A Crash Course in Natural Living

A lot of the research I did for my book The Runner came about after trying to live a more natural lifestyle. I didn't want to have to worry about my son drinking windex and I didn't want to teach him how to brush his teeth with a toothpaste that warned, "Do not swallow!" I mentioned in an earlier post that I was moved after watching the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, but didn't know where to begin. This post is a crash course based on years of research, trial and error, and creativity.

1. Toothpaste - A link to my favorite natural toothpaste recipe can be found here. This recipe contains ingredients that you may find at your local health food store, but I did not know how the characters in my book would make coconut oil in a region where coconuts don't grow and xylitol is hard enough to find, even when you have three hippy healthy grocery stores to choose from. The recipe in my book for the toothpaste Avi uses from charred eggplants came from this book:
   
   This is a great resource for hippy-wisdom full of recipes, how-to's like instructions for building a sweat lodge, and naked hippy drawings. This book was written as an instruction manual when the author was living in a commune in the seventies.
2. Clothes Washing - All of the research I've done on washing clothes says that agitation is more important than soap. I've even read that putting your clothes in the washer without soap is enough to get your clothes clean, but I've never been brave enough to try this. Ever seen women smacking clothes against rocks in a river? Agitation.
   
   A washboard works fine too.
   
   I like this little hand-cranked washer.
   
   If you have enough money to spend, you can check out Lehman's unplugged catalog. 
3. Laundry Detergent - If you do decide that you can't live with washing clothes by agitation alone, there are lots of recipes for homemade laundry detergent that will save you a ton of money and cut down on the harmful chemicals in your household. This is my favorite homemade laundry detergent recipe and it will literally save you 95% of the money you were spending on laundry detergent.
4. Homemade Soap - In The Runner, Avi's village makes soap using wood ashes. I have never made soap this way because it seems difficult and dangerous and it doesn't sound like it would be easy to get your measurements precise, which is such a crucial element in soap making. There are plenty of soap recipes on the web like this site where the soaps look good enough to eat
   
   and there are plenty of resources for soap making. I would recommend a lye calculator if you want to make up your own recipe. Remember to be careful with any additions you add to your soap recipe including color. I've used crayons to color my soap, but remember anything you add could affect the chemical reaction you're creating so you have to be careful. Also, you can't buy lye in any store I've looked in. I had to order it online and fill out a form so someone can track my purchases and make sure I'm not using this to make drugs. 
   
5. Bread Making - In The Runner, Avi talks about how her village makes sourdough bread.
   
   I've used a recipe from this book. It literally takes weeks to make enough starter for this recipe and then it takes a whole day to make the bread (because it takes longer for the bread to rise with homemade starter instead of store bought yeast). This is my all-time favorite dried sourdough starter. If you follow the link, you will find instructions for getting your own Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter in the mail for FREE! It will look like this:
   
   This starter has an interesting history and is very easy to reactivate.  
6. Reconnecting - I can honestly say that this book changed my life. If you think that it is a little odd that Avi knows how to speak to animals and thanks her food after she's done eating, I think it is odd when we seem to forget that we are not the only feeling animals on this planet. 
   
7. Household Cleaners - If you look online you will find numerous recipes for homemade household cleaners. I simply use baking soda anytime I need an abrasive. Sometimes I'll mix baking soda with liquid dish soap and this works great on bathtubs. I buy empty spray bottles from the hardware store and fill them with 1/2 water and 1/2 white vinegar. This is great for just about anything (even windows and mirrors) and if you run out of salad dressing a few sprays will liven up your greens. 
8. Baby Bums - Sure, we've all heard of cloth diapering and many of us know that today's cloth diapers are much safer (no gigantic pins) and much cuter than those in the past.
   
   Have you ever heard of going diaper free?
   
   I read this book when my son was a little over a year. While he wasn't technically a baby, baby anymore, I modified things a bit to get him used to life without a diaper and this made using a potty fairly painless. I stuck him in the backyard sans diaper and he literally jumped the first time he went #1 because his diaper had kept him from truly experiencing this bodily function. 
9. Backyard Animals - If you're like me and always wanted to live on a farm, but lived in the city, don't let your small backyard become your excuse for not having a farm. Here are my backyard chickens:
   
   Check out this inspiring family who has been farming on 1/10th of an acre for years in downtown Pasadena, CA. 
   
10. Personal Hygiene - I've read and reread the Little House on the Prairie books many times and I remember Laura saying that she only bathed once a week, on Saturday evenings before church and the family would re-use the bath water.
    
    I've heard (but never asked to confirm this) that the Amish have a similar routine. Now, this is only my opinion, but I think that this would be a lot easier to get away with when everyone around you has a similar bathing schedule. I also think that because of the labor involved in bathing, that this was okay. I've taken a shower from a rigged up black barrel that had sat in the sun all day and dripped down as a shower. While better than nothing, this did not replace the feeling of a nice warm shower. I've read that some people follow the same philosophy as clothes washing and will simply use water alone with agitation to wash their bodies, but I don't think this would work for me. If society collapsed and I had no other choice, I could get clean in one way or another, but it would be very difficult to look back on the days when I simply had to turn a knob to get hot water.
11. Cooking - Look up recipes online. You can find recipes for just about anything nowadays and when you cook from scratch you get to control what you're eating. There are tons of people who will go out of their way to create a recipe that tastes very similar to your favorite fast-food items, but without any mystery ingredients. I've looked up recipes from Pizza Hut pizza to goldfish crackers. I love the internet!
    

Well, that's it for now. Post a comment if you think I left anything off or if you have any questions. Living a more natural lifestyle is not something that should cost you more money and should actually save you money. The internet is full of recipes, tricks, and wisdom, but so are old people! Visit your grandparents or a retirement village and talk to the people who live there. You will learn a LOT and brighten someone's day.