given antibiotics or growth hormones such as rGBH or rbST.
• Coffee Look for Fair Trade Certified Organic labels to ensure that no pesticides were used on plants and that fair wages were paid to farm workers producing the coffee.
• Fruits such as peaches, apples, strawberries, grapes, cherries, raspberries, and pears These fruits all have delicate skins and are most highly treated with pesticides.
• Juices that contain above fruits
• Vegetables such as bell peppers, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, and tomatoes Again, big recipients of pesticides/fungicides.

On the other hand, the following foods are considered to be safe when consumed in their non-organic form, as they don't heavily retain pesticides: asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, kiwi, mangoes, onions, papayas, pineapples, and sweet peas.

A Jump Start to Your Holiday Shopping

Now that Halloween has come and gone, the stores can FILL the shelves with all things Christmas-y!

This holiday season, you may find yourself thinking of the economy, your pocketbook, the earth, and all the wonderful people on your usual gift-giving list. Purely Maid (and their awesome web resources!) has a few ideas to help you with giving a little greener come December!

*Do your shopping at locally owned business (rather than large chain stores). This helps out the small business owners in your community while also cutting back on shipping/transportation needs and reducing oil consumption.

*When appropriate, buy homemade! If you've never been to the Etsy website, you are in for a real treat and you would be hard-pressed NOT to find something perfect for everyone at very affordable prices!

*Food and drinks are always welcome gifts, especially when giving to the host of a holiday party. Finding locally produced/grown cheeses, wine, beer, jams, preserves, or meats can be a fun challenge! Buy organic and you can improve the health of your recipient. Also, look for products that are labelled "Fair Trade" or for the vegetarian on your list "Vegan"

*Supporting an organization that is near and dear to your heart or the heart of the recipient benefits so many. There is a very helpful list of charitable organizations supported by donations at TreeHugger.

*By consolidating on-line and mail-in orders you can cut back on extra packaging and shipping.

*Shiny or sparkly wrapping paper cannot be recycled so when you're purchasing your wrapping, look for paper that is made from recycled materials, non-sparkly, or you could re-use something from around the house like newspaper, fabric, or maps.

*The same goes for greeting cards. Opt for ones made from recycled paper. Or, send an e-card!

*If you receive multiple catalogues, think about cancelling any that you don't order from or very much enjoy browsing.

*As far as the place where you display your wrapped gifts, make sure to recycle your Christmas tree! Have it mulched and not just taken to a landfill. Or, you could purchase a potted tree that you can replant when the ground thaws.

*If gift certificates are more your style of gift giving, think local: restaurants, retail stores, museums, state park permits, local used book store or antique store. If you live in Lincoln, try places like 10,000 Villages, A Novel Idea, The Black Market, Bread and Cup, The Mill, etc...

*If you're looking to encourage a little "greenness" in the lives of those on your gift giving list, try putting together a (bamboo) gift basket of natural skin care or hair care products, cleaning supplies, or recycled paper-goods that can be used around the home. You could really get creative with this one! You could make up a cute little basket for the bathroom with all of Method's bathroom cleaners and some recycled, bleach free toilet paper, something for the laundry room with Seventh Generation, several travel size (made-from-recycled-materials-and-with-wind-power) bottles of Aveda hair products, or a winters worth of skin hydrating lotions, washes, and lip balms from Burt's Bees or Arbonne.

*And finally, think organic cotton and bamboo. Replace a special someones bedroom linens, bath towels or favorite tee's with organic cotton and/or bamboo. Both are grown without pesticides and bamboo is very quickly renewable, as it can grow up to a foot a day!

What a bright idea, Home Depot!

With the state of the economy these days, we're all looking for ways to cut the cost of our energy bills (not to mention our Visa bill...) so we might be switching to CFL bulbs. These bulbs cost slightly more than the normal bulbs BUT in the lifetime of the bulb, they can save anywhere from $30-$50 on your electric bill. CFL bulbs' lifespan is 6,000-15,000 hours as compared to the lifespan of the incandescent bulb at 750-1,000 hours.

Now, before you run out to Home Depot to replace all your bulbs, there is one dim side to the CFL's. They contain small amounts of mercury. Four to five mg per bulb, to be more exact. If mercury at this level is inhaled chronically, it can be toxic to the brain, kidney, spinal cord and liver. So you can imagine what happens when these CFLs go to the landfills and are broken. Mercury is released into the surrounding land/water at dangerous levels.

This is where Home Depot comes in! All Home Depot stores now have a CFL recycling program! You can take your burnt out bulbs to the service desk where they are safely collected and picked up by a HAZMAT service, who de-mercury the bulbs and recycle the glass to be used in new bulbs. What a great service to the community! So: make the switch, save some dollars, then recycle!

All this talk of mercury in our lightbulbs may have you worried about a broken bulb in your home, and rightfully so. Here is a link to the EPA's webpage that advises what to do in the case of a breakage.

A Helpful Tip from a Customer's Home...Shower Doors

Shower doors...UGH! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Well, I suppose you'd live but it might make showering awkward and sloppy:) It seems that even in the newest of new homes that we clean, shower doors all have soap scum, hard water spots, rusty/moldy caulking, etc. We admit, they are difficult to get clean!

So, we have a suggestion for those of you with showers that have doors as opposed to curtains. In one of the beautiful homes that we clean, the owner of the home hung a shower rod and curtain on the INSIDE of the shower door. That prevents the water from coming in contact with the door and it also looks really nice. The customer chose a pretty gold-colored curtain, so it gives a nice golden glow to the shower! Hey, it's worth the try, right? Another very helpful hint for showers is a daily shower spray. The only non-toxic type that comes to mind immediatly is Method's Daily shower spray in the scent of ylang ylang. Yum. Or you could be crafty and mix up your own with some H2O, white vinegar, a little lemon juice and maybe a few drops of tea tree oil.

And, just a side note on major shower cleaning issues: cut a lemon in half and rub it on hard water stains. Let it sit and then scrub like crazy! Lemon works wonders on hard water stains.

If anyone else has any tips (such as the shower-curtain-on-the-inside thing) you can leave them in the comments or email them to us at purelymaid@yahoo.com! You may get to see your tip in print!

Lincoln Grocery Stores

I'm sure you've all seen them in stores...they are THE REUSABLE SHOPPING BAG and they are (hopefully) taking over the world.

I just googled "plastic bags in the U.S." and was bombarded with information, slightly scary information about these little white grocery store ghosts.

Did you know

-approximately 380 billion plastic shopping bags are used in the U.S. annually

-between 1 and 4 percent of these bags are recycled

-plastic bags are a hazard to aquatic life, they cause suffocation and are easily ingested and cannot pass through the animals system, causing the animal to starve

-the type of plastic used in the bags is not readily biodegradable

-it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags

On the positive side, I also learned

-San Francisco, CA has banned plastic shopping bags in grocery stores and large pharmacies

-Los Angeles will follow suit in the year 2010

-Starting in 2009, Seattle WA will charge a 20 cent "green fee" to plastic bag users

-Home furnishing store IKEA already charges a nickel for each plastic bag customers use

Since we Lincoln-ites aren't lucky enough to live on the coast (or have an IKEA for that matter), maybe we can reduce the number of plastic bags we are using by purchasing REUSABLE shopping bags and throw them in our backseats for our trips to the grocery stores. These bags can be purchased literally everywhere and sometimes for less than a dollar a piece!

The following grocery stores in Lincoln are giving a $0.05 discount per reusable bag you bring:

Russ's

HyVee

Leon's

Open Harvest has a punch card for reusable bag fans. Fill your punch card and you get $5 off your next visit!

SunMart, SuperSaver, WalMart and Target all said, "Not yet, but that's something we are looking into"

So stock up on a few reusable bags, save some change, and use your old plastic bags as liners for all your little trash cans!

Give me an "H" Give me an "E" Give me a "P" Give me an "A"

What's that spell? HEPA!

You've probably heard by now that a HEPA filter is a good thing to have in your vacuum cleaner. We at Purely Maid decided it was a great thing for all of our important customers with pets, with kids, with allergies, pretty much everyone! SO, we went out and bought the prettiest HEPA equipped vacuum we could find...The Dyson Animal DC 14 With Telescope Reach. We think its pretty special and we take it with us everywhere we go! Dyson's HEPA filters are guaranteed for the life of the vacuum with no need to do any maintenance to it.

If you're thinking of purchasing your own HEPA vacuum, here are a few tips. HEPA stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air. HEPA filters have a standard for the size of the particles they trap. If you are in the market for the best of the HEPAs, you'll want to look for the words sealed HEPA, or true HEPA and avoid things that say HEPA-like. You can also look for the labels to say something like, "an efficiency of 99.7% for microns .3 in size." This means that your HEPA is going to filter out the allergens like pollen and dust mite feces. The less feces you have in your home, the better!

Now, if you'd like the teeny feces out of your life, but you'd rather not buy a new vacuum, send us an email @ purelymaid@yahoo.com and we'll be right over with our pretty Dyson (and all our other great supplies) and we'll do much more than just vacuum!

Soy Candle Update, Etc.

Went to Target tonight (for a lightbulb they don't carry) but came away with two nuggets of information for ya. Method has redesigned their deliciously aromatic soy candles with all the old scents and two new-ish ones: citrus cilantro and pomegranite tea. Mmmmmm. And speaking of scents...Clorox GreenWorks has a new one! The all-purpose cleaner now comes in a fruity tangerine!

Good People

I firmly believe you can judge the integrity and quality of a business by the types of cups they provide a drink in. That said, hats off to bread & cup and Yoga, Body, and Balance of Lincoln, Ne. I have personally sipped water from 100% compostable cups at both establishments. Great, green job, guys! Oh, and if you haven't been to bread & cup yet, its delicious. I'd like to give advice on what to order, but I'd pretty much have to copy and paste the menu.

Soy or Paraffin? The age old question.

It's the weekend, and you're planning a romantic dinner for your sweetie. There is wine, fancy cheese, roses, music...What more do you need to "set the mood"?

Or, more realistically, its Saturday and you finally cleaned out the fridge and threw away those questionable leftovers from last week. There seems to be a funky odor coming from the trash can area. What could you use to mask the scent?

The answer? CANDLES! Now, you're probably thinking, "Allison, how on earth can you tell me that I can get any more ecologically friendly than burning candles? I'm not using electricity, burning coal, using gasoline....Wait a minute..."

That's right. Paraffin wax is yet ANOTHER derivative of petroleum. Is there anything that we can't make out of petroleum??? While paraffin wax candles are burning, petro-chemicals are floating through your air. But not to worry, there is an alternative. Soy candles! Soy wax is made from soy beans and veggies. There are numerous benefits to burning soy candles:

-soybeans and veggies are SO renewable

-soy is non-toxic while it burns

-its residue can be washed away with soap and water

-soy wax is BIODEGRADABLE

-and my personal favorite...purchasing soy supports farmers! (not Big Oil) Raise your hand if you live in the Midwest and know a farmer who grows soybeans. See?

So, snuff out those Yankee's and keep your peepers open for a soy alternative! Actually, just trade the Yankee in for their new model, Beanswax.

Dirty Dozen

In my National Geographic Green Guide magazine, there was a handy little pull-out section with this title that I thought would be beneficial to share. It's a list of 12 ingredients to avoid when selecting any personal care products. If you read through the list a few times, the words should get stuck in your head and hopefully you'll remember them when you're choosing your new shampoo or body lotion.

1. Antibacterials
2. Coal tar colors: FD&C Blue 1, Green 3
3. Diethanolamine (DEA)
4. 1,4-Dioxane
5. Fragrance (containing phthalates)
6. Formaldehyde (diazolidinyl urea, imidazolidinyl urea and quaternium compounds)
7. Lead and mercury
8. Nanoparticles
9. Parabens (methyl-, propyl-, butyl-, ethyl-, isobutyl-)
10. Petroleum distillates
11. p-Phenylenediamine (PPD)
12. Hydroquinone

some of the ingredients on this list are pretty self explanitory, or just plain sound horrible. Um, petroleum distillates? Does that even SOUND good for you??? Lead, mercury? Common sense. But, some of these ingredients are not even pronouncable so I looked a few of them up to get an overview of why we should avoid them.

*Blue Dye #1, Coal tar colors, and PPD All synthesized from petroleum...Just like crude oil. Yum. Used in rubber chemicals, photo developer, oil, gasoline, dark cosmetics and hair dye. Blue Dye has also been shown to cause behavioral and learning problems in small people.

*DEA A foaming/wettening agent used in things like shampoos and lotions. Considered an "unclassifiable carcinogen" by the WHO and EPA. 'Nuff said.

*Nanoparticles I TRIED to read some journals on this one and they went WHOOSH, over my head. I am NOT a scientist. What I did get from it was that they are really freaking small and get inside of you. Hmmmm. The scientists kept using the word "unpredictable." I like to predict what my conditioner is going to do.

*Parabens/Phthalates They mimic estrogen in the body. Dudes, they will seriously lower your sperm count and make your swimmers weak. Not cool. Chicks, parabens were actually FOUND INSIDE BREAST TUMORS in studies. Just livin' in there.

*Hydroquinone This is found in skin lightening agents, just ask Michael Jackson. It contains mercury and leads to liver/kidney damage.

Now that I've got you all bummed out, here are a few brands of personal care products you could check out. They do pretty well @ avoiding the above ingredients and are pretty easy to find:

Burt's Bees, Kiss My Face, Jason, Aveda, Arbonne, Method, Tom's. Any other suggestions?

A Big Welcome To You!

We were out and about today, cleaning up Lincoln (one toilet at a time) and we got pictures! As an official welcome to Purely Maid's blog, we are offering $5 off an initial cleaning of your home or business if you mention our blog. Now, $5 is a whole bedroom in our world, thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom with all earth and people friendly cleaning products. It doesn't get much better than this. And if any of you out there have connections with the State Capitol, we'd love to clean it! I wonder how many bathrooms are in the place...

Send us an email @ purelymaid@yahoo.com to set up your free in-home consultation ASAP!

Breaking news in the world of Method and Target

This is something that we have been waiting for, holding our breath for even! We haven't been this excited since the invention of Clorox Green Works or Lil' Bowl Blu! It's the little tabs that you put in your dishwasher, done Method-style! Neither of us has tried it yet (waiting for the other, more toxic stuff to run out. yuck) and I couldn't find it on Method's website BUT the San Francisco Chronicle says it's better than the toxic stuff (duh) and smells like pink grapefruit.

The toxic stuff that's missing? Phosphates and bleach. At this point in time I know little about phosphates but Martha Stewart just gave me a very brief lesson and it turns out that it gets into our waterways and hurts the fishies and the plants. That's reason enough for me to be phosphate-free! Some states are even working on banning products with phosphates. Folks in Washington State are going to be BIG fans of Smarty Dish by 2010!

So, if you as a reader have road-tested Smarty Dish, leave a comment and let us know what YOU think!

(Other news I learned today on my quick trip to Target...Method's Granite/Marble cleaner is clearanced, they are carrying two types of Clorox GreenWorks dish soap, and the brand Cherokee makes some ADORABLE little tees for boys and girls from organic cotton. Oh, to be a size 5T again...)

Our best friend. Boyfriend. Lifesaver.

Ok, we admit it. We are having a love triangle with distilled white vinegar. He is just SO hard to resist! He is non-toxic, cheap, comes in many sizes, smells heavenly and can be used for just about anything! And, he's pretty cute in those dark shades. Rest assured, there will be many updates on our useage of vinegar in our quest to clean green.

Here is a sneak peak of things that our friend can be used for:

Killing unwanted weeds or grass, increasing the acidity of your soil (for plants that do well in more acidic homes), freshening and extending the life of cut flowers, cleaning fish bowls, detering ants, cleaning *gasp* animal urine out of carpet, keeping car windows from frosting over, cleaning rust from tools and bolts, polishing car chrome, soothing bee and/or jellyfish stings.

Now, that was just a little teaser! Make sure to check back for more reasons why we sometimes fight over the affections of Vinegar. (I like to call him "Vinnie") If you hurry, big jugs of Vinnie are on sale at HyVee this week!

Purely Maid's First Blog! (We're better at cleaning:)

Thanks for visiting the blog of Tosha and Allison (that's us!) and Purely Maid. Look for updates here on green cleaning products, helpful cleaning tips, specials, and other eco-friendly ideas. Maybe a little celebrity gossip. We'll see!

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