This Week-From Rachel: Buying Local, Real Food, Natural Haircare

How to Buy Local

Meet Your Local Farmer courtesy of Mother Earth News:

"Recent news about the side effects from artificial colorings and preservatives, the decline of nutrients in mass-produced food, and the unappetizing practices of industrial beef production have made the choice crystal clear: Bypass all of that and buy as much food as feasible from local farmers you can get to know and trust. You can go straight to the source and purchase food from a farmer, shop at a farmers market or join a CSA (community supported agriculture)."

Find out how to locate a local farmer... MORE

Eat Real Food Already!

Potential for Harm in Dietary Supplements - New York Times:
Dietary supplements (poorly regulated if at all) including vitamins, herbs, and other supplements, are taken by 70% of adults in the US. Some are good for you, some are not, and some can be toxic you take too many or have a bad combination.

You know, we know these things about plants and animals, I don't know why we consider our health any different.

Examples from the article and MORE

Does Your Hair Care? Part 2

In Part 1 of Does Your Hair Care?, I explored what possibly harmful ingredients are in my current shampoo. I tried out some other brands and did a little research and came to the conclusion that I am concerned about the safety and costs of conventional shampoo.

Homemade and Natural Options: I started looking into homemade options, and found there are many very inexpensive and easy options, and I have most of them in my house already! I posed the question to my Homesteading group and got tons of great information! By far the most popular answer, and the one that inspired the most people to try it was, Baking soda: mixed with water, followed by a vinegar rinse.

After some more research on the subject I found:
Most cleansers you buy in the store are not actually 'soap', they are synthetic detergents with additives, with possibly real soap as an ingredient. MORE

The 'No Poo' Experiment
Baking soda scrub/vinegar rinse users and 'real soap' users inspired many of us to try to give up our addiction to shampoo. Shampoos clean all right, but they clean too well, stripping away our natural oils. Our bodies compensate by making more oil until you can't go more than a day or two without turning into a greasy mess. MORE

So, I'm ready to jump on board, I have my baking soda ready and my vinegar/herbal rinse in a spray bottle. But wait, they say you will go through a couple weeks of withdrawal where your hair will seem really greasy. I'm not sure I can go to work like that, so I did a little more searching and found this advice from The Herbwife's Kitchen.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of Does Your Hair Care? where I will have the results of the baking soda experiment. Will I be a walking greaseball? Will my hair fall out? Will I find the good for you but not expensive solution I have always dreamed of? MORE