Eco-Wednesday: Vinegar for the Soul (and Body and Dog)

I'm trying to expand my "green" horizons beyond recycling and travel mugs, so I've recently begun to explore green household products. To be fair, I tried several years ago but they were very expensive. 

So I was delighted to meet Haatainen Caye aka blogger Green Grandma through the Allegheny County Green Works Festival in 2011 – she was collecting plastic bottle caps to recycle with Aveda Salon. I began to follow her blog and learned quite a bit about the use of vinegars for health and wellness.

You can read more of my adventures at my own blog.

• Tea for Insomnia - I have slept terribly since I gave myself a concussion over the holidays. I used to sleep like a rock, but I was having trouble falling and staying asleep, sleeping far too late in the AM. I tried her apple cider vinegar tea remedy and have slept fine for three consecutive nights, longer than the past three months. And it tastes fine.
• Pet Cleaning. My big guy Amadeus weighs 100 lbs and is almost 11.5 years old. Arthritis makes bowel continence a challenge so there's often a little clean up on a daily basis. I was using unscented baby wipes - expensive and disposable. I tried a 50/50 mix of water and white vinegar with a rag and voila! No sudsy foam to rinse, it keeps his coat shiny and it is easy to apply wherever he happens to be. 
• Wood floors. We have all hard wood floors and typically use Murphy's Oil Soap, but the scent wrecks havoc on my sinuses. I tried a simple white vinegar solution and it worked very well. I had to be careful not to leave standing water. With spring comes muddy paws so this is a definite keeper.

There are so many more suggestions in the book. I'm working my way up to a preventative "tonic" of apple cider vinegar on a daily basis. But there are tips for laundry, kitchen cleaning, hair care and more. 

I realize that this is return to the old way of doing things and I think it is a good thing. I don't kid myself that there will continue to be a need for some chemicals in our lives, but the health and cost benefits of using more vinegars is definitely a step in the right direction. 

You can purchase Green Grandma's book "Vinegar Fridays" for less than $10.