3 "Must Haves" for Cleaning

3 Must Haves for cleaning your entire house include: baking soda, vinegar, and water. Here's why:

Vinegar cuts through grease and grime like none other. Baking soda mixed with a little water scrubs countertops, flat top ovens, and just about everything else, better than anything else. Both of these individually, or a combination of the two, are perfect in combating bacteria.

Notice their is a plastic bottle labeled as "Green Works". I made a switch last year to more natural cleaning products, and I trust Green Works more than most others, yet it's still not near as natural as just plain baking soda and vinegar. Once my Green Works stuff was gone, I rinsed out the bottle and filled it up with something even easier, and something that seems to work exactly the same -- vinegar and water!

But why make a switch from the products in the store to something like baking soda and vinegar?

Here's the deal!

Our grandmother's grandmothers used baking soda back before companies ever even sold cleaning products with harcs chemicals. Most of the chemicals in cleaning products today are viewed as extremely toxic by the FDA. We trust that the FDA wouldn't allow us to use these products if they weren't safe in our kitchen. We trust them because we have no choice, right? Well let's think about this for a minute.

I'm not here to tell you that I don't trust the FDA, but I am here to tell you that I don't trust the companies making these products. Why? Because I feel they are just out to make money. Have you noticed how many cleaning products list that they have baking soda in them? Why do they do this? They do this because they know that we know it works. They do this because baking soda has been used as a cleaning agent for generations, and they do this most of all because it works!

But here's the dealio. The companies promise all these wonderful things. They promise their product will clean our counters beyond anything else. They promise to remove all traces of bacteria or at least 99.99%, including the flu. So we bite. We bite because we are busy, busy people who want to know that our cleaning attempts will not be in vain and that we won't have flu or raw chicken bacteria hanging around our loved ones.

So what do we do? All the products promise big results, and we all know most of them involve a ton of scrubbing, soaking, or waiting. We try to ignore that they are packed with chemicals and decide to trust the FDA. We don't want to be paranoid after all, and like I said, we are busy people!

But I'm here to tell you there's an alternative for busy people like ourselves. There is an alternative that's totally natural, has zero chemicals, is way cheaper, and does the job better than any of the name brand products you'll find on the shelf. Yeah, you guessed it. It's all in the picture - Baking soda, vinegar, and water.

To clean the stove or sinks, just make a paste of baking soda and water. If you have a flat top stove like I do, you know how difficult it can be to get everything off! This paste has cleaned mys tove better than anything else ever has - including soft scrub.

To clean the toilet, just sprinkle some baking soda around the inside edges of the toilet, and then spray with the vinger/water mixture and scrub. You may hear it sizzle, which is a good thing. I like to let the baking soda and vinegar sit in the toilet for an hour or so (if you can), so that it gives it time to sink in a little, although this isn't a requirement for it to work.

To clean the bathtub, just sprinkle the baking soda in the tub (about 1/2 cup or more if you want) and spray with the vinegar and water mixture. If you get close enough, you'll hear it sizzle. Let it sit for an hour or more and then scrub. Or like I mentioned above, you don't have to let it sit and can just scrub right away.