Keeping a clean & hygienic kitchen with Shannon Lush

 

When cleaning a copper sugar pan as an apprentice, I remember the alchemy of using a salt and lemon juice paste to remove the discolouration and corrosion from washing in hot water. I have cleaned silver ware and jewellery in an aluminium pan using Bicarbonate of soda and hot water to remove tarnishing.

Having wondered on and off about more natural cleaning options, I read a fascinating article in SMH Good Living, by Shannon Lush using natural products (18^th March 2013) so I thought I would give it a go and become an Eco- Warrior and avoid commercial cleaners. Why do I want to do this?  One reason is many commercial cleaning agents contain phosphates, which are great for breaking down grease but once in waterways they encourage allege bloom. Plus we have a selection of commercial cleaning products cluttering up the laundry room and also a range of everyday food items in the pantry that could substitute some of these products. So armed with armed with a big dose of curiosity and Shannon Lush’s article I have been trying her alternative methods. Here’s her recommendations and my experiences.

Dishcloths, tea towels, scrubbers: change your dishcloth and tea towel daily. After washing, dry them in the sun to kill bacteria. Scourers; plastic or metal; can be frozen overnight to kill bacteria. Have a separate handtowel to dry your hands on.

Worktops: Prepare a spray by mixing one teaspoon of lavender oil in 1 Lt of water. Lavender oil is effective against many antibiotic resistant pathogens (Golden Staph and E-coli).Add a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid to cut through grease. Old tights or stockings made of Nylon are cheap and durable scrubbers that cut through grease and can be washed many times. I found that this works a treat and leaves a pleasant scent that commercial spray & wipe products lack.

Chopping boards: Shannon recommends wooden boards over plastic or glass. Her reasons include: plastic boards of various colours are good to reduce the risk of cross contamination (red for raw meat, blue for fish etc.) and can be put through the dishwasher, however the cutting action creates grooves which harbor pathogens. Glass boards blunt the edge of a knife but they don’t get grooves like plastic. Traditional wood is the best option as wood contains anti-bacterial properties. Shannon recommends using salt to clean. As a kid I remember watching Butchers, at the end of the day, scrubbing a wooden chopping block with hot soapy water and then sprinkling it with a layer of salt. Salt attracts moisture therefore drying the wooden surface. You rub the salt off the board after it has extracted residual moisture. A big tick- very effective.

Fridges:  An antibacterial weekly wipe down of white vinegar can be used on interior shelves and seals. If there is an odour in your fridge, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) will absorb the odour and freshen, Lemon juice can also be used to freshen. As well as deodourising our fridge, it now gleams when we open the door. 

Sinks: Use white vinegar to wipe down stainless steel. To clean your sinks plumbing and remove blockages, sprinkle 2 tablespoons of baking soda into the plug hole. After 30 mins, 2 tbsps of vinegar and 30 minutes later flush the pipe with boiling water. I treated every piece of plumbing using this technique (sink, hand basin, bath and shower plus the bathroom drains). They are now draining faster and this treatment exterminated a small colony of flies in the bathroom drain. I have repeated the treatment after a fortnight and when you peer down the plug hole, the plumbing looks clean. I do sound like I need to get a life….!

Cupboard cleanliness: We live in urban Sydney in a one hundred year old terrace and after an extended dry period a colony of ants were matching around our pantry as if they were participating in the Trooping of the Colour for HRH Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. We attacked the ants with Antrid and then Shannon’s recommendation: A wipe of lavender oil deters creepy crawlies such as ants, cockroaches and flies. Use bay leaves and gloves positioned every 60 cm on shelves to deter silverfish and moths. Bay leaves inserted into canisters of dry goods deter stores product pests such as weevils or moths. Lauric acid is the oil in bay leaves, of the laurel family. Lavender oil can be used to keep doors clean and control bacterial growth. We have not had a repeat infestation in this short period.

Stove tops: Shannon recommends sprinkling baking soda on a cold stove top and then an equal amount of vinegar which is then rubbed while it is fizzing to remove grease. Use your old tights as a scrubber. This has been extremely effective to remove residual grease from gas burner and stove trivets.

Being an all male household we haven’t followed the recommendation of using tights or suspenders as scourers, which is something to look forward to! These alternative cleaning methods using everyday items were probably used by our Grandparents before the advent of commercial cleaning products so Shannon Lush is helping us to turn back the clock and is making us gleam like our solar panels in the midday sun. Thank you Shannon.