Question from Jennifer Shaw

Hi Debra,

We have a dark-stained wood crib (million dollar baby) that now has scratches. Our new baby will be here in June and we’d like to find a safe way to restain or touch up the scratches to help it look better. Are there any nontoxic options?

Debra’s Answer

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Question from Susi Love

Hi Debra and community!

I have been offered a beautiful rental home at a REALLY good “friend discount” price, but it was newly built 3 years ago and I can still smell that “new home smell”. If I spent a month baking it, ozone-ating it, airing it out, do you think that would be enough to make it “safe” for me? I’m not sure, but I don’t think it was ever lived in, so it hasn’t been aired out much in that 3 years.

It was built with fermaldahyde-free insulation, and has a solar system on it, but all other materials (hard laminate flooring, regular paint, vinyl windows, fiberglass tub, and open beams that are stained with regular stain) are just the cheapest materials the builder could use. At least there isn’t any new carpet or linoleum…that’s the worst!

The kitchen cabinets are oak, recycled from an older home, so they should be fine and the counters are granite.

I would love to jump at this opportunity, but in it’s present condition it is definitely causing pretty intense symptoms in me.

Does anyone know how new is “too new” and if I slammed it with offgassing techniques if I could get it cleared out in a month or so? I would stay in my current home until it was cleared, but it’s only 3 doors down, so I could check in on it periodically.

Debra’s Answer

You could certainly try all the things you mentioned, but I wouldn’t agree to take the house until you’ve done those things and know it is safe for you. In this slow market, your friend may be willing to give you the time.

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Question from Angus

Hello,

You have covered Agave and its inherent drawbacks, what about Sucanat ( evaporated cane juice)? Perhaps just plain old organically grown raw brown sugar may turn out to be the least harmful out of all the touted alternatives to sugar!

Then of course there is Stevia. What may start out as a perfectly innocuous plant, by the time the ‘scientists’ get hold of it and start isolating particular elements to exploit ( read patent it to exclude anyone else using the plant) its native and natural properties into a commercial gold mine, we all become the losers.

My wife Marjorie forwarded your article about Agave, and so I thought I would ask whether any of the other alternative sweeteners posed serious health risks. The main reason we would want to use any sugar at all is that particular recipes require some kind of sugar/sweetener for the activation of certain chemical processes to produce a desired result. I certainly do not use sugar externally on any food or drink.

If we squeeze lemons to add the juice as the sour additive, is there a whole natural sweet fruit one could do the same thing to and just add that juice as the additive sweetener??

Perhaps there are already answers to all these questions and I just have not discovered them yet?!

Debra’s Answer

This is a good question. I like your logic!

From my viewpoint, whole natural cane juice that has been evaporated to remove the water only is much more healthful than any so-called natural sweetener (such as stevia) where the sweet component is removed from the whole plant.

Since you are looking for a sweetener to “sugar-activate” a process (like feeding yeast to bake bread), you need a sweetener that will feed the yeast. Stevia and xylitol won’t do that. It has to be a real food.

Sucanat would be a great sweetener for your use, or honey, or maple syrup.

Now, as far as “squeezing a fruit,” of course! Apples in particular are very suited to this. You can cook the apple juice down to concentrate it and even dehydrate it. I don’t know if it would be able to feed yeast, but you could give it a try.

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Question from Vivian Engel

After leaving a message/request every time I shopped at Costco, they are finally carrying a liquid laundry product they are labeling as eco-friendly. It is called Wintree and is manufactured by Huish Detergents in Salt Lake City, Utah. How can I find out if this product legitimately deserves the label “eco-friendly” as much as Seventh Generation or Ecover or my current purchases. I am so tired of being conned by the big business advertisements.

Debra’s Answer

What you can do with any product you are wondering about is look at the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) which any manufacturer of cleaning products must supply to you by law. It lists hazardous ingredients that you can then look up on the internet.

I’ve already taken a look at Wintree and commented on it at Q&A: Liquid Detergent at Costco. My local Costco now sells Ecos brand laundry detergent, which has been sold in natural food stores for years.

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Question from CLHallet

I was wondering if refined white sucrose from sugar beets or sugar cane is bad for use why is the refined white crystals of fructose and Xylitol not present the same issues?

Debra’s Answer

Actually, they do, but each in a different way.

Fructose crystals are highly refined corn syrup. I don’t recommend them. Xylitol is a sugar alcohol. Sugar alcohols are not sugar in the same way that refined cane or beet sugar is sugar. So a sugar alcohol crystal is a completely different thing.

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Question from Ann

We have an abundance of apples this year and I have a 4 month old. I have made applesauce with the apples previously and have had to use a lot of sugar as they are the tart variety. I want to make applesauce this year and can it for my son as he is just starting to eat cereal but I don’t want to sweeten it w/ sugar. I am not sure if I’ll have to sweeten it at all but if it’s too tart he may not like it. I know babies under 12 months should avoid honey so I’m not sure if I should use any other natural sources.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks much,

Debra’s Answer

I would get some sweet apples or apple juice and cook them down into Apple Syrup. And then use the apple syrup to sweeten the applesauce.

Or you could use evaporated cane juice (Sucanat or Rapadura), which would give a brown sugar flavor.

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Question from Tessa M

I just found your blog and I am impressed – so much help!

Recently, I have been trying to find an ice cream that has been sweetened with a natural sweetner. I have seen a few made with “evaporated cane juice” but was curious if that is the same as “crystallized raw cane juice?” I didn’t know if how they evaporate the cane juice took changed or added anything which would case it to no longer be a whole food? Any help would be great!!

Debra’s Answer

I’m going to give you a quick answer here, though there is more explanation. One day I will sit down and write it all out.

All cane sugar starts with the raw sugar cane. It is very fiberous. If you take a piece in your mouth and chew on it, it will taste very sweet as the juice is released. If you can get fresh sugar cane (we can here in Florida), try it. It is a whole, sweet food with lots of nutrients.

The next step is to press the cane in a very heavy duty machine that presses the juice from the fiber. I’ve looked for a hand-crank sugar cane press, and the few that exist are expensive. It’s not like juicing oranges! A local restaurant here has an expensive motorized sugar cane press and they make fresh sugar cane juice to sweeten drinks. I’ve had it and it is wonderful. It’s essentially like chewing on sugar cane, only the machine does the chewing. Though sugar cane is fiberous, you can’t eat the fiber–what you can get out of the sugar cane is the juice.

Now, you can take that sugar cane juice and remove the water. That is evaporated cane juice. It’s the whole cane juice with nothing added or removed, except the water. It is a powder–not a crystal. If you want to consume it in it’s natural form, as it would be straight from the cane, mix it with water, about a teaspoon in a half a cup of water.

Jumping ahead, the process of refining sugar is one of heating this cane juice until it separates into the pure white sugar crystals and the syrupy sludge of “impurities” (all the nutrients) that we call molasses. By the way, what we call “brown sugar” is refined white sugar with molasses added, not the same as the whole evaporated cane juice.

I suppose evaporated cane juice could be “raw” if it was evaporated at low temperatures, but I don’t think you could get it to crystalize without boiling it, and then it wouldn’t be raw.

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Question from Mom-of-2-soon-to-be-sugar-free

There is a new “natural” sweetener Sun Crystals, it claims to be 100% natural, Non-GM*

ingredients: Raw Cane Sugar & Erythritol

www.suncrystals.com/

perhaps your site can give the low down on this new comer.

Thank you,

Christine

Debra’s Answer

I’m not sure what they are referring to when they say “raw cane sugar” as I have seen cane sugar labeled “raw” when it wasn’t at all.

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol. You can read my opinion about them at Sweet Savvy: Sugar Alcohols.

Personally, I prefer to stick with sweeteners that come from nature, as they are.

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Question from Laurie Porter

I am a small processor of over 75 varieties jams and jellies that I sell at my local farmer’s markets, and I’d like to know what the ratio of making apple cider syrup is. I’d also like more information on how these natural sweeteners behave in the making of jams and jellies. Right now, I use pure cane sugar, but I’d like to start producing my product without corn syrup additives or concentrated fruit juices I only make my product with fruit, sugar, and pektin.

We also make maple syrup with a 40 gallon to 1 gallon ratio. Is cider syrup similar?

Thanks,

laurie

Debra’s Answer

I don’t know exactly the ratio of cooking down apple cider syrup. I’ve made it and I just cook it until it “looks right.” But if you are familiar with making maple syrup, maybe you could standardize this and let us know. It is like making maple syrup in that you just cook it down to the right consistency.

I don’t know how it works in making jams and jellies. I’ve never made jam or jelly. A reader wrote to me about using something called Universal Pectin and their website says you can make jam with any sweetener using their pectin. So I would assume you could use apple syrup.

Please write again and let us know what you come up with.

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Question from Laura

Ideally, I would not wear shoes in a house and damp mop the wood floors with water/vinegar every so often. In reality, I live in a house where people wear shoes, use a walker and regularly ( every few weeks) used the toxic floor treatments that make it hard for me to breathe.In the attached apartment, not always occupied, the smell lasts for many months. It hasn’t been done in the house for months now, but my mother is insisting on it. Is there any product that might fill in the scratches without all the toxic ingredients? Thanks.

Debra’s Answer

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