Deconstructed Probiotic Potato Salad

Deconstructed Probiotic Potato Salad. Homegrown microbes and resistant starch makes this a superfood.
Strained Milk Kefir or Yoghurt, kimchi, cooked potato and chopped spring onions. Easy.

Grain Free Fermented Dog Food

*Grated Veggies (carrots, zucchini, kale, sweet potato, pumpkin, green beans, apple)

*24 hour slow-cooked (with dash of apple cider vinegar) roast chicken bones (free range), blended smooth.

*Flax, Sunflower and Pumpkin seeds, Desicated Coconut; soaked for 12 hours in milk kefir.

*Minced Kangaroo meat,

*minced chicken meat,

*Green Tea (helps to blend the seed/keifr mix.

(sorry about the lack of quantities, that is 1kg of meat)

Grate/chop the veggies, I soak the seeds in kefir milk for 12 hours first and use the green tea in the blender with the kale and seed mix to help it whizz up. When I have mixed it all up I leave on the countertop for 12 hours before bagging into 100gm lots and keeping in the fridge for a day or so before freezing. It is a variation of the Dom's Kefir Pages fermented pet food.

I try to avoid 'processed carbohydrates, rice and grains'. Also, when I'm serving up, I add calcium supplement, green lipped muscle powder, fish oil and glucosamine. On fasting days I'll give her a broth of chickenstock, chicken, leafygreens and goldenpaste (turmuric, coconut oil, ground black pepper). I read on Dom's Kefir Page that it is good to fast a dog on water for a day every week. 

Reuse Recycle and a New Direction

In short, the name of this blog is changing from 'Green Cleaning' to 'Live Culture Club'.

My personal journey started with wanting to reduce the environmental chemicals my family are exposed to. A natural extension of that is to also look at what is going into our bodies.  There are some awesome resources out there for natural living and eating I would like to help get them out to the wider community. Unfortunately, in this day and age the marketing $$$ from big pharma and grocery conglomerates makes it harder for independent voices to be heard. 

* Sure, you can buy a freeze dried powdered health probiotic for about $30 a month, but does it activate before it runs its course through our bodies?

* Sure, you can buy a good quality natural yoghurt in the shops, but how old is it and any live microbes left by the time you put in on your bircher muesli?

* Sure, you can buy a sachet of pre-measured freeze dried yoghurt, and place it in the Easy Yo flask. But, do you want to be spending $4 per litre and eating 18% sugar (for the fruit ones) yoghurt?

I have realised that I can use some kitchen hacks to make my own fresh low cost yoghurt, probiotic skin cleaners and cleaners at home with basic kitchen utensils and a bit of time.

Some of the microbial things you can easily make at home.....

Garbage Enzyme Cleaner * Esky Yoghurt * Milk Kefir * Coconut Kefir * Worm Juice * Compost * Fermented Foods

I'm hoping this blog will be a resource for my generation and the one to follow.

Nude Food - How Rude!

Take one Milk Carton, a craft knife and a velcro dot . . . 5 minutes later you have a food carrier to stop your precious grapes getting squished.

Fleas, Expensive Treatment and Spinosad

UPDATE: The natural way wasn't successful for us so I now buy Comfortis online via www.vetproductsdirect.com.auand give her a tablet every few months. works great. Doggy took some time to adjust but skin rash is now cleared up.

My neighbour borrowed my old, overweight and arthritic dog to deal to his rat problem. You should see her go, 5 rats in 2 days. Unfortunately she also brought back some backpackers from his unkempt and overgrown garden. So the vet sold me one tablet of Comfortis 18kg for $23 and said the fleas will drop off within 1/2 hour. Active ingredient is spinosad, which is a naturally occurring bacteria. They sure did hop off. On to me and the rest of the house. EEEK.

The next morning and the scratching is worse than before. Am going to wash her bedding in hot water and tea\ tree and leave it in the sun for the day to kill eggs and larvae. My house is now a lavender house after spraying every surface with a weak soluton. My poor dog is allergic to the flea bites so am spraying her with lavender too and using paw paw cream to ease her troubles.

Additional Info: Look up Spinosad  in Wikipedia and the blog NATURAL WAYS TO GET RID OF FLEAS.  This is a light infestation, for more serious ones of if the natural way doesn't work work with your vet and pest terminator before it gets out of control.

Life Hacks by Green Cleaning

Some everyday problems can be solved with forehead slapping ease. All it takes is an identified need, the ingenuity of a child, re-purposed items and a few simple tools. My dad is a fantastic problem solver and a re-user of objects. With a family of 10 to shelter, feed and support, he and my mum always had big ideas and limited resources.

My baby daughter was having a hard time breathing, we spent some time in her little tent with eucalyptus steaming in a bucket of boiling water. That helped a bit. Having looked at $35 asthma inhaler (puffer) spacers in the chemist, it struck me that they were the same shape as a water bottle. I McGuiver'd hubby's inhaler to a 600ml water bottle (with the bottom cut off) with some duct tape and held it in front of her face, it helped big time.

After a bit of a google investigation, I found some other references that people have been making home-made spacers since puffers were invented. Various objects such as toilet paper tubes, and card board boxes have been applied as spacers. 

The pinterest board; Life Hacks by Green Cleaning is a tribute to my parents life lessons of thinking outside the box. Some of these new applications for old things might get you out of a jam someday, as they did me.

Great minds think alike:

Homemade Asthma Nebulizer: A New Use for Recycled Water Bottles - Rod Moser, PA, PhD

(NOTE: Don't diagnose via Dr. Google and never give prescription medicine to anyone without first checking with a doctor or health hotline.)

Welcome new likers from Narangba Mums. For me, cleaning is about killing virus and bacteria cells as well as spores and creating a hostile environment for their colonisation. If you click on the 'Notes' you'll see the main cleaning recipes and ideas. There is not much to it.  I love Shannon Lush and hate the marketing messages given out by the big companies (even the green products) that you housewives who care douse their houses, kids and pets in chemicals so that they'll be a blue white and germless.

If you have any specific situations you need help with please post.