Being Green with Essential Oils

Today is the 22nd anniversary of Earth Day. Part of being a good steward of your health is taking care of the world around you! Our Holy Creator Yeshua the Messiah of All created this planet just for us. What a wonderful God we serve! So it our duty to take of the health of planet, so it in turn can help us with our health. All of creation is connected, while we are not same, there is a definite connection.

Here are Easy Ways to Be Good to the Earth with Young Living Essential Oils:

1) Keep Your Air Clean:

Still using Glade Plug Ins, aerosol room freshener sprays, or those crazy eye ball looking scented balls for a pleasant scent in your home or office? Ditch that mess! 

These products contain comments like: 

Phthalates: serious hormone disruptors, extremely dangerous for children, amounts built up over time can cause testosterone disturbance, and even genetalia mutations

Dichlorobenzene: precursor to DDT and linked to lung cancer

Instead....use a cold air diffuser! Young Living provides several high quality diffusers to choose from online. 

Pictured above is called the Home Diffuser. It covers smaller spaces like bedrooms and larger spaces like living rooms. Just adjust how much oil you use. Always start with just 4 drops. Increase from there if needed. 

Here's how to use it:

There's 3 parts to the home diffuser:

The Base

The Lid

The Plug

Remove the lid. There's a little plastic shelf line inside. Fill it with distilled water. Yes, use distilled. In this particular diffuser there's a stainless steel plate, and the minerals from the water can clog it. 

Add your desired oil and desired amount of drops directly into the water. 

Place on the lid.

Plug it in.

Push the button in the front to turn it on. 

The first time you push the button it will run continuously for about 3 hours.  The second time you push the button it switches to 90 second bursts, so it just depends on what you want.

This diffuser (or a higher quality substitution) comes for FREE when you purchase an Everyday Oils Premium Kit from Young Living. You get 8 essential oil sample packs, 2 Ningxia Red Goji Berry Health Drinks, and eleven 5ml sized bottles of therapeutic grade essential oils to use in your home! Order one here.

There are other diffusers available on the market besides the ones from Young Living, but many of them are cheaply made, and the plastic quality is lower. You won't be able to use citrus oils in some of them. For quality and control, choose Young Living.

2) Keep Your Water Clean: 

Get rid of the detergent and fabric softener. This stuff is seriously toxic. Then it goes into our waters, yuck! There are safer ways to have lovely smelling, fluffy towels. 

In commercial detergents and fabric softeners you'll find some of the following, and I'm not listing all of them:

Benzyl Acetate: linked to pancreatic cancer

Benzyl Alcohol: an upper respiratory tract irritant

Ethanol: on the EPA's list of hazardous waste

What works great at my house is I make my own laundry detergent, which is super easy, and way cheaper than brands you'd buy in the store. Here is the recipe I use, given to me from a friend a long time ago. 

Laundry Detergent Recipe

1 Cup Borax

1 Cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda

1 Full Sized Dr. Bronners Baby/Unscented Bars of Soap

1 4-5 Gallon Bucket

Directions:

Put your bucket into the tub (if you have one). Grate your bar of soap, put it into the bucket. Pour hot boiling water over the top, and stir until mostly dissolved. Pour in other ingredients. Fill the rest of the bucket with water from the tub spicket and stir. Allow this to set for 1-2 days until it kind of gels on top, then it's ready for use. You only need 1/4-1/2 cup per full load, depending on how soiled.

As an option you can scent your laundry detergent itself with 5-10ml of essential oil. You can add the essential to the bucket and stir once it's set. Consider using lemon since it's great on stains!

For fabric softener you can rinse with vinegar. Vinegar is great for softening clothes. Add 1/2 cup for a large load to the rinse cycle. No, your clothes won't smell like vinegar!

For even fluffier clothes, use wool dryer balls. My girlfriend, BethAnne is a Norwex consultant, so I got mine from her. 

Use all three balls for each load. You'll get a ton of uses out of them. I add 2-3 drops of lemongrass essential oil to each ball. That gets me through about 2 loads of my favorite scent!

3) Keep Your Soil Clean:

Do you garden? Did you know that Round Up and other pesticides are toxins to the brain and to the gut? Instead for pesticides use essential oils! 

Try 10 drops each of rosemary, thyme, peppermint in a gallon of distilled water. Keep in a dark, cool closet. Mix the solution, and pour some in a smaller dark glass spray bottle for easy use.  Apply on flowers and vegetables.

4) Reduce Reuse Recycle:

Have a ton of essential oil bottles? Don't throw them into the trash! Make your own essential oil blends and use them for your family, or give them away as gifts. Print out a special label for them and pick a name.

*If you need essential oils, you can purchase them here. You can contact me if you have any questions here.

Enjoy the rest of your earth day! Helping you to be a good steward of your health!~Marie A. Ligorria, HHC

Building a Great Salad

I love salads, they are fast, healthy, and virtually limitless. You can be so creative with a salad from your base to your dressing. Some salads ingredients are so awesome a dressing isn't even required. 

I do believe building a good salad is an art though. The difference between a boring house salad and a wow oh my goodness I've died and gone to heaven salad is just the willingness to try new things. I can tend to be a salad snob though and while I love them in theory, I don't often order them when I go out because I tend to get disappointed. Salads shouldn't be boring, but that's often case. Paying $10-$12 for a plate of dullness really upsets me.

While I try really hard not to make multiple meals in my house, sometimes it's unavoidable when the main course for my guys is meat, and I simply don't eat it. 

This is when healthy fast food, like a great salad comes in handy. You can be as intricate as you want and the more ingredients, the more interesting. Balancing the right veggies, proteins, and dressings is a fun process. Don't be afraid to mix raw with cooked. I always like to when possible mix some of my homemade lacto-fermented veggies into my salad to boost flavor and nutrition. 

Some of my favorite added ingredients are: 

Raw Nuts & Seeds

Dates

Goat Cheese

Fermented Veggies (sauerkraut, beets, carrots) 

Organic Sweet Bell Peppers

Organic Grape Tomatoes

Pastured Chicken (if you eat it)

Capers (gluten free of course)

Avocado (my favorite food ever)

Wild Caught Sockeye Salmon

Grass Fed Steak (if you eat it)

Free Range Eggs (hard boiled or fried)

Tempeh

Jicama

Carrots

Beans

Your Green Bases 

Rotate your greens in your salad. For optimal nutrition allow a wide variety of greens to grace your bowl. Try to keep your leafy greens organic to avoid nasty pesticides and GMOs. Try baby spinach, mixed greens, bok choy, arugula, kale, chard, mustard, and collards.

Salad Dressings

Rule number one: do not buy them! They  are toxic messes full of junk not needed. If you go organic, yeah it's a step up, but totally not necessary. Seriously, take 5 minutes to drizzle some quality extra virgin olive oil and freshly squeezed lemons over your salad with good salt and pepper, your taste buds will dance.

For easy, awesome homemade salad dressings keep the following items on hand to whip up yummy dressings:

Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar

High Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Fresh Organic Lemons/Limes or Lemon/Lime Juice 

Fresh Organic Oranges

Fresh or Dry Organic Spices/Herbs

Organic Maple Syrup

Organic Local Raw Honey

Organic Mustard (gluten free; yellow/Dijon)

Nut Butters

In the picture below I threw together a miso dressing for my salad. I didn't measure (sorry for those of you out there that must measure everything). I'll try to give you approximates. 

2-3 Tsp Braggs ACV

1 Tsp Organic Chickpea Miso Paste

1/2 Tsp Organic Ginger Powder

2 Tsp Organic Maple Syrup

2-3 Tsp Creamy Almond Butter

1 Tbsp Organic Untoasted Sesame Oil

I just mixed everything in that glass bowl and put it on my salad.

As for the salad itself I just pulled things out of the fridge that I had there: organic fermented beets, organic baby spinach, and kelp noodles. What on earth are kelp noodles, you ask. Well simply stated they are a brown based seaweed providing a natural source of iodine. They are a good source of fiber and very filling. So yes they are gluten free!

I probably used 1/4 of the bag. I cut them with kitchen scissors. I bought mine locally at Whole Foods, but you can order them here. I promise they are safe and healthy although as my son has stated they look "plasticy." They take on the flavor of what you put with them. No, they are not fishy tasting. 

I prefer soaking mine in warm/hot water for 5-10 minutes before eating them. I enjoy the texture after soaking them and eating them with my salad. 

I really enjoy the change of pace the noodles provide to my salad regimen. Do you like kelp noodles? Have you tried them? Tell me below.

Helping you to be a good steward of your health!~Marie A. Ligorria, HHC 

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