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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2013 11:10:57 GMT 10
Posted August 11, 2008 by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor & filed under Community Projects, Processing & Food Preservation. Sometimes there are simple solutions to universal needs that don’t require coal fired electricity, fossil fuels, or even solar panels or wind turbines. Around a third of the world’s population have no access to electricity. If you’re like me, you’ve spent your entire life being able to plug in. Do we ever give a thought to what life would be like if the various appliances we’ve come to rely on were to suddenly stop working? One of the most energy guzzling appliances in our carbon footprint portfolio is the refrigerator. But, unplug it, and the quality of your life will suddenly deteriorate. Take that thought, and imagine living in a hot dry country in Africa, without electricity, where food quickly wilts and rots in the sun, aided by onslaughts of flies. One modern day genius, mindful of this basic need to preserve food, has solved the problem for many. Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian teacher, invented the ‘device’ — a refrigerator that doesn’t require electricity! From a family of pot-makers, Mohammed has made ingeniously simple use of the laws of thermodynamics to create the pot-in-pot refrigerator, called a Zeer in Arabic. Here’s how it works. You take two earthen pots, both being the same shape but different sizes, and put one within the other. Then, fill the space between the two pots with sand before pouring water into the same cavity to make the sand wet. Then, place food items into the inner pot, and cover with a lid or damp cloth. You only need to ensure the pot-in-pot refrigerator is kept in a dry, well-ventilated space; the laws of thermodynamics does the rest. As the moisture in the sand evaporates, it draws heat away from the inner pot, cooling its contents. The only maintenance required is the addition of more water, around twice a day. To give an idea of its performance, spinach that would normally wilt within hours in the African heat will last around twelve days in the pot, and items like tomatoes and peppers that normally struggle to survive a few days, now last three weeks. Aubergines (eggplants) get a life extension from just a few days to almost a month. Inventing the refrigerator in 1995, Mohammed distributed thousands around Nigerian communities during the late 1990s (initially for free to get the word out, then later at just production-cost price), and subsequently won the Rolex Award for Enterprise in the year 2000. It has improved the lives and health of thousands. Less work can translate into more education for children, and small farmers who were before losing large proportions of their harvest are now able to earn a better income. Another knock-on benefit is improved health due to better preservation of vitamins, as well as a reduction in health problems like dysentery due to the separation of food and flies. It seems that not all the answers to life’s needs have to come with a plug and instruction book. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2013 11:15:38 GMT 10
Conventional refrigeration does an incredible job keeping food fresh. But that technology hasn't helped desert dwellers without steady electricity. A more recent development in refrigeration—the Zeer pot-in-pot refrigerator—only requires water, sand, and a hot, dry climate to preserve produce through evaporative cooling. Here's how to make the simple gadget. Materials and Tools Required two terra cotta pots with a 2-3 inch difference in diameter. The smaller pot should be glazed and preferably lacking a drainage hole. If the inner container is double glazed (on its inner and outer walls), non-potable water—say seawater—can be employed. a bag of sterile sand a square of burlap cloth large enough to cover the top of the inner pot a trowel Building It 1. If your pots have drainage holes, plug them with a bit of cork, caulk, or other waterproof material. If you don't, moisture from the sand will seep into the lower pot and immerse the stored goods or seep out the bottom of the larger one. 2. Put down a one-inch deep, level layer of sand in the bottom of the large pot. Set the smaller pot on top of that layer and center it in the larger one. Make sure that the smaller pot's lip is even with the larger one's. 3. Fill sand in around the sides of the of the two pots, leaving about an inch of space below the lip. 4. Pour cold water over the sand until it is thoroughly saturated. Put your food into the smaller pot. Cover that with a burlap cloth, also soaked with water. That's it! Just be sure to refill the water regularly, about once or twice a day. How It Works The Zeer was developed in 1995 by Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian school teacher that hailed from a family of pot makers. The design is incredibly simple: a glazed earthen ware pot nestled inside a larger, porous one with a layer of wet sand separating them. As the water evaporates through the surface of the outer pot, it draws heat from the inner one, keeping up to 12kg food fresh for as long as three to four weeks without using a single watt of electricity. For his efforts, Bah Abba was awarded the $75,000 Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2000 and the World Shell Award for Sustainable Development in 2001 to help spur its development. Presently, Bah Abba sells about 30,000 Zeer per year for 200 Nigerian naira ($1.30) a piece. Why It Matters For unprotected food in the North African heat, there is no such thing as a shelf life. Fresh fruit and vegetables last maybe a day or two, and meat spoils within hours. This means that most food must be either sold or consumed immediately. Taking produce to market, in Sudan at least, is a task that typically falls on the women. This tight freshness deadline leaves little free time for their education. But if they had to go to market only weekly, rather than daily, they might actually have time for school—that's the promise of the Zeer. The Zeer benefits not just individuals but the greater Sudanese society as well. Farmers are granted greater negotiating power when they don't have to sell their wares right there and then. Parents see fewer cases of food-borne illness. And when disease does occur, water and temperature-sensitive medicines can also be preserved in the cool pots. For the rest of the world, the Zeer represents a zero-electricity option for refrigeration. In extended power outages like the ones we've seen this summer, long after the local store sells its last bag of ice, the Zeer could be your best chance to keep critical perishable goods from spoiling in the heat.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2013 11:23:02 GMT 10
I’ve been living without a fridge for the last three months – the winter months of Melbourne, Australia. Before you send me to the asylum, however, let me tell you about this experiment which produced several interesting, and I think important, surprises, related to energy consumption and lifestyle habits. My main conclusion, which I’ll unpack below, is that living without a fridge (at least in winter) is possible with minimal inconvenience. Let me begin by noting that the fridge is the only household appliance (other than a clock) that is on 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year. It takes energy to cool things, and it takes more energy to freeze things. The typical fridge/freezer uses about 14% of household electricity (more if your fridge/freezer is large, old or inefficient). This is a very significant portion of household electricity consumption, so in an age when energy consumption is driving climatic instability, thinking about ways to reduce energy is critically important, even if at first some ideas seem a little crazy. Since energy costs money, reducing consumption also has obvious financial benefits. Those were my primary motivations for my experiment living without a fridge. I also felt that the fridge is probably the last appliance people (including me) would normally give up, so I was interested in the question of what life would be like without one. Now I know that life goes on more or less as usual. But to make haste to my experiment. On the first day of winter my household switched the fridge off and, as I write, it is still off. You will see below that I set up a cool box out the window of the room off our kitchen, on the shady, south side of the house. I packed earth and sand around the cool box in order to store the cooler night temperatures, and the cool box helped keep out the warmer day temperatures. That’s my theory at least. I’m not claiming this is the best system for a non-electric fridge, but it worked perfectly well for me, and it was made using things I had lying around the house. (There is a different system that uses pot-in-pot that you might like to read about here and which I intend to experiment with one day.) I also put a polystyrene box over this fridge on warmer days, as extra insulation, but not sure whether that did much. DSCF0486 DSCF0490DSCF0494DSCF0498Since the cool box is small, we had to be very selective about what we kept in this new fridge. If you had a larger cool box, obviously more could be kept in it. The first lesson from this experiment was that about half of what we normally kept in the fridge doesn’t need to be in the fridge, things such as vegetables, butter, chilli sauces, jams, chutneys, curry pastes, etc. The things we did end up keeping the fridge included milk, yogurt, cheese, yeast (for bread making), and leftovers. Our grandparents knew this was possible, but in recent times the cultural tendency has been to refrigerate many things that don’t always need refrigeration. I’m a vegetarian so storing meat wasn’t an issue for me, and on the occasions when others in my household ate meat (about once a week), it was purchased on the day and eaten that night. Living without a fridge is possible, but you still have to take these types of precautions so as not to create health risks. As for milk, I purchased one litre of milk approximately every two days, and during the experiment we never had to throw out a single drop. I did have to go to the shops to buy milk more regularly, however, because usually we’d buy and store around four litres at a time, twice a week. But this minor lifestyle change turned out to be for the good, as it gave this rather computer-bound academic another reason to go for a short walk or a bike ride each day or two. What at first I thought would be an inconvenience, turned out to have this silver lining; indeed, it was more silver lining than cloud. Another interesting consequence of this experiment was that food waste actually went down, not up, which surprised me. We throw very little food away anyway, but that ‘very little’ (which goes to the chickens or compost) essentially went down to ‘nothing’. Poor chickens. Given that we knew we couldn’t store food for very long, we carefully planned meals for the week (more than usual) and purchased accordingly, and this method (which is sensible anyway) minimised waste almost to nothing. Sourcing most of our vegetables from the back garden made this easier, but this is not a requirement for living without a fridge, as vegetables last surprisingly well out of the fridge. As I enter my fourth month without a fridge, I sense that the time is coming when I turn the fridge back on. As spring weather warms up (its predicted to hit 25 degrees tomorrow), my outside, non-electric fridge will stop working as effectively. When food or milk starts to waste before consumption, that will defeat the purpose of the experiment, and the fridge will be turned back on. Next winter, however, I know the fridge can be switched off again. But don’t think this is a big deal. The last few months without a fridge have honestly passed without any hardship at all – making the fridge an unnecessary energy expense during cold periods. In temperatures typical of a Melbourne winter – which is all year round in many climates – a fridge is totally unnecessary. This leads me to a final point. When I first thought of living without a fridge, I – like you, perhaps? – thought that it would be more or less impossible; a terrible hardship; a terrible inconvenience. But now, by experience, I can state that it is not. I find this is interesting. How many other things could we do without and cope just fine – things we currently consider necessities? How much energy and money could we save? How much superfluous consumption could we avoid? If something as ‘necessary’ as a fridge turned out to be unnecessary, then it suggests the scope of savings could be vast, benefiting both people and planet. Imagine if everyone turned off the fridge for three or four of the coldest months of the year: we’d reduce our electricity consumption by around 14% for that period, perhaps more. In an age of worrying climatic instability, this is a not insignificant reduction, and it doesn’t require any fancy new technology. It is essentially a ‘free’ saving. Of course, it would take a culture-shift of extraordinary proportions for this to happen, but my point has been that people seem to think it would be a much bigger deal than it actually is. I believe that this message generally applies across the board: people in affluent societies could live very well while radically reducing consumption and radically changing their lifestyles toward much ‘simpler’ ways. This is very good news, because all the evidence suggests that true sustainability (as opposed to greenwash) implies cultures based on simple living and a post-growth macroeconomics of sufficiency (see here). Many think that this transition would be too hard, but this fridge experiment, modest though it is, suggests that even radical changes can be easily accommodated with a little creativity and an adventurous spirit. As my old friend Henry Thoreau once said: ‘What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.’ |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2013 11:39:17 GMT 10
How to make a cheap Fridge at home,with out power!
Plus an extra for Ice-cream lovers!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2013 8:53:55 GMT 10
Posted on June 25, 2012 by Survival Sherpa Got a minute or 5? Last night I made an emergency lamp out of a breath mint tin, wick, and olive oil… in 4:41 minutes. It will probably take you less time but I’m slow. I love to re-think and re-purpose common items we usually throw in the landfill. I build my signature “outhouse” birdhouse out of old barn wood and used pallets. I’ll have to post a DIY article on that soon. Back to today’s quick DIY adventure. An easy project is this oil lamp. You can use any container you like. I chose a breath mint tin since I have a large collection of them from each school year. I always hated teachers bending down at my desk and breathing horrid, putrid breath on me. So I eat lots of mints teaching. I also like the tins with lids so I can throw one in my bag for wilderness trips. Just render some animal fat for fuel and you’ve got a long-lasting source of light. It creates great ambiance after the meat has been cooked over the open fire and the lies around the campfire begin to fly. Whatever! Here’s how I made mine. You’ll probably make one that beats mine like a drum. Please share if you do. Materials Breath mint tin (color to match wife’s decor – I gave her three color choices. I’m nice like that) Wick – Use only material with natural fibers. Man-made will melt and stink. If you want to get all primitive, you could use cordage you made from natural fibers. I used what I had on hand. Fuel – I used the last of a bottle of olive oil in the pantry that had gone rancid. As Rachel Ray says, EVO. The benefit of this oil is that its odorless and burns without smoking. Also, if it’s spilled while lit, it won’t cause a flash fire like other lantern fuels. Tools Sharp object (I used a utility knife and Swiss Army Knife) Nail punch (Just because I had mine handy and my wick was about a 1/4 inch in diameter. I guess I could have used the SAK for the whole project.) Assembly Step 1: Gently make a hole in the lid of the tin with your sharp object. Be careful not to gash a huge hole in the lid or you hand. Don’t press the knife straight into the lid. Use a gentle twisting motion with the point of the knife to start the hole. This allows you to control the size you create. The hole size is determined by the diameter of your wick material. The larger the wick, the larger the flame. I tweaked the hole until the wick fits snugly. In the first photo, I included two other possible wick choices. Create starter hole…carefully Step 2: I used a nail punch that is cone-shaped to slowly tweak the starter hole to match my wick’s diameter. Tweaking the hole for the diameter of my wick Step 3: Make a small hole to the side of the main hole. This allows for air circulation and venting. Vent hole Step 4: Now, insert the wick into the hole with a small amount exposed on the outside of the lid. The remaining wick is curled into the bottom of the tin. Wick inserted Step 5: Add your olive oil. Don’t fill the tin to the top. You’ll discover a leak where the lid is connected to the side of the tin. Fuel up! Step 6: After adding the fuel, allow the wick a couple of minutes to saturate. Then light your lamp and impress the misses. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2013 9:04:47 GMT 10
How to Build a Rocket Stove |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2013 9:41:05 GMT 10
Large Rocket Stoves for Home
A rocket stove achieves efficient combustion of the fuel at a high temperature by ensuring a good air draft into the fire, controlled use of fuel, complete combustion of volatiles, and efficient use of the resultant heat. It has been used for cooking purposes in many energy poor locales (notably Rwandan refugee camps) as well as for space and water heating.
A rocket stove's main components are:
Fuel magazine: Into which the unburned fuel is placed and from which it feeds into the combustion chamber
Combustion chamber: At the end of the fuel magazine, where the fuel burns
Chimney: A vertical chimney above the combustion chamber to provide the updraft needed to maintain combustion
Heat exchanger: To transfer the heat to where it is needed (cooking pot or other load).
The fuel magazine can be horizontal, with additional fuel added manually, or vertical, with fuel automatically fed. As the fuel burns in the combustion chamber, convection draws new air into the combustion chamber from below, ensuring that any smoke from smoldering wood near the fire is also drawn into the fire and up the chimney. The chimney can be insulated to increase the temperature and improve combustion; according to studies this can increase efficiency by up to two percent. In a rocket mass heater, the heat is passed to a heat exchanger to ensure the efficient use of the generated heat.
For cooking purposes, the design keeps the cooking vessel in contact with the fire over the largest possible surface area. A pot skirt can be used to create a narrow channel that forces hot air and gas to flow along the bottom and sides of the cooking vessel. Optional baffles guide hot air and flame up the sides of the pot. For space heating purposes, the heat is transferred to a heat store which can, in some cases, be part of the structure of the house itself. The exhaust gases then pass out of the building via the chimney.
The design of the rocket stove allows it to operate on about half as much fuel as a traditional open fire, and it can use smaller-diameter wood. If the stove is insulated and raised from the floor, the danger of children burning themselves is reduced. Some more recently designed rocket stoves are self-feeding, using gravity to add fuel to the fire as required.
Recent Adaptations
There have been a number of new cook stove designs based on the original rocket stove. Many are being developed with alternative fuel options, such as solar powered cook stoves. [1] Designing stoves that generate electricity is another emerging trend. For example, the BioLite stoves use a thermoelectric generator to generate electricity suitable for powering USB devices.
History
A precursor to the rocket stove was the argand lamp, which was patented in 1780. This was a major development of the traditional oil lamp, which introduced a glass chimney above the flame to increase air-flow. As well as being used for lighting, this design was also used for cooking and heating water due to its "affording much the strongest heat without smoke".[2]
Dr. Larry Winiarski, now Technical Director of Aprovecho, began developing the Rocket Stove in 1980 based on a VITA stove, designed by Sam Baldwin,and re discovered the principles of the systems developed by the Romans in hypocaust heating and cooking systems.[3][4] TWP and AHDESA were winners at the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy in 2005 in the "Health and Welfare" category for their work in Honduras with the "Justa Stove", based on principles of the rocket stove.[5] Aprovecho were winners of the Special Africa Award at the Ashden Awards in 2006 for their work with rocket stoves for institutional cooking in Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.[6]
Uses
Barrel rocket stove for outdoor cooking
Rocket stove attached to a heat exchanger to heat water
Cooking
The rocket stove was originally developed for cooking, where a relatively small amount of continuous heat is applied to the bottom and sides of a cooking pot. Stoves can be constructed from brick, recycled steel cans, or steel sheet metal, or can be purchased.
Although rocket stoves are found more commonly in third world countries where wood fuel sources are more scarce, they have seen in recent years increased use in developed countries, such as the United States. Some are small for portability, with insulation inside a double-walled design and a chamber for partial biomass gasification and additional mixing to increase BTU production and to provide a cleaner, more complete burn. The advantage of rocket stoves is the very little fuel they need, such as wood and dry weeds, to be able to cook a whole meal with it, keeping the air cleaner with less hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide.
Room heating
Main article: Rocket mass heater
The rocket mass heater uses the rocket stove principle within a system designed to both heat air directly and also to transfer much of the heat from the flue gases into a thermal energy storage, often made of cob.[7] Described in detail in 2006, these heaters are becoming popular with DIY builders, in natural buildings and within permaculture systems.[8]
Water heating
Rocket stoves can be used to heat water via a heat exchanger which transfers heat to a body of water in a nearby container.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 10:49:20 GMT 10
How to make soap at home
First off we need to know about Lye!
www.wikihow.com/Make-Lye
Lye, also known as NaOH, sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda, is used in making soap and in biodiesel fuel production. Caustic potash, or potassium hydroxide, is also called lye. Like sodium hydroxide, it can also be used in the production of biodiesel, although the recipe will have to be adjusted somewhat; unlike, NaOH, however, it can more easily be made at home. This recipe is for KOH, potassium hydroxide.
Steps
1
Start a rain barrel to catch soft water. This is a key step. Depending upon how much lye you want to leach, make sure that you have 2 or 3 gallons of soft water before you proceed.
Water from a dehumidifier works as well.
You can also use electrically distilled water. The purer the water, the more potassium that can be leached from the ashes. Do not use bottled spring water or water from the tap! (You can use bottled distilled water that was processed using steam distillation.)
2
Get a wooden barrel and a cork about 3in (7.6cm) long. A cask-sized or waist-high barrel will work. You can find these at a local brewer's supply house.
3
Drill a hole in the barrel approximately 2in (5cm) above the bottom. Make sure that the cork will fit snugly into the hole.
4
Put the barrel on a brick base someplace where it will be undisturbed. Lye is caustic; take the necessary precautions. Put some bricks down and place the barrel on top of them. The brick base must be stable. It raises the barrel up so that you can easily drain off the lye into a container when it is ready. Give yourself room to work.
5
Cover the bottom of the barrel with some palm-sized clean rocks (e.g. river rock). Cover the rocks with approximately 6in (15cm) of straw (this can be hay or grass). This will filter the ashes and help your lye drain cleanly.
6
Gather branches and/or logs of oak, ash, or fruitwoods. Remember that the best lye is made from hardwoods, so avoid pine, fir, and other evergreens. Palm leaves work well if they are completely dried and brown.
7
Burn the branches to ash. You can do this outside in a pile or, better yet, in a freshly-emptied fireplace or woodstove where the ashes won’t become mixed with anything else.
8
Scoop the ashes out and put them in the prepped barrel. (Make sure that the ash is completely cold, or you could set your barrel and anything around it on fire.) You can fill the barrel with ash, but it is not necessary; you can make smaller amounts with less ash.
9
Soak the ashes. Put a pan under the hole and remove the cork. Pour the soft water in until you see it start to drain into the pan, then put the cork back in tightly. After a day, the first ash should settle and you can add more ash.
10
Let the ash soak for at least three days. If you want to use more ash, you can add it all week and drain it regularly (ex. on a specific day of the week).
11
Check to see if your Lye is ready. For what purpose are you leaching this lye? Body soap or heavy cleaning? Lye concentration gets stronger with each leaching. For average soap making, measure the concentration by dropping a fist-sized potato or a raw egg into the barrel (making sure to throw either of these away afterwards). If it floats enough for a quarter-sized area to rise above the water, it is ready. If it doesn't, you need to add more ashes or drain all the water and re-leach it (pour it back into the cask and let it set for one more cycle).
12
When it's ready, catch your lye with a wooden crock or glass container. Put it under the tap, gently pull the cork, and fill your containers. Leave enough head room so that they will be safe and easy to pour. Make sure that you have tight, fitting lids.
13
Store your lye in a cool dark place until use. The sooner you use it, the better.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 11:05:02 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 12:00:23 GMT 10
How to make Tooth Paste at Home
While some people in rural parts of the world may resort to the use of brick, charcoal, rangoli powder, mud, salt or ash for toothpaste, western brushers usually rely on a tube of mystery ingredients to make their pearly whites sparkle like the Pepsodent girl's.
But the ingredients found in conventional toothpastes — including sodium fluoride, synthetic dyes derived from petroleum or coal tar, sodium hydroxide (also known as lye or caustic soda), sodium lauryl sulfate, titanium dioxide, artificial sweeteners, and triclosan — might make us think twice about the products we employ for the sake of our teeth. Of course, we’re not actively swallowing the stuff, but it’s unavoidable that a bit will slink down the gullet from time to time. And given that most of us brush our teeth 730 times or more a year, there’s no shortage of opportunity to ingest ingredients better left in the lab.
The most controversial of all the ingredients is fluoride. The ADA supports the use of fluoride in toothpaste, but many advocate groups heartily argue against it, citing numerous health risks associated with ingesting the substance. If fluoride or any of the other ingredients are a concern for you, there are some honorable natural toothpastes available. But you can also borrow from the wisdom of the DIY set and make your own, thereby omitting questionable ingredients as well as spending less money and doing away with excess packaging.
1. Simple toothpaste
Inspired by Stephanie Tourles and her DIY beauty bible "Organic Body Care Recipes," this formula couldn’t be easier. This is for a single-use application, so the adjust measurements to suit the amount you like on your brush.
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, finely ground
1 drop peppermint, clove, or citrus pure essential oil
A few drops of water
Mix ingredients in a small bowl and combine thoroughly until a thick paste is formed. Scoop it on to your toothbrush and brush as usual.
2. Vegan toothpaste
Many commercial toothpastes include glycerin to help maintain the product’s texture, but unless it is listed specifically as vegetable glycerin, it is of animal origin. If you want a vegan toothpaste that contains glycerin, try this.
2 teaspoons vegetable glycerin
4 tablespoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon guar gum
8 tablespoons water
5 drops peppermint, clove, or citrus pure essential oil
Place all the ingredients except essential oil in a pot and cook on low heat, stirring frequently, for five minutes or until the mixture achieves a paste-like texture. Cool, add essential oil to taste, and store in a sterile jar at room temperature. Use as usual.
3. Coconut-based toothpaste
This formula swaps out the glycerin and uses coconut oil instead. The coconut flavor and essential oil should mask the subtle taste of the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, but you can add a few drops of stevia if you prefer a sweeter paste.
6 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon hydrogen peroxide
2 tablespoons coconut oil (warm enough to be liquid, which means above 76 degrees F)
10 drops peppermint, clove, or citrus pure essential oil
Put baking soda in a bowl, add the other ingredients and mix until you achieve a proper paste texture. Add a small amount of baking soda if it’s runny; add more coconut oil if it’s too dry. Taste, and add more essential oil if you want a more flavorful paste. Store in an opaque container (required to protect the hydrogen peroxide) and use as usual.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 12:11:14 GMT 10
How to Make All Natural Deodorant
Healthy Homemade Deodorant
Recipe 1- What You Need:
3 T Coconut Oil
3 T Baking Soda
2 T Shea Butter
2 T Arrowroot (optional)
Essential Oils (optional)
What to do:
Melt shea butter and coconut oil in a double boiler over medium heat until barely melted. UPDATE: Combine in a quart size glass mason jar with a lid instead and place this in a small saucepan of water until melted. This will save your bowl and you can just designate this jar for these type of projects and not even need to wash it out…
Remove from heat and add baking soda and arrowroot (If you don’t have arrowroot, use more baking soda)
Mix well
Add essential oils and pour into a glass container for storage. It does not need to be stored in the fridge.
If you prefer, you can let it cool completely and put into an old deodorant stick for easier use, though it may melt in the summer!
If you don’t have all those ingredients around, or don’t want to wash a double boiler, this recipe is faster and easier:
Natural Homemade Deodorant Recipe Ingredients How to Make Natural Deodorant Beating the B.O. With Natural Deo
Recipe 2- What you Need
6 T coconut oil
1/4 cup (4 T) baking soda
1/4 cup (4 T) arrowroot or cornstarch
essential oils (optional)
What to Do:
Mix baking soda and arrowroot together in a medium sized bowl.
Mash in coconut oil with a fork until well mixed.
Add oils if desired.
Store in small glass jar or old deodorant container for easy use.
Other Receipts
1
Recycle a wide-mouth container or cosmetic jar with a screw-top lid for your eco-friendly deodorant mixture. Clean all old residues from the inside of the jar.
2
Measure 1/4 cup (59 ml) of baking soda and pour into the container. Baking soda is a naturally-occurring substance that absorbs odors. You can use baking soda as a deodorant by itself but it may cause skin irritation.
3
Measure 1/4 cup (59 ml) of cornstarch or arrowroot powder and add to baking soda in container. Cornstarch and arrowroot powder helps to reduce the amount of sweat you generate and makes baking soda less irritating to skin.
4
Cover the container with the lid and shake well to combine. Apply the powder with a cotton ball, makeup brush or your hands.
Cream Deodorant
1
Find a recycled, shallow glass jar with a tight-fitting lid such as a Mason jar or an old baby food container. Ensure that lid is tight enough to prevent liquid from spilling when the container is turned upside down.
2
Combine 1/4 cup (59 ml) of cornstarch and 1/4 cup (59 ml) of baking soda. Pour into a small saucepan placed on your stove top.
3
Add 1 tbsp. of solid coconut oil into the powdered mixture. Coconut oil is found in the baking section of grocery stores. When the oil is heated and mixed with baking soda and cornstarch it will blend the ingredients and then harden into a semi-solid mass after cooling.
4
Turn on your stove top to the lowest flame setting possible. Slowly mix the coconut oil into the powdered mix. Gradually add up to 7 additional tbsp. to the mixture until it has a creamy consistency. If you add too much oil add another tbsp. of cornstarch until the mixture thickens.
5
Remove from heat to cool slightly. Tightly pack the cream deodorant into your container with a spatula. Apply to your underarms with your fingertips.
6
Finished.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 12:35:05 GMT 10
Alternatives to Toilet Paper!
Test results: water best alternative for toilet paper
For 10 days I tried several alternatives for toilet paper. Partly because Wilma would not have used toilet paper. But also because it felt like a waist, and I wanted to see if it is possible to do something different. In an earlier post you can read how much trees an average person uses for toilet paper.
Alternative methods
I ended up trying four methods:
-water
-leaves
-cloths
These were the criteria for the test:
history Historical accuracy: how likely is it that we used this method in the Paleolithic era?
eco friendlyEco-friendly: Is it more eco-friendly than toilet paper?
Thumbs_up Success: How well does it wipe? Is it friendly for my skin!
1. water
it turned out most easy to put the water in a small plastic bottle. Not the jug that I tried the first time. After doing your business, remain seated at the toilet. With your right hand, poor the water down your bum. With your left hand, you wash.
history Historical correctness. It’s likely that we used water if there was a river or sea nearby, and usually there was as sapiens tended to live close to water – at least that’s where most remains have been found. I suppose we didn’t bring water to a place to do our business, but we might have just jumped in it afterwards.
eco friendly Eco friendly. I thought water wouldn’t be eco-friendly, as I assumed one might use a lot every time. Turns out I used 250 ml when I had to do a number 2. That’s like a glass of beer. Not a lot at all! Obviously it depends on your stool, the better it is, the less you need – that goes for toilet paper as well.
Thumbs_up Success. Also a pleasant surprise. I expected that my hands would get dirty, but somehow they didn’t. My Indian friend recommended to first poor a bit of water before you touch your skin. That works. Afterwards, I felt VERY clean. It works great, it felt better than toilet paper to me.
2. Leaves
history Historical accuracy. Since this was the first thing readers came up with, I suppose our ancestors must have come up with this too. Obviously we don’t know for sure.
eco friendly Eco-friendly. Depends. If we all tear down trees for their leaves, it has the same effect as toilet paper. But I found even in summer there’s enough leaves on the ground. So getting the material is eco-friendly. But how about disposing? I threw a little in the toilet. Heard it might get clogged. Threw the rest in the garbage. I’m not sure how to calculate the environmental impact of garbage. I used two leaves every time I went. I suppose one could compost it or throw it back into nature, but for me, those two options seem quite inconvenient.
Thumbs_up Success. Again, I was surprised how well this alternative worked. Leaves are soft, flexible and strong. I needed only two. I tested if I was clean by wiping with a bit of white toilet paper to check. Nothing on it! The younger the leaves, the nicer they feel.
Convenience. It took me 5 minutes to get a bunch of nice leaves right behind my house. I picked them from the ground. It was enough to last for a week I think. Still, it’s not as convenient to get as water. Also, to bring it to someone else’s place is very inconvenient. It feels odd to bring a stack of leaves in your bag :-)
3. Cloths
history Historical accuracy. Very incorrect. I don’t think early sapiens would use animal skin or something for this.
eco friendlyEco-friendly. A little less good than all the other options. One needs to wash the cloths after using or throw them away. Both options cost more energy or waist than all the other alternatives. But if you compare it to toilet paper, I think the cloths win. Toilet paper is not only made from trees, it is also chemically treated, wrapped in plastic, and shipped across continents. If you use and old cotton sheet, or like me, old socks, it’s only the washing that is less eco friendly. If there is any one who knows a good way of properly comparing the environmental impact of cloths and toilet paper, I’d love to hear it.
Thumbs_up Success. As you can imagine this works fine, kinda like toilet paper, but softer. I think the thinner the cloth, the easier it works. I must say, however, that after using water, this option felt less clean.
Convenience. It’s easy to get. I was advised to put a bucket with a lit in the toilet, in which you can soak the used cloths. It didn’t smell at all. Somehow it feels less weird to bring cloths than leaves to public toilets, I suppose cuz they are manmade. But then: what do you do with used ones? Throw them away or bring them? Both options don’t seem ideal.
Conclusion
I think water is the best option no matter what criteria one finds most important. It’s most convenient, cheap, and works well. The only thing I’d like to see at long-term, is how the being less dry works out. For now, I’ll stick to using water till the end of these 100 days.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 12:54:02 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2013 16:42:12 GMT 10
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