Try This! Healthy Hair

By: Co+op, stronger together

Does your hair need some TLC? Most commercial hair products rely on drying ingredients like alcohol, sulfates and silicone to control hair, which can throw your hair’s natural pH out of balance. Learning a few DIY tricks to use occasionally at home can be just the thing to give your hair a pick-me-up, and keep it looking fabulous, naturally.

Get super clean & shiny

Using conditioner and styling products gradually creates a buildup on strands of hair, a thin film of non-water soluble materials that makes hair appear dull and heavy. Shampoo alone will not remove this buildup. You can spend a lot of money on products marketed to remove it, or you can use this simple time-honored recipe for the same: 

DIY hair clarifier: 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 1 quart fresh water

Mix ingredients together, shampoo hair thoroughly and rinse, then work cider vinegar mix into hair and rinse. Follow with another round of shampoo to slough off loosened buildup and condition as usual.

Condition deeply

Your scalp and body produce a natural moisturizer: oil. Therefore it isn’t surprising that oil-rich fruits, nuts and seeds have great moisturizing benefits for hair and scalp. They are speaking your hair’s moisture language! Depending on your hair type, try one of the following recipes:

Curly hair: 4 tablespoons coconut oil, 2 tablespoons honey

Place coconut oil and honey in a small plastic bag, submerge in a cup of hot water until warmed. Apply to hair and leave on 20 minutes, shampoo and rinse. 

Straight hair: 1 egg yolk, 1/2 teaspoon olive oil, 3/4 cup lukewarm water

Beat egg yolk and oil, slowly beat in water. After shampooing, massage mixture into hair and leave on for 5-10 minutes before thoroughly rinsing.

Thick or wavy hair: 1 mashed avocado, 1 cup coconut milk

Heat avocado and coconut milk until warm and combined. When cool enough, massage into hair and let sit for 15 minutes. Shampoo and rinse.

Treat your hair to tea

Lots of products say they contain “herbal infusions” but what does that mean? Herbal infusions are basically teas for your hair. Since hair is absorbent it can benefit from the high mineral content and therapeutic value of some herbs. The following are suggestions for DIY herbal rinses that can treat common hair issues. If you can brew tea, you can make these!

Select one or two herbs from the lists below to achieve desired results:

Boost body & shine: Calendula, horsetail, nettle, parsley, rosemary or sage

Treat dandruff: Burdock root, chamomile, parsley, thyme, rosemary

Control excess oil: Lavender, lemon balm, lemongrass, mint, witch hazel, yarrow

Moisturize and smooth: burdock root, comfrey, lavender, marshmallow (root), parsley, sage

To make the rinse, pour 2 cups of boiling water over ½ cup of herbs and cover loosely. Steep until water has cooled (up to 24 hours), then strain the herbs out and funnel the liquid into a clean squeeze bottle or empty, rinsed shampoo bottle. After washing and conditioning hair, thoroughly soak hair with herbal infusion. Ring out excess, but do not rinse. Dry and style as usual.

Common sense caution

When using an herb or oil on skin or hair for the first time, do a patch test on the inside of your arm to check for allergic reactions. Even ingredients you are used to eating can react differently when applied to skin. Recipes require adult supervision, children should ask for help before trying this at home.

Get Healthy and Save Money by Food Gardening

By: National Gardening Association

When economic times are hard, people head to the garden. It happened in the early 20th century with Liberty Gardens, in the 1940s with Victory Gardens, and in the 1970s with the back to the land movement. Similarly, with current concerns about food safety, global warming, carbon footprints, and pollution, along with a desire to build a link to the Earth and our own neighborhoods, food gardening has become a simple and tasty solution.

Improve your health

We all know we’re supposed to eat more fruits and vegetables every day. It isn’t just good advice from mom. Many vegetables are loaded with vitamins A and C, fiber, water, and minerals such as potassium. A growing body of research shows that eating fresh fruits and vegetables not only gives your body the nutrients and vitamins it needs to function properly, but it also reveals that many fruits and vegetables are loaded with phytochemicals and antioxidants — specific compounds that help prevent and fight illness.

While specific vegetables and fruits are high in certain nutrients, the best way to make sure you get a good range of these compounds in your diet is to “eat a rainbow.” By eating a variety of different-colored vegetables and fruits, you get all the nutrients you need to be healthy. Eating fruits and vegetables is generally a great idea, but the quality and safety of produce in grocery stores has been increasingly compromised. Whether it’s Salmonella on jalapeño peppers or E. coliin spinach, warnings seem to be happening every year. Also, some people are concerned about pesticide residues on their produce. What better way to ensure a safe food supply free of biological and pesticide contamination than to grow your own? You’ll know exactly what’s been used to grow those beautiful crops.

Save some cash

You can save big money by growing your own vegetables and fruits. In fact, depending on the type and amount you grow, you can save a significant amount of money. By spending a few dollars on seeds, plants, and supplies in spring, you’ll produce vegetables that will yield pounds of produce in summer. Here’s an example of how a 20 foot by 30 foot vegetable garden can save you some cash. The following list provides vegetable yields and the average price per pound (in 2009) of many favorite vegetable crops grown in a 600 sq. ft. garden space.

Keep in mind that these are general averages. Yields, after all, can vary depending on your location, variety, and how well the crops grow. The prices are based on national average prices in 2009 from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service for those vegetables, grown organically in summer. Again, these numbers may vary depending on the year and location in the country. However, even with all these variables, you can see that it’s possible to grow more than 300 pounds of produce worth more than $600 just by working your own garden!

If you grew the garden illustrated here, it would yield 350 pounds of vegetables. If you went and purchased those 350 pounds of vegetables in a grocery store, you’d have to pay more than $600 dollars. This garden costs only about $70 to plant—so you’re saving money and getting great food to eat.

Adapted from Vegetable Gardening for Dummies (Wiley Publisher, 2009)

Information courtesy of the National Gardening Association, www.garden.org.