Clean Table To- Go

If you eat with a toddler, you know that they tend to eat food off the table or their tray, not a dish. Instead of wiping a restaurant table with a chemical laden wipe, we carry a small flexible placemat to cover the table or high chair tray. You can keep a couple in your car and wash them between outings. This is an easy solution that’s gentler on the environment and your kid. The placemat system also works well if you have a child with sensitive allergies, such as peanuts.

Keep the flu from visiting your home this winter – a series of tips

TIP #4: Sleep – your body’s best defense. Make sure kids are getting the recommended amount of sleep each night (http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/sleep-children) and that parents are too. That means 8 hours for men and 7 for women. Cut down on that extra coffee or switch to decaf to help your sleep schedule during flu season.

TIP #5: Use food to fight illness

• Load your diet with fruits and vegetables. Scientific studies proving immune system protection provided by diet are described by Dr. Fuhrman at the following link (http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cold-flu-flu-and-nutrition-dr-fuhrman-responds-to-comments.html)
• Decrease sugar, sugar and sugar substitute foods in your diet. An article on the Dr. Sears website (http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t042500.asp) describes the effects of overdosing on sugar as follows “The immune-suppressing effect of sugar starts less than thirty minutes after ingestion and may last for five hours. In contrast, the ingestion of complex carbohydrates, or starches, has no effect on the immune system.”  Also, watch for hidden sugars; they can be found on labels as the following ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, beet sugar, brown sugar, cane juice, cane sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, evaporated cane juice, fructose, honey, maltodextrin, maple syrup, molasasses, sucrose, turbinado sugar, and agave nectar. Generally, if an ingredient ends in “ose” or “ol” it is probably a sugar. Remember that juice, unless made fresh at home, is high in sugar and low in fiber. Juice should be considered a “treat” like soda.

Keep the flu from visiting your home this winter – a series of tips

TIP #1: Hand washing, hand washing, hand washing! Hand washing cannot be emphasized enough. According to the CDC and the Mayo Clinic, hand washing is one the most important things you can do to prevent infection. Take the time to teach your kids how to properly wash their hands or ask them to teach you how to do it.

In addition to hand washing after using the restroom, and before handling or eating food, have everyone wash their hands immediately every time they return home. Ask your kids friends to wash hands when they come in the house and it’s good manners to ask your child to wash hands when you visit family and friends.

TIP #2: Hand sanitizer! Keep in your bag and car so that you can clean your hands after leaving public places such as the office, grocery store, park, and daycare center.

Put a tiny hand sanitizer bottle in your kids’ lunch box with a reminder note. For our young kids, we drew a simple picture of two hands and the bottle with arrows from the bottle to the hands and talked to the kids about it before hand. Remember to either place the hand sanitizer in a separate compartment from food, or to wrap in a Ziploc so that the hand sanitizer won't spill and possible contaminate the food. For older kids, consider a door-mounted hand sanitizer bottle in their locker or a bottle to keep on the shelf

TIP #3: Wipe down door handles, cupboard and drawer pulls, and sink faucet handles regularly with a sanitizing wipe.

Sanitize regularly used items such as phones, video game controllers, your car, and keys.

When bulk (and sale) buying costs you more...

We've all heard the advice to take advantage of sales. Especially at the grocery store, when a product we already buy is on sale. Did you know this could be ruining your budget?

Here's an example. Our family uses 9 cups of organic, frozen blueberries each week in our daily smoothies. That's a lot of blueberries. So when they are on sale, I'd like to buy up the whole rack! We know we are going to use them (eventually). But what happens when that purchase puts me over my weekly food budget?

 

If you consistently go over your weekly budget, then your annual costs will be more. Your "budget" then becomes a fantasy and is useless. If you are only $10 over budget each week, that comes to $520 per year (or a plane ticket to Hawai'i). How much were you over budget this week?

 

Sticking to your weekly food budget applies to all purchases.  Do not be tempted to over buy when you see sales and bulk pricing. Most people can't adjust from week to week to accommodate $10 over one week and $10 under the next. The excuse, "But I will use them," just doesn't work. You either hit a budget or you don't.

 

If you have children shopping trips can be great educational tools on life-skills, budgeting, saving money for items, and living within your means.

 

Next time you see ground beef, blueberries, milk, or coffee on sale, make sure you don't over buy - stick to your budget!

Are Kids' Foods Ripping You Off?

Save Money Now! Stop buying food items labeled "baby" or that are designed especially for kids. Most of the time you'll pay almost double for the same product just because the manufacturer has packaged it for babies or kids.

For example, if you want to buy apple puree for your baby consider buying organic apple sauce in larger containers. Not only do you save money, you're helping the environment by choosing products with less packaging.

Healthy kids' cereals usually have an adult equivalent with a lower price tag. The same goes for granola bars, cheese sticks, and cracker snacks. Look for the same type of product that is for adult use. Do you give your kids fish oil supplements? Compare the price and dosage size to the adult product. And we are sure you know to look at the unit price rather than the per item price when comparing.

If you have a easy money saving tip, please share it with our Spot On Ideas community.

Yellowjacket Pest Control - How to Get Rid of Yellowjacket Wasps

Do yellowjackets frequently join you for an outdoor dinner in August and September? Spot On Ideas recently learned a simple and eco-friendly tip for eliminating yellowjacket visits! Just hang a fake wasp's nest and yellowjackets disappear. The idea sounded silly, but we tested the method and it works.

How to do it: You can buy products that are fake wasp nests, such as The Waspinator, that generally receive good reviews for effectiveness and poor reviews for product quality. You can do-it-yourself with an old gray bag, T-shirt, or fabric. Do not use any shiny materials such as a plastic bag. You'll need to fashion the item so it looks similar to the shape of a nest and hang from a string. In testing, Spot On Ideas used an old gray bag and hung it from a table's umbrella. To obtain decisive results, we placed deli meat on the table and waited for yellowjackets. After hanging the bag, all yellowjackets left the area and did not return. On a second and third testing, the method worked again. If you don't get good results, it is probably the design or "look" of the nest. Try again because it is a great method for eliminating yellowjackets at meal time.

Why it works: Wasps are territorial and defend nests furiously. Non-resident wasps avoid nest areas by about 20 feet.

When it won't work: If you have a yellowjacket nest in very close proximity, if the wasps don't see it (this was confirmed on our testing, one yellowjacket stayed longer than the others and after flying near the fake nest left the area), or if your nest doesn't have the right look.

Yellowjackets are beneficial: Yellowjackets play an important role in your garden's ecosystem. They eat flies and bugs that attack your plants.

Yellowjackets are mainly attracted to meat and sweet foods in the late summer and early fall after their other food sources are scarce. For those of you with traps, use meat rather than sweets for better success.

Send this tip to anyone you know who is allergic to wasp stings.

Spot On Ideas did not test "The Waspinator" product. If you are interested in that product it can be found at several gardening stores such as Veseys.

UV Protection To Go

If you are planning an outing on a sunny day and want to protect your infant from the sun; give the PeaPod by Kidco, Inc. a try (http://www.kidco.com/main.taf?p=4,5). The outer cover provides UV protection for baby and with an inflatable mattress it can double as a travel bed. Amara used one on a recent vacation and found it to be the perfect way for the baby to take a nap and be protected from the sun while the rest of the family enjoyed the beach. It also folded up easily and did not take up too much room in her suitcase.

When Your Pet Stops Eating

If your pet stops eating or has an intestinal problem, you need to visit your pet's doctor to rule out significant issues such as a blockage, virus, bacterial infection, or poisoning. Ask your vet about trying baby food such as chicken for cats, or lamb for dogs, to help resume eating habits. Many times a cat who refuses to eat, will still nibble at chicken baby food. If your pet has diarrhea, try white rice cooked in chicken broth. Chicken broth and/or baby food also help pets that are relocated and stop eating due to stress. Beverly learned this natural and easy treatment from a farm veterinarian 30 years ago! Since then she and Amara have recommended it to many friends and colleagues with 100% success.

Wire Hangers from the Dry Cleaners - Recycle Them!

Heather from Sacramento, California writes in to ask: "What can I do with the endless stack of wire hangers from the dry cleaners? I'd like to be eco-conscious and don't want to just throw them in the trash. My dry cleaner won't accept them back. Any suggestions?"

Spot On Ideas did national research and found that most major and minor city curb-side recycling programs accept wire hangers. How to dispose of wire hangers? Check your recycling provider's website or call (look on your bill for the URL or Google it by: city of "name of city" recycling). In Spot On Ideas research, we found that the city websites frequently did not list wire hangers in the "acceptable" list, but when our representatives called, the hangers were on the official "acceptable" list.

Heather, we called City of Sacramento curb-side recycling program and they do accept wire hangers from the dry cleaners! There is no special procedure, but Spot On Ideas recommends bundling them and removing any paper. Thanks for the question because since you emailed us, we have had many others with the same dilemma.

Email this info. to all your friends who use dry cleaning - let's get those hangers into the recycling bin and not the garbage can (or should we say landfill?). You all saw Wall-E, right?

10 Easy Steps to Lose FAT FAST Before Your Vacation

Yikes! It's a month before our vacation and we realize that our stomach is flabby. We could lecture ourselves about life-long eating habits, or developing a daily exercise regime, but now is not the time. There is a flab emergency growing on our stomach and thighs!

Here is the tested regime we do a month before vacation. These are simple, and while you may already know them, we show easy ways to make them work. Get out a post-it and take note to start these today.

1: Keep your metabolism going all day.

• Start the day with something as simple as 20 jumping jacks, walking the dog, or jogging in place for 5 minutes.
• After dinner go for a walk, run the stairs in your house, clean, or do more jumping jacks.
• Park farther from the door, take the stairs, don't watch TV.
• Eat 6 small meals per day at least 3 hours apart and no closer than 2 hours together. For example, 6:30 AM breakfast, 9:00 AM snack, 12:00 PM lunch, 3:00 PM snack, 6:00 PM dinner, 8:30 PM egg-white snack (see below).

2: Prevent night eating.

• Cook up lots of hardboiled eggs. Somewhere between dinner and bedtime eat 2-4 egg whites (discard the yolks). The protein keeps you full and the digestion keeps up your metabolism up through the night.
• To help prevent night eating, brush and floss teeth right after eating egg whites.

3: Exercise longer.

If you get on the treadmill or elliptical machine for 40 minutes instead of 20 you will see better results in loosing fat. If you can't get to the gym each day, it's better to do 3 days of 40 minutes than 5 days of 20 minutes in battling flab.

4: Exercise on an empty stomach.

If you can do this, it helps burn fat faster. Then, eat within 30 minutes of completing your workout. This is a body-builder secret to look super lean before competitions.

5: Carry healthy, low-calorie snacks in your purse or car.

Our favorite is low-fat string cheese, the protein helps keep you full and the glycemic index is low (meaning it is low in sugars).

6: Plan and pre-prepare your meals/snacks.

Remember, we are talking about loosing fat fast - you need to be objective when you make or choose food. Make your breakfast, lunch and snacks the night before. If you are moms like us, you tend to prepare in advance everyone else's food but your own. If you divvy out your food in advance, you won't end up eating 20 corn chips with your salsa. Don't wait until you're hungry to prepare meals.

7: Eat only true serving sizes and limit carbohydrates.

You know the drill on serving sizes, meat the size of a deck of cards, half an apple, 1/3 a banana, 1 cup of berries, etc. Try WASA brand crackers in lieu of bread, take the bun off and cut that burger in half, say no to white (rice, bread, sugar).

8: Stop or reduce lattes (for a month).

You hear this all the time, but why are lattes bad? I use non-fat milk!? A non-fat latte is about 60-90 calories depending on the size and amount of milk. The problem isn't just the total calories, it's the glycemic index on non-fat milk. To your body, non-fat milk acts a lot like pure sugar creating more flab on your stomach. We switch to Americanos or drip coffee during this month. You could even put in 1 tablespoon of half and half (only 20 calories and a better glycemic index).

9: Drink 2-3 liters of water per day.

Many times when you feel hungry, your body is just thirsty. Water also helps flush out excess salts that can create fluid retention and give you a "fatter" appearance.

10: Wear a band or special bracelet each day.

We use this to quickly remember our goal. It's easier to say "no thanks" when those gourmet truffles or homemade cookies arrive in the office if we have a friendly reminder of our goal.

Join us in the battle against vacation flab! Write in how these tips helped you, or how you modified them to work. Share your tips on loosing fat fast and help other readers.