Your house is a mess, and you want to get it clean. But you’re worried about all the chemicals in you’re going to use. And you’re even more alarmed by the strong smell of “fresh flowers” that’s on the labels. Your kids are at home and with all the different indications written on your cleaning solutions, you’re not sure how long you have to send them out before the coast is clear and you can live in your own house again.
Look around your kitchen, the spice rack, and inside your fridge. What do you have? Food? If that’s what you have, then you’ve got all the cleaning solutions you’ll need for your home, right in front of you! Let’s have a look at the potential candidates that will get your house clean, and the same time minimize the use of unhealthy chemicals to keep you, and your family safe from their harmful effects.
- Baking Soda – You buy it by the box, yet on only use a teaspoon at a time when you’re actually baking. And if you leave it unused and open for a year, it loses all its potency and it won’t make your muffins rise. So if you’re not sure when your next baking project will be, put that baking soda to good use by mixing a 1:3 ratio of baking soda and warm water until you get a paste. It’s good for scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom tiles. If you’re using it on stainless steel, just get a damp piece of cloth and add some baking soda before scrubbing.
- Lemons – Just the sound of the name reminds you of the strong sour taste you have to dilute when making lemonade. The citric acid that gives lemons their sting is enough to clean your kitchen counter and leave it with the actual scent that’s not as strong as what you get with bottled cleansers from the market. Squeeze the juice of a lemon half on your cutting board (wood or plastic), or on plastic food containers and leave it for a few minutes before rinsing with water. That takes both the stains and the smells off your wood and plasticware as it’s proven to be a food bleaching agent. And speaking of bleaching, mix in the juice from one lemon into the water when rinsing your whites. It brightens them up well.
- Ketchup and tomato juice – Red for cleaning? Yes! While you’re not supposed to get the ketchup on your shirt, squeeze some on your brass and copper pans, bowls, and other cookware before scrubbing with a sponge or cloth. It takes away the weird stains that you get from oxidation of the metal (for tougher stains, leave the ketchup for a few minutes before scrubbing). It even works on silver! Dip your silverware into ketchup and wait for a few minutes before rinsing it off. Tomato juice can be poured into an old vase and rinsed off to take away stains from old water.
- Black Tea – Preferring tea over coffee pays off in the cleaning. Brew a bucketful strong black tea and soaking rusty metalware like a shovel or an old pair of pliers for a few hours before wiping off. But don’t pick the tools out with your bare hands or you’ll risk staining your skin. Wear rubber gloves when handling rust cleaned with tea.
- Coffee – Now if you’re a fan of coffee, you’ve got some pretty good reasons to stick with your cup of joe. And you don’t even have to use what you’re drinking! Coffee grounds can be used to scour grease out of nonstick pans. They’re not as abrasive as the rough side of your sponge, so they won’t damage the pan surface. Also, putting coffee grounds at the bottom of your garbage bags before using and they take out the bad odor. They can even replace charcoal as a deodorizer for your fridge! Just make sure to replace it when it gets damp.
- Salt – It’s in almost all of your dishes. As one of the most used condiments in cooking, it’s everywhere. And if it’s everywhere, new ways of using it will be invented. If you’re not using a nonstick pan, put some salt on it and the grease gets absorbed!
- Rice – If you happen to have rice in your diet as a main source of carbs, you probably have some of it stored in your home, uncooked. Now here’s how it can come in handy. When you want to reuse a bottle, it’s not always easy taking all the dirt away, especially if it has a nice, long, neck, like a wine bottle. And a brush can only go so far (tried it before). Put some uncooked rice inside the bottle, add around a cup or two of warm water, cover the bottle, and shake. The rice will scrub the bottle for you and it’s easy to take out.
- Soda. – You know how they say that soft drinks should not be consumed on an empty stomach because of all the acid in it? What they said was true, and you can test that out by cleaning different surfaces in your house. Rust stains on metal can be cleaned out by first dipping the rusty part into some regular soda before cleaning. Another good use of soft drink would be using it as a toilet cleanser. Pour into the bowl, being sure to get it on the spots you really want cleaned, leave it for an hour, then flush (twice, just to make sure the sugars from the soda are dissolved). Stains be-gone!
- Bread. – With crumbs falling everywhere, you’ll think there’s not much use for bread in cleaning. White bread can act as a very good sponge for cleaning oil paintings without the threat of destroying a masterpiece. Gently rub the soft, white part of the bread all over the painting to pick up the grime. Then lightly brush the artwork with a clean soft bristle brush to remove any crumbs. Also, if you dropped a glass cup and are worried about the little pieces on the floor, use bread to pick them up and you won’t have to hurt yourself with them.
Looking back on this list, you must realize that it doesn’t actually take too much mixing of harmful chemicals in the lab to get to clean certain parts of your home. “Home chemists” experimented with these natural products as well, and have discovered these very good uses for different food ingredients as scrubbers, deodorizers, and even as cleaning solutions. The key is to take note of which food does what when you put them in a material. Now, you can even invite the kids do the cleaning with you!
What food did you use to clean your house today?