Of all the elements that make up many convenience foods, preservatives are the ones that make the hairs on my neck stand up. Give me butter, fat, gelatine made from boiled cow heads, colouring that I know is crushed beetles, live bacteria and fungus. I'll take them all many times over before I knowingly consume food containing preservatives. Of course they tell us that all the additives they put in food are there to protect the food from invading pathogens, to add flavour; it's there for our own good!  And it just happens to be cheaper. These additives increase the profit margin for manufacturers. While cancer rates are increasing around the world, our health is being traded for profit.

I came across this article recently and since then I've read it a few times. I knew food manufacturers were adding all sorts to our food, but when I read this article, I was shocked. And terrified. One of my fears is that it's being using on what is supposedly 'fresh' food too. How did things get so bad? Why have our governments allowed this to happen?

I don't have any answers. My only strategy is to stay away from highly processed food but I do think we should all contact our local politicians and talk loudly and publicly about our concerns. Personally, I'd like to see better food labelling laws in every country. Surely we have the right to know exactly what is in our food and to make informed decisions over whether to buy or not. 

I have no magic wand that will make this better. It makes me resolve to continue to cook from scratch but I doubt even that will completely protect us. I hope you read the article and vote for it to change by using the power of your dollars when you shop. If we don't buy this stuff and start demanding better quality food through our politicians, then the "it just happens to be cheaper" will become less of a player in the way food is processed and sold to us.  Because the problem isn't just the fact that our food can be tampered with in this way but also that the labelling laws help hide that it has been done.

It often pays to look at different ways to supply healthy food for your family.  I don't like buying cold cuts from the supermarket or the deli because I prefer to do the cutting myself. I'm sick of buying expensive meat only to have it turn slimy or smelly in a day or two and have to throw it out. Recently Hanno bought a small food slicer. He likes his rye bread cut fairly thin and a meat slicer does the job very well indeed. Our slicer has a wide range of cut widths, from wafer thin to extra thick. So when we had that slicer sitting there I started thinking about what else I could slice with it. Naturally, cold cuts jumped out at me.

Even though it's a meat slicer, it also cuts bread perfectly. That's my homemade bread in the slicer above. Homemade bread is often difficult to cut but it slices through my bread like butter on the slicer.

We don't eat nearly as much meat as we used to. I was vegetarian for eight years and even though I felt better when I started eating meat again, I didn't go overboard. But I do like good cold cuts with salad during summer and I like the occasional sandwich with either cold meatloaf, corned beef or roast beef, with a touch of homemade relish or chutney. The slicer does the best job at slicing the meat and our homemade bread so it not only tastes good, it looks good on the plate.

Cooking meat at home for your cold cuts is much more economical than buying it pre-sliced at the deli. So let's look at the meat to see what savings may be had. Here in my local Woolworths and Coles the prices are much higher for the sliced cold cuts you buy at the deli section. For instance, sliced and cooked corned beef at Coles is $31.90 per kilo/2.2lbs but at the same shop you can buy uncooked corned beef for $7 per kilo. It just needs to be boiled and you'll have a fine piece of meat that will sit in the fridge for a week and serve you well for lunch boxes. If you have a bit too much corned meat, then serve it up for a quick dinner one night with either salad or vegetables.

It's a similar story for roast beef. Sliced from the deli, it's $23.98 per kilo, if you buy a piece of raw Heart Smart topside beef suitable for roasting and do that in your own kitchen, you'll pay $13.99 per kilo, or $11 for a lesser grade meat. Roast pork as cold cuts is $23.99 per kilo, buy it raw and slow roast it yourself at home - $8 per kilo. You can also make up meatloaf, chicken loaf and tuna loaf, all ideal as sandwich meats and they'll be cheaper and contain no preservatives or additives if you make them at home rather than buy them precooked at the deli.

Cooking at home allows you to add your favourite herbs and spices, reduce the salt content, cut off the fat and cook it how you like it - rare or well done. Meat that you've cooked and stored in the fridge at home will last longer than cold cuts from the deli and I can slice just as much as I need. And the bonus here is that I can clean the blade every day, or between cutting jobs. I don't know how often they clean the slicing blade at the supermarket, or what they clean it with, but here I use Ecostore detergent, in clean water, with a cotton dishcloth and then it is rinsed in clean water and allowed to dry. Even though I've stood for a long time waiting at the deli counter over the years, I've never seen anyone clean the slicer blade. It's probably something that's only done after hours. I'd prefer it was done between slicing jobs.

Our slicer is a Sunbeam, and btw, I'm not sponsored in any way for this post. Hanno bought it last year and so far it's been excellent. I think it was around the $120 mark but if I keep on cooking and slicing my own cold cuts, it will pay for itself in a few more months. Do you have a slicer at home? Are you cooking your own cold cut meat?

Although I don't write about it nearly as much as I think about it, food budgeting is one of my favourite topics. It's the first area I concentrated on when I started living a more simple life, it's what convinced me that we could indeed live this way and I believe it's the one area where almost everyone can save money. If you can provide good food for the table while saving money doing it, that spare money can go towards debt reduction or something you love. And the good thing is, the money you save on food can be continued savings every week, if you put your mind to it. I have to say too that although spending an extra twenty dollars a week on food won't break the bank here, I think a prudent and thrifty approach to the amount we spend on food, or anything, is a significant and meaningful way of living our simple life. The trick is finding the balance - good food for a good price or value for money, always.

However, food budgeting isn't just about saving money on food, it's more about the wise management of food spending, storage, planning, as well as developing and maintaining a good set of skills.

Of course, it all starts before we ever get to the shops with menu planning, growing food at home, and making many of the things we used to buy. If you plan your menu you'll waste less food and probably spend less money.  Don't feel guilty or inadequate if you don't have the time right now to do all this. There are times in your life when you will be more involved in home production rather than in buying what you need. When you can do it, take the opportunity to get involved in providing for yourself and your family. If you're not there yet, just accept it for what it is and do what you can do. I'll write about menu planning tomorrow.

While I like to think the way I budget here is more about the right food choice for us rather than the cheapest food I can find, there are some little things that make a difference to how much I spend, while still getting the food I want. For instance, I use the delicious milk from my local Maleny Dairies for drinking, cooking, cheese and yoghurt. On the odd occasion I don't have their milk, I use powdered milk for yoghurt and cooking. If you can, work out your own substitutes for those times when you can't get what you'd prefer. Being prepared and organised will help you in those times and you'll be able to avoid buying the most expensive replacement.


One way to reduce the cost of the food budget is to cut cut down on meat consumption. We aim at the three/four rule: three days with meat, four without. Sometimes it's the other way around but I never worry if it is, it generally works it's own way out. If you are going to do this you should find a good vegetarian cook book or web site. At the very least you should understand a bit about "complete protein" - meat and fish are complete proteins, lentils, legumes and nuts aren't, but by combining proteins, you can make complete proteins. For instance, baked beans aren't a complete protein but baked beans on wholemeal toast is. The bottom line many of us eat too much protein. We all need protein but it doesn't have to be animal protein. Learn more about complete protein here.

I guess my top tip would be to start with what you have. So if you're about to shop or menu plan, check to see what you have in your fridge and freezer and if you're growing food or keeping livestock, work out what is available for the kitchen in the next week. Another wise strategy is to barter your excess food for food you need. This requires contact with a lively community or at the very least, a vibrant street of like-minded folk. It's amazing what you can do with bartering once you get into it.

Once you have the food in the kitchen you have to know how to store it correctly so you can cut down on food waste. Stockpiling, preserving, baking your own bread, biscuits and cakes, making your own sauces, jams, relishes and dressings, as well as cleaners and laundry products, will cut your spending at the supermarket. All these skills can be learnt and built upon. Every thing you make yourself will be cheaper and probably tastier and healthier than the commercial version. If you can, build up your home production skills and you'll reap the rewards. One of the reasons I love making my own is that I don't have to ingest all those preservatives and artificial additives that are usually in commercial food. Making my own cleaners and laundry products helps me live with far less chemicals than I would if I had to rely on commercial cleaners. I still get the job done but with less money spent and less risk.


I want you to remember that we're all bound by the time we have available to do all the things I mentioned above.  You may not have time to bake bread or make soap or cheese but I'm sure you could work some of it into your days. For instance, making a batch of washing liquid will take about 15 minutes, organising the slow cooker with your evening meal will take a few minutes but will save on the time you spend preparing a meal when you return from work. Think about how you can change things around to do a few of these things.  Be satisfied with what you can do now and when you have more time you can do more. Don't feel guilty about what you can't do just do what you can and be pleased with that.

I'll carry on with a post about menu plans tomorrow. It's an important topic and it's one of the ways to really cut down on what you spend on groceries.  In the meantime I'm interested in reading about your ideas on food budgeting. What do you have success with? If you've reduced your food expenses and buy healthy food, tell us how you did it.

Making gifts - homemade soap with organic cotton face cloths.

Recent research by the American organisation Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has shown that women in the US use an average of nine personal care products every day. In those products are over 100 different chemcials.  I'm sure it would be a similar figure for women in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Click here to see more information about that study. 

In another piece of interesting news, Johnson and Johnson have started removing cancer-causing hormones from some of their products and other companies, namely Avon, Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Procter and Gamble and Unilever have been asked to do the same.

The FDA in America require an assurance from cosmetic companies before they go on sale that the product is safe to use but they aren't allowed to pre-test to confirm that assurance. They rely on the integrity of these companies to sell safe products.  Fragrance is another cause for concern. Fragrance used in room fresheners, cleaning products and cosmetics has been linked to breast cancer. The US Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act allows fragrance ingredients to remain a trade secret and because of that, no one really knows what's in these products.

 Set up with about six months supply of homemade soap and laundry liquid.

One of the things I wanted to do when I gave up work and started working in my home was to make this place as safe as it could be. I want my entire family, and yours, to be safe and now that we have grandchildren, that decision is even more urgent. I want to live a long and healthy life and I will not jeopardise that by using any of these products now. Skin is the largest organ in our bodies, what you put on it, what touches it and what it absorbs has the potential to harm you. Please be careful. I don't want any of you to become sick or die; I want you to live a long and healthy life too.

I encourage you to check the products you're using. Many companies put their ingredients lists online now. For example, here is the ingredients list for Cold Power with Cuddly, made by Colgate:

I tried to find ingredients lists for various bar soap and shower gels but they're not showing them. Hmmmm, I wonder why. Here is one I did find, however, it's Imperial Leather bar soap. My soap recipe has four ingredients, one of them is rain water.

This is important. Even if you think you're bullet-proof, this is worth some of your time to check the soap, shower gel, washing powder or liquid, sun screen, insect repellant and cosmetics you're using. Do some research online into those products. If you can't find anything, email the company and ask.

I would love to leave you with good news but instead I'll leave you with this to read - it's an article about the FDA's rejection of the cosmetic industry's draft legislation. It is dated 6 March 2014.

Part of it: Writing that "the draft industry bill could put Americans at greater risk from cosmetic-related illness and injury than they are today," Taylor expressed he no longer saw common ground with the industry in a 14-page memo that detailed how industry’s proposed changes would weaken the FDA’s already very limited regulatory authority over the safety of cosmetics and personal care products.

Do you think that profits are more important than customers?

♥::♥::♥::♥

Rose is leading a very interesting set of organising challenges over at the forum this month. The current one is: Today is Stop Driving Ourselves Crazy Day. Today we face up to one thing we are doing which is driving us mad and we do something about it. If you have trouble organising yourself or doing what you want to do, have a look at the challenge. It may help get you on track. Just click on the link to go there, if you're not a  member, you can join up free here.

It's perfectly clear that we're not all the same. We're different ages, with children and without, married, single, straight and gay. And within all those differences, there are the personal preferences we all have. So given all that, why would there be only one way to live a simple life. The truth is there is probably a version of it for everyone who wants to live it.

This is the question I'm asked more often that any other. How do I start to live a simple life? I can't tell you that, no one can. This way of life doesn't follow a formula, that's one of the beauties of it. But even if I can't tell you how to start, I can help you get started. Take some time out by yourself and:

What you're trying to do is to find happiness in your daily life by modifying the simple and ordinary things you do everyday. Some of the things that will help you do that is to: cut back on your spending and identify what you need as opposed to what you want; pay off debt; cut harmful chemicals from your food and from whatever you bring into your home; home produce what you can; respect the land you live on; try to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses you're responsible for; become a part of your neighbourhood and community. There will be other things that are important to you, but those I listed are often a part of everyone's list.

Like many Australians, I watched Food Inc. the other night when it aired on TV here. I'd already seen the DVD of it a couple of years ago but it did me good to see it again. If nothing else, as our ex-prime minister Gough Whitlam asked of us, it helped me to "maintain the rage". And watching it again certainly helped me do that. If you haven't seen this documentary and you're in Australia, it's on SBS On Demand for another four days.  For those who haven't seen it, it's an account of the unsustainable and unhealthy practices in parts of the food industry in the USA; but the conditions discussed are happening in many Western countries, not just the USA. It features Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin and Eric Schlosser.

The program examines unhygienic conditions in feed lots, the large increase in the number of E.coli and other bacterial food contaminants, appalling factory conditions worked by illegal immigrants - with a blind eye from the authorities, how the cheap price of food does not reflect its real price, how the meat processing business has moved from having many participating and often local players to now being in the hands of four huge corporations, how Monsanto sues farmers for saving their own corn and soybean seeds, how food labelling laws are set to deceive rather than inform, and much, much more. When you see it for the first time it's shocking and very confronting. When I saw it again I was just plain mad.

It took me a while to work out how to discuss this in a sane and rational way. The subject is so emotive and the program is difficult to watch because it shows animal cruelty and the unbearable conditions cattle and chickens are routinely kept in. We keep our own animals and chickens in good conditions,  but I felt real shame that we've (all of us) allowed the conditions some farm animals are kept in to build over the years and not done anything about it. Many would argue that not much can be done, that these corporations are so powerful that nothing will stop them but I don't believe that. Our dollars will stop them.

Every time we shop, we vote with our money. Every single time. All potential customers with money to spend have the power to keep a product going or to bring it down. Buying isn't just about the product we choose, it's also about those we don't choose. By not choosing local products, slowly, the local businesses die off. That has already happened in Australia, and probably many other countries too.

The main decision I made when watching Food Inc is to support my local businesses as much as I can and to cut down on buying meat. Now I'm buying free range and organic meat only and to make up for the cost of that, I'm buying the cheaper cuts and we're eating less of it. It's the only way we can do it. I know it will be difficult at times but doing nothing is no longer an option for me. I don't approve of the way that animals and chickens are treated; I want food labelling to change; I don't think that higher profit margins justify cruelty; I think we have to get used to the fact that there is no such thing as never-ending economic growth. Not buying cheap meat and foreign foods will send that message.

I should have done it sooner.

We need to think about the environment more. We know the climate is changing but many people think it's up the "the government" or "them" to do something about it. When I saw those huge feedlots and thought about all the methane going up into the air, it almost made me weep. The faecal waste of piggeries and chicken farms floating down what were once clean waterways made me feel sick. We all have to make our own changes - we have personal responsibility in this. The buck stops with all of us.

I'm not going to harp on and on about this except to say out loud: every time you shop, you vote with your money. Please think about that. I'd rather hand my money over to farmers who treat their animals well, who harvest organic or local foods and who are more interested in producing fresh, heathy food than in what a faceless stockholder will think. We may not always eat in the way we used here in my home but I can no longer be part of the shopping majority who keep these conditions going.

I had to go to Caloundra last week and while I was there I went into Woolworths to buy yeast. Seems simple enough, doesn't it? But I hadn't been into Woolworths for a long time and wasn't sure how their aisles were set up. I walked into the centre of the store and started looking at the signs on the aisles that indicate what is there. I knew they wouldn't have "yeast" up there so I looked for a staple that I knew would be next to it - "Flour". I went up and down and couldn't find flour.  What's going on here! Woolworths has no flour? That doesn't make sense. Then I caught sight of what looked like the baking aisle, I looked up at the sign and the first product on there was "Cake Mix". I kept reading, there was no flour listed.

NO FLOUR!

Cake mix was their header product. Flour is on the shelves but they don't mention it on the shop aisle signs. Have we gone that far down the gurgler?

According to Mediatonic, Woolworths has a 77% market penetration rate in Australia. So 77% of shoppers are being told that cake mix is more important than flour. That is so depressing.

When I came home I decided to do a bit of slueth work online to see if the same craziness was going on there. Yes. It is. They start with cake mixes - pages of them. The first one listed is Donna Hay Biscuit Mix Macaroon @ $8.59 a box! Am I the only one who thinks that's crazy? The cake mixes go on for about five pages, then there are pre-made frostings, nuts, dried fruit etc and on page 18, flour - plain old flour, is mentioned. You can buy 1 kg/2.2lbs of organic plain flour for $3.64. That's enough to make at least a hundred macaroons.

Why am I going on about this? Why is it important? Well, every cake mix you buy will have preservatives in it. They need them so they can sit on the shelves for so long. Flour doesn't need preservatives because it's just flour- ground up grain, usually wheat. But check out a pack of cake mix and see all the artificial flavourings there - if you buy this mix and cook with it, you'll probably add milk and eggs but everything else is already in there - or at least there is additive that will mimic the natural ingredients you would use like butter, vanilla, bananas, orange zest, sultanas or cocoa. 

But the real reason this almost made me weep last week is that we're being dumbed down. They're selling us convenience over health. We are losing our traditional skills for the sake of convenience - the skills that every generation in your family kept going, added to and passed along. Promoting cake mix instead of the ingredients you would buy to make bread, cakes, biscuits and muffins, is telling us that cake mix is better than flour. I suppose the truth of it is that for the supermarkets, mixes are better because they cost more and therefore their profit margin is higher. It doesn't matter that they rob us of our cooking skills, or they're not as healthy as what you make at home from scratch, it doesn't matter that you'll be ingesting all sorts of additives that you probably can't pronounce, the holy grail here is the profit margin. Let's all bow down to the mighty dollar.  Pffffffft

Don't let them do that to you. Don't let them do it to us! We have the power here. Our dollars keep these places open and profitable. Look at your shop signs and if yours says cake mix and it doesn't mention flour, complain. Please complain. This is important. Every supermarket would have an email address. Send an email to the manager telling him/her of your concerns, and tell him/her you expect a reply. We want flour back where it belongs. We want cake mix back there too - as a standby for those busy times, not the leader in the baking aisle.

I see a few things that make me wonder why, but this just made me angry. There are a lot of us working hard to reskill our communities and teach our families. Heading a baking sign with cake mix and leaving flour off it completely might not seem like a big deal but if we don't complain about it, we're saying it's oay. Well, it's not okay. Flour is the base ingredient for almost everything you bake. Common sense tells me that flour should lead the baking ingredients in any shop and if a supermarket doesn't agree with that then they're putting their profit margin ahead of my well being and health. And if that is the case and they won't change their sign, I won't shop there anymore.

Please check out your supermarket and tell me what's happening there. Hopefully this is a minor glitch and the rest of the world is still leading people to the flour.

If you were to cook your own meals from scratch, I doubt you'd add sulphites, nitrates, artificial colourings or flavours, gums or MSG, and yet they're common ingredients in foods on supermarket shelves. Some preservatives, like calcium propionate (282) in bread have been removed recently because of their effects on health, but there are many other additives remaining in the food we eat. These things are added to keep food fresh, to add colour, flavour and to replace certain food properties that are removed during processing. Some additives are harmless, some cause problems, some haven't been tested. If you buy processed foods or pre-prepared meals, it's a good habit to get into to read the labels and have some understanding of what you're reading.

One of the ways we can get around this is to buy unprocessed ingredients instead of food that has be modified in some way, or already prepared and cooked. If you can make meals using ingredients you know, such as vegetables, fruits, meat, chicken, fish, dairy products, pulses and legumes, you'll be as close as you can get to eating and serving food you can be sure of. Instead of relying on packets of powdered spice mixes and cans of soup to add flavour to your food, get to know the herbs and spices you have available and use them instead.

1. Chop, slice, shred your food yourself.
2. Caramelise meat, chicken, onions and vegetables - that alone will add a lot to the flavour of your food.
3. Make your own seasoning mixes. Find recipes here.
4. Be careful with fruit juice as well. It's much better to grow your own or buy oranges and squeeze your own juice, but if that is not possible, read the label carefully and buy cautiously. There have been news reports last week about insecticides in orange juice imported into the USA from Brazil another country and processed in America.
5. Buy in season; fruit and vegetables in season are usually cheaper and fresher.
6. Buy cheaper cuts of meat, like shoulder of lamb or pork instead of the leg, and chuck steak, skirt steak, gravy beef, shin beef. All these cuts contain cartilage that break down with long slow cooking to give you natural gelatine in your food. That is very good for you. There's more to be read about this is the excellent book Nourishing Traditions. Use your slow cooker or a casserole dish in the oven to slow cook a double batch. Freeze the second portion. We buy our meat in bulk from a local family butcher.  We usually buy a hind quarter of beef which will see us through several months. It costs $7.95 a kilo (2.2lbs) and is local meat from the butcher's own farm. Obviously that is the ideal and not everyone has that luxury but you can ask about the meat you buy. If you ask questions you'll learn more and will be less likely to buy inferior meat.
7. Stockpile - this will support you cooking from scratch. A cupboard full of ingredients will see you through not only your daily meals and snacks, it will be an insurance policy for those times when you don't have the time or energy to shop, when you have increased expenses one week and run short of cash or if there is a community emergency such as a storm, flood or fire.
8. Use your leftovers. Learning how to deal with leftover food can stretch one meal into two or at the very least will provide a lunch the following day.
9. Take your lunch and drinks to work or school.
10. “Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Michael Pollan says. So if you eat grains for breakfast, forget the Corn Flakes, Coco Pops and Cherrios and go for oatmeal or semolina instead. Don't buy instant oats (or instant anything), buy rolled or cut oats or barley, soak them in water overnight and cook them in the morning.

Cooking food isn't one simple task. It's a series of steps that will see you buying, possibly growing, cleaning, preparing and cooking the food you eat. How do you go about it?  Can we turn this list of ten into 100 essential tips?

I read a disturbing report the other day about how hazardous chemicals are being emitted when clothing and household linens are dried in dryers. This is from the University of Washington, it's important and I want you to read it by clicking on the link above.

This is from MSN Today: "Fragrance may be the most common type of chemical in your house. Used in laundry detergents, fabric softeners, dryer sheets, cleaning supplies and disinfectants, air fresheners, deodorizers, shampoos, hair sprays, gels, lotions, sunscreens, soaps, perfumes, powders, and scented candles, fragrances are a class of chemicals that may take you extra time and effort to avoid. But it’s worth it. The term “fragrance” or “parfum” on personal care product labels can be a cover for hundreds of harmful chemicals known to be carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, and reproductive toxicants, even at low levels."

And this is from Wikipedia: "Studies show that exposure to polycyclic musks may break down the body’s defenses against other toxic exposures, and these chemicals are linked to increased risk of breast cancer and hormone disruption. Many of these musks were used in large quantities to scent laundry detergents. Levels of these musks in human bodies appear to be associated with the frequency of use of fragranced products, meaning that the more individuals use fragrance, the higher the levels of chemicals like galaxolide and tonalide."

There is no doubt about it, when you start living a more simple life and decide to get rid of as many harsh chemicals as you can, you have to turn into a bit of a detective. Some of the information we seek to live simply is not openly available, we have to search for it; luckily we all have our computers to make that easier.  All the decisions you make about what you include in your life now should be examined. Don't make soap or bread because I do it, or your best friend does, if has to make sense to you in your circumstances. So, if you're trying to decide whether you should put some time aside to make your own soap, bread, cleaners, pasta, jam etc., you might want to compare it with what you're already using. You might need to read information such as the following before you can make up your mind.

People often say to me that simple living is far from simple but this is a good case in point. Have a look at the additives in many of the cleaning products and soap listed in the links above, or what you have in your cupboards right now. Then compare that with what you could be using on your skin. I know which is simple. These are the ingredients I use when making soap:

Look at the additives on any label of jam or marmalade you currently have in your pantry or fridge and compare that with my recipe, or anyone's homemade recipe for raspberry jam:

Want to compare breads? Check the label of your plastic sliced bread or even some of the more expensive speciality breads and compare that with my recipes for the bread we eat here:

There are no preservatives in what we use, we make it fresh and eat it the same day. It doesn't need to sit on a shelf for a day or a week; it doesn't need to have preservatives added.

What is in the salad dressing you use? How many gums and numbers does the ingredients list contain? Compare that with:

I could go on and on but I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about. I think it's as plain as the nose on your face - homemade from scratch will be less likely to contain preservatives, colourings and artificial flavourings, in fact whatever you make will contain only what you add. You can't be more sure of your food or personal cleaners than that. So I guess the choice is between paying someone else to make what you need and not having control over what is added, and making it yourself, which takes time and effort. Convenience versus time, effort and cost.

I cannot make everything we use here but I made the choice of what I make and what I buy after doing my research and all my detective work. We all have to make our own decisions according to the time, energy and money we have available, and if you have to buy certain products and food, I encourage you to base your decisions on what you know about the product, not habit, convenience or advertising.

There is a very good book called The Chemical Maze that contains lists and the dangers of additives in food and cosmetics. It's small enough to go into my bag when I'm shopping so I can check things I don't know before buying them. If there is an ingredient on a label I'm not familiar with, I can check it. I've had this book for many years and was just checking to see if it's still available, and yes, it is, but it also comes as a variety of apps as well. You can find the information about it here. I'm not affiliated with this book or the author at all.

There is no right or wrong way of doing this. Each of us will prefer to buy certain things already made and make others at home. Don't be pressured into making soap, or anything, at home because your friends are doing it, that's as crazy as buying a certain brand of soap because you like the advertising for it. Do your research, read labels, ask questions, know what is in what you use and eat, then make your decisions according to your knowledge, the money and time you have available and your common sense.  And if you have another way to check these things, I'd love to hear about it, please share what you know in the comments.