Shift Your Habit is written by Elizabeth Rogers, who you might remember as coauthor of The Green Book (another fantastic little gem!). This is a great book that teaches you how to make small steps in your lifestyle – shifting rather than taking a giant leap – to gradually become more green. She covers the primary motivations, starting with frugality and environmental friendliness (Save Money, Save The Planet are written on a dollar bill on the front cover).

Recycle, reuse, repurpose. Handy-downs as opposed to hand-me-downs. It’s clever. I think my favorite is the 2-page spread charts with recipes for homemade cleaners, a guide for when to plant different produce in your garden, and the single-page information sheets on bike-riding, saving money by eating in, and where to splurge on fair trade and organics.

Elizabeth writes the book in a user-friendly, engaging style that is both easy to read and fun. It’s a handy reference for saving some dough while making responsible decisions. Sections on beauty, kids, pets, worklife, and home are highly informative. I think what I like best is that I can pick it up in short spurts – like while I’m waiting in carpool to pick up the kids or when I have a few minutes of quiet when they run out to check the mail.

The great news is, you can have your own copy of this great resource – for FREE! There are a few ways to enter the drawing:

1. Comment on the post below, telling me your favorite green lifestyle ’shift’ that saves you cash and is good for the planet.
2. Tweet the giveaway, and then come back here and tell me you tweeted.
3. Announce the competition on your blog, and then come back here and tell me you did.

I’ll use a random number generator to choose the winner on Friday, March 19th at 9PM EST. Giveaway is open to anyone – internationally. Why? Because I love ya’ll Canadians and Aussies and Brits (and the rest of you too) – enough to spring for the cheapest variety of international media mail.

So here are a few natural remedies that are 100% safe for people, pets, and planet.

1. Cornmeal. Leave small piles where the ants come. It’ll keep them away for about 2 weeks until their cousins return, but yes – it kills them. So, if you have issues with killing ants keep reading.
2. Vinegar. It’s a natural ant repellent. Put some in a spray bottle and spray where you see the little buggers.
3. Chalk. Draw a line and the ants won’t cross it.
4. Pepper – cayenne or black. Sprinkle some wherever ants are coming in, and they’ll stop coming. Just remember to re-sprinkle after you sweep or mop!
5. Cinnamon. Just like pepper – for whatever reason, ants don’t do cinnamon.

Now for a little announcement. Come back one week from today – we’ll have a book review and a giveaway! You won’t want to miss it on Monday the 15th.

1. Bactine: The spray stuff that disinfects without hurting. I use it at least once a week for scraped knees.
2. Sting-eeze: It’s a goop you put on bee stings or fire ant bites – made my daughter stop crying almost immediately. (It takes care of the pain, but doesn’t help allergic reactions)
3. Age-appropriate Benadryl: Just in case of an allergic rash, or when that nose needs to stop running at night to let a child sleep.
4. Age-appropriate Tylenol & Motrin: You don’t want to be caught with a 106º fever and nothing to battle it with – been there, done that.
5. Vicks vapor rub: I slather it on my kids’ feet at bedtime if they’re coughing. It helps – I don’t know how, but it does.
6. Honey: Mix it with a bit of lemon juice and give it by spoonfulls when someone has a cough. It’s all around good.
7. A box of mixed character bandaids: I don’t dress my kids in character shirts or plaster their rooms with them, but when someone is teary over a scrape or cut, a little Spiderman or Care Bears accessory protects it and makes my kid happy. Wel worth it.
8. Hyland’s remedies – for whatever your family needs. Sniffles & sneezes, teething tablets, calming, ear aches – stock up because they really work. And they’re homeopathic – even better!
9. A really good humidifier, and a stock of vinegar to clean it with.
10. Neosporin/polysporin – some type of ouchless antibiotic cream (not ointment) to help cuts heal faster.
11. An easy to reach, well identified stock of any medications your child might need in a hurry – epi pen, anti-seizure meds, asthma inhaler.

Additionally, a good stock of gauze, medical tape, and a stretchy ace-type bandage – because there might come a day when you’re glad you have them on hand. What’s more? Keep it organized – there’s nothing worse than knowing something’s in that medicine cabinet, only to find that it’s so cluttered you can’t find it.

Image Credit: Edelman PR

Did you catch that? 67% of loyal consumers would switch brands due to participation in a cause. Brand loyalty used to be about product performance, service, and price. Now we’re seeing a fundamental shift in the way people value products and services. It’s no longer enough to produce a great product, support your customers, and price it well.

And today, causes go beyond American Cancer Society and Habitat for Humanity (even though those are awesome, and we wholeheartedly support them). Today we have a whole subculture of products that protect the environment, protect health, protect animals… Most people lump it all into the ‘green’ category, but when it comes down to it, ‘green’ consumers have highly segmented motivations. And there’s super loyal. In fact, ‘green’ consumers – once they find a product that suits their values, are unlikely to switch to a conventional product, even if it’s higher quality at a lower price.

Our consumers drive us to do better. They drive us to find creative ways to invest in our world and outdo ourselves. We love our clients for the way they motivate us. So, thank you for your loyalty. We promise to stand by the values that got us started – health for people, pets, and planet. We do it for you.

In my house I use the pizza stone all the time. Sunday nights are pizza nights, so every Sunday the pizza stones finds its way into and out of the oven multiple times with pizzas of various toppings. But throughout the week I love the even cooking it does with cookie dough and even fish.

So, between uses, what’s the secret to keeping it clean? It’s a little tough because the ceramic is porous, you don’t want to use any chemicals or soap on it. In fact, most manufacturers caution against even water. Basically, ceramic stone cookware is for food, and only food. Let’s start with some typical questions about stonecare.

1. Why no soap ? Because stone is so porous, any cleaning solutions will seep into the stone and remained trapped there. You won’t taste them because the heat of the oven burns them off, but that doesn’t mean they won’t contaminate your food.
2. Why no water? The presence of water in stone could cause cracking over time. Baking stones don’t like water, so if you want it to last, treat it well.

There are two good ways to clean your stone that don’t involve water or soap. Don’t worry about discoloration – it’s going to happen, and it just ’seasons’ your stone, so to speak.

• A plastic scraper. You can find them in kitchen gadget stores and they’re one of my favorite cleaning tools ever. They don’t scratch surfaces (as long as they aren’t scratched, themselves). Hold it at a 45º angle and scrape away.
• The self-cleaning function on the oven. Just as it burns off gunk in your oven, it’ll burn off any impurities in your baking stone. Make sure you preheat slowly – heat the oven to 450º or so, then turn on the self-clean. Your stone will love you for it.

I like to keep my stone in the oven – it helps distribute heat evenly and maintain heat for longer times. It does take a little longer to preheat an oven with a stone in it, but the oven doesn’t have to work so hard once it’s hot.

How about you? What are your tips?

Image Credit: NPA, via Wall Street Journal

Here at BroomHuggers one of our main concerns for the last 4-5 years has been the fluidity of the use of words like “natural,” “organic,” “eco-friendly,” especially in cleaning products. See, no one regulates the use of these words in cleaning products. I could make something out of ammonia, formaldehyde, and petrochemicals and say that it’s natural because the mood hit me. (Of course, I wouldn’t do that… but someone might…)

Green Seal has been a nice source of information, but often unhelpful. It seems that a lot of the small brands that would pass their criteria don’t have the funding to get the certification, and many of the big brands who care enough to certify are only available in industrial contexts.

The EPA has a Design for the Environment qualification, but it lets through pesky chemicals like 2-Butoxyethanol, a carcinogen. Environmentally friendly? I think not. Safe for people, pets, and planet? No.

So, to earn the new qualification of Natural Product Association certification, products will have to meet criteria including the following: 95% of the ingredients in the product, excluding water, must be derived from natural sources. Non-natural ingredients should be used only when alternative natural ingredients are unavailable. The product should contain no ingredients with suspected human health risks. NPA says it is reviewing full ingredient lists from manufacturers who have applied for certification to determine whether their products qualify. The seal will be seen on products in the next several months.

Clorox, the manufacturer of GreenWorks, is on the advisory committee for the organization, and while we don’t consider GreenWorks fully green, they have made larger strides than any other major mainstream manufacturer of cleaning products. So, while hopes are high, my feet are firmly grounded in the reality NPA standards won’t be any higher than GreenWorks.

I’d really like to see their list of ingredients with no suspected human health risks. We’ll see in the next few months which products qualify, and then we’ll know if this is just another incentive (and leverage) for companies to engage in greenwashing, or if we finally have a certification that separates the chaff from the wheat. I have high hopes for this one. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a nice little standard that everyone in the industry used that helped consumers differentiate products when they’re standing in the grocery store aisle trying to make a choice?

And hey, I have to give a shout-out to @squeaky_clean on Twitter who pointed out the news on the Wall Street Journal to us.

Excuse me while I rue the day I chose to recycle my vintage (and super cool) wine bottles from Eastern European countries. I had some kickin bottles from Moldova, the Republic of Georgia, Bulgaria… Man. Those would have made some great lamps.

Ahem. I’m back now. Remember what they taught us about not judging a book by its cover? This is where I admit that on my next trip to the store I’ll be judging wine by its bottle. Because I think I’ll be making one or two of these lamps soon. My question is, how does it work? Cork-lamp kit goes in the top, but how to attach the chord and drill a hole in the glass to make it come out the back?

Fluoride was recognized as a lethal poison right here in the US of A in the 60s, and is currently recognized as being more toxic than lead. So we take toys off the shelf that test positive for lead, but hey, let’s pack 99% of toothpastes with an even more toxic substance. Sound like a good idea? Yeah, I don’t think so either. Fluoride is known to make bones more brittle, and can lead to crippling arthritic deformities of the spine and major joints of the body. That doesn’t sound so great to me.

Once upon a time it was reported that there were some areas in the United States where there were relatively high levels of natural fluoride in the drinking water supply, and that there appeared to be lower rates of dental cavities in those areas. So for the sake of a correlation with lower cavities, we’ve put a toxic chemical in our toothpaste – including our kids’ toothpaste. Does anyone else find this disturbing?

The information below about fluoride toxicity comes straight from the ModernMom article linked to above (and she got it from softdental.com).

The facts about fluoride toxicity are:

Early symptoms of acute fluoride toxicity (e.g. gastrointestinal pain, nausea, vomiting, headaches) can be produced at doses as low as 0.1 to 0.3 mg/kg.

Swallowing fluoride at the amount 5 mg/kg can be fatal.

Ingestion of as little as 1 percent of a tube of flavored children’s toothpaste can produce acute fluoride toxicity in a young child.

The most common symptoms of acute fluoride toxicity include:

Nausea (97%), Vomiting (68%), Diarrhea (65%), Abdominal cramps (53%), Headaches (41%), and Burning sensations in the throat or chest (12%).

SOURCE: Penman AD, Brackin BT, Embrey R. (1997). Outbreak of acute fluoride poisoning caused by a fluoride overfeed, Mississippi, 1993. Public Health Reports 112:403-9.

The first step, and unfortunately the most often overlooked, is planning. Think about how you use the space. What needs to fit there. Where it should fit. How accessible different things should be.  It should be easier to get to your daily use items than your wedding dress or the thigh master you don’t admit to owning. Think about how much space you need for hanging items, stacking items, and boxed up items, then find a way to fit it in.

Now let’s look at some useful tools for organizing said closet. First off is shelving. You can get simple wire shelving at any home improvement store, have it cut to size, and install it yourself for almost nothing. Or you can splurge on simple wooden shelves to give your closet a nicer feel (we caution against cheap composite materials though – the glue used to make them contains harmful, often carcinogenic and neurotoxic chemicals). Tension curtain rods also work well for hanging items, and think of hanging them in non-traditional ways. For example, in a shallow, wide closet (as opposed to a walk-in), use the often wasted space at the ends to put short curtain rods going front t0 back instead of side to side. It’ll give you a nice nook on each side.

If you have clothes of different sizes (we won’t call them ‘fat’ pants – we’ll say ‘comfort’ clothes), you can make department store style size separators out of cardboard rounds. Using same-colored hangers will give your closet a uniform look.

Also look at storage boxes – the small decorative ones, and the clear plastic rubbermaid-type too. Don’t forget about things that create ‘cubbies’ – baskets, old shoeboxes. You can repurpose your old purses to do what they were designed for – hold things. I keep scarves in one purse and gloves in another.

Think outside the box to use space in non-traditional ways. A few strategically placed nails on the wall can give you a perfect hanging nook for necklaces.

The key is, think about what you’ll be storing there and design around it. I like to take the pesky doors off my closets – especially in the kids’ rooms – and replace them with pretty fabric hung on tension shower rods. No more open doors getting in the way of precious floor space.

Those are some of my strategies to optimize storage space. What are yours?

Want to know what the 3 magic routines are? My guess is, if you’re reading this blog, you already practice them.

1. Family meals at least 5 times a week. TV off, everyone at the table. (In other words: talk to your kids, make time for them, and let them take part in adult conversation. The meal is an accessory to what’s really going on.)
2. Limit TV time to 2 hours a day. (In other words: Let your kids play! Motivate them to play! Get them off the couch!)
3. At least 10.5 hours of sleep each night. (In other words: have a bed time, presumably that’s before yours, and enforce it.)

So, different studies over time have addressed each of these, but apparently this is the first to combine the 3. Let me tell you what I think. You knew I would, didn’t you? Families that practice these 3 things are typically: more involved in their kids lives because a) they eat dinner with them and b) they don’t use TV as a babysitter or mute button; they’re generally more educated – I’m not talking Harvard or PhDs, I’m talking parenting research. Anyone who reads parenting articles, parenting books, and stays up to date with research in childhood development knows that kids need sleep and benefit from routines. So they put their kids to bed at an earlier bedtime. And they eat meals with their kids and they limit screen time.

These aren’t 3 magic routines that will melt pounds off overindulgent children. These are 3 consistencies recognized in stable upwardly mobile homes. And unfortunately, they’re things that a lot of single-parent homes and financially struggling families see as a luxury. These 3 things often require parents being home with their kids after school, and if both parents work – that may not be an option. They require a more active parenting style from mom and dad – willing to get on the floor and play with a toddler or run outside and play in the grass. It requires turning off the computer, putting down the laundry, and investing time in your kids.

And guess what? I don’t think it’s the 3 routines that make the difference. It’s the fact that the same parents who do those routines also try to buy healthy foods. They avoid HFCS and sugary sodas. They don’t let Timmy veg all afternoon in front of the TV with a bag of Doritos. Their fridges are full of carrot sticks and hummus and applesauce and grapes and yogurt for snacks. And their kids like those things. Those kids would rather build a Lego dinosaur and play ball outside than sit in front of the TV. Their day is structured with routines, like bedtime – and like snacktime. They have food at predetermined times, and they don’t snack just because they’re bored.

So, thanks, Journal of Pediatrics. Suggestions taken and understood. But let’s not simplify it to believe that 3 simple steps will take our nation’s kids from HFCS-craving screen-monsters to active, healthy kids practicing positive choices about food, routines, and relationships.