This is the start of a new blog about getting back to nature on all fronts. Real food, not using chemicals to clean around the house, ways to do this easily is taking some serious organization, this is about designing a new system, back to nature, which led me back to the kitchen.

It’s 4:00 a.m. and this idea just came to fruition… So let’s go.

I’ve had a long journey trying to navigate through the maze of upsidedown information we learned about health, then find the good information that we need to relearn. When surgeons began talking about cutting through my throat (OMG) to get to my sinuses, but first, these allergies and chronic sinus infections needed weekly allergy shots before we cut into you … that’s where the journey really started.  (Root Cause – Cleaning with Salt blog here…)

My really intense focus on finding natural solutions got started when we all slowed down in 2020. I  suddenly had questions about everything we were taught, got on YouTube and learned, stopped the videos, made books of notes, recipes, old fashioned ways of doing things that were frankly better. The notes were everywhere and it was a mess, so out of that came an organization mission = lot of little books. Real books, not digital.

Being stuck here while also suddenly reminded that we needed to figure out why we were getting sick, and we were keeping our hands cleaner and washing surfaces around the house, created that 180, and a lot of free time to do it for us gig workers who lost all of our customers.  Most of mine sold their businesses and never came back after that… major shifting and re-prioritizing, more about survival as the businesses coming back are using A.I. tools now and skipping my “old fashioned” website by hands- ways.

The next book is a diary of what I’ve tried since changing diets, and implementing everything I could find about foods and how to avoid certain ingredients, and everything I discovered during this 2025-2026 time period.

To date, a complete 180 change in diet has worked so far, it is a total change. Everything we were taught is backwards but many people know that, and I’ve been trying to grab the best of the best details I can find and sum them up here on this website.

If there is interest in my books there are plans in the works for possible publication. I do believe in keeping analog backups of information, in case the power goes out.

As a graphic designer/ web developer for many years, I’ve had a driver’s seat, been working on the internet forever; it’s both a useful tool and a double edged sword. Like a chainsaw, it can destroy or create beautiful things. It’s been my tool of choice since it came out.

Want to know how to make, clean, build, something, YouTube. We are the stars. We always have been, and that platform still gives us a chance to share what we know.

However! Not a bad idea to go back to analog ways of keeping the important stuff in easy to find old fashioned books. Mine are full of pasted up notes from stopping videos or wherever the best information about something was found, in some sort of organized way with an index. Main stuff inside covers. If you can’t find something when you need it, you don’t have it.

If the internet goes down, or YouTube or wherever we “conveniently” just grab from that cloud what we need, uh, no. If we won’t have it during a power outage, we don’t have it. Grab the important information now, just in case. Win win, books and knowledge everywhere!

Prepper much?

During the slow down time, I made a list of things to learn about, and it started with suet. There was a bunch of beef kidney fat (suet) in my freezer, so I began researching it. [This is not a site about being vegan. My dogs eat meat, the fat around the kidneys is 10 to 1] This fat surrounding the kidney which has a long history, turns into tallow, we used to eat it but corporations had their reasons for telling us it’s very bad… wait, what? And fake replacement fats and sugars got pushed onto us to the point where we are now. This suet, turned out to be quite a great find, for birds too.

Click on book to link to Amazon- I have no affiliation- just a great book

Instead of rushing out for a “disinfectant” which is what was heavily pushed, people were spraying down their groceries using stuff with warning labels which I found to be hair raising. I remembered this book given to me by my mom awhile ago, all about vinegar. Suddenly wait what? There was never time to slow down and read about this;  it’s anti bacterial, kills fungus, mildew, mold, all of the things I’m allergic to… and wait, why is spraying chemicals “needed?” It just stinks a bit is all. Think back, think… those commercials! They actually demand “To disinfect you MUST use these chemicals.” NOT!

So they sold generations of us very bad options and suppressed the good ones, however my nose knew, it itches around chemicals. My nose can detect chemicals just by the reaction I have.

If the vinegar smell is the problem, soaking it in lemon peels or just dropping in some essential oil will fix that and in fact, make the place smell really great and your food is safe near it? Then, it is so.

L: For straight vinegar, no oil with the sea glass rocks R: H20, castille soap & baking soda

As a designer my brain functions like this.. first task, need a system. Get a pretty glass bottle, and a good sprayer, a funnel and of course… a custom designed label.

Mom gave me another book about baking soda. Between the two it hit me, everything needed to clean was in my kitchen. Mix these two together and it’s even more powerful. Safe, cheap… need a pretty glass bottle, and a label… (see the pattern?)

Well that is great news. Easy fix. Don’t like plastic, put it in glass. I ❤️ glass. It’s usually free, no glass jar or bottle gets thrown away here. Get a quality sprayer that is actually good to use, they do make them to twist and not leak instead of the garbage replaceable ones. In my world if it’s cool, like a piece of art it can sit out where it’s easy to grab.

With my new cleaning tools it got exciting, and smelled so great from the cinnamon or peppermint or spearmint… whatever flavor, that I went around looking for things to clean, walls, doors, windows, it cleaned everything and the house smelled great. Easily replace the vinegar and essential oil in the bottle with a funnel, off you go again. Cheap and easy so you don’t “save” it… you use it. It’s safe around your food, no warning label required. (but if you need one: “Don’t get it in your eyes probably not good, duh”)

My great grandmother, Ethel Blasingame. Vinyl labels available here.

So I created some labels using a photo of my great Grandmother who I knew and loved, (available here) for a bottle to keep a solution of spray made from vinegar and essential oils, naturally! Anything sitting out should INSPIRE, not give an ick feeling. When I stopped to THINK about where that ick feeling came from that made me hate cleaning; 1. it was using chemicals in plastic bottles that 2. come with a Warning, 3. fell over when they were half full where they were 4. kept under the kitchen sink, 5. made my nose itch, 6. had plastic throwaway sprayers that leak and the stuff runs down my hands, 7. not intended for long term use, and is 8. quite frankly garbage to use the first time. Dang, that’s a lot of reasons. In my new world, that means, do something about it.

As a solution driven person I am now on a mission to find one to every little bothersome or questionable thing in my house. This “finding new truth” thing is ok.

FOOD

Recently several family members passed away and my diet went off the rails in mourning. Now after seeing trusted doctors who said in quite serious tones STOP EATING SUGAR. Completely. Gone. No more, nada, in fact better eat a non inflammatory diet. (Anti inflammatory food chart in this blog)

So now I’m having to make my own food here as well the old fashioned way with good ingredients if I can find them or find out the truth about them, which takes time. Because the grocery store isn’t full of great options, turns out, at all.

If you enjoy cooking, it’s an art. I do and in fact began working in restaurants in my teens, through college and though decided not to go into the restaurant business like other family members and friends, but it followed me. It’s a challenge, one I’m up for but it all takes so much time until the plan, list and information come together and then put into place, you can’t just run out and grab things if you want to avoid all of the seed oils and fillers and hidden stuff.

One more change needed, stop hiding what we are eating! 

Whatcha hiding in that bag?

The INGREDIENTS list. Oh the tricks.
Subliminal advertising. Red handed in print, easy to prove… it didn’t stop, it went into multiple covert operations, biggest one right here on this bag and people buy it. Nutrition Facts? Really?

Click to Enlarge the Garbage INGREDIENT list, not food item in it. Wonder why they hide it from you?

What you are looking for is hidden on that bag or box where real food doesn’t live, it’s the INGREDIENTS list. Period. I literally cannot see this without my readers. Come on, man… WHAT’S IN THE BAG!!  Why are you hiding that??  Seriously, click the image, it took me awhile to type in all of those chemical words so you can see them, and then they covered all that garbage up with… sugar. (a very sue happy industry)

This is a subtle covert brain washing method. The nutritional label was designed by a graphic designer, trust me, I know.

This fools people into counting things in a different way, to look at it only in calories, fat, etc. but literally hide those INGREDIENTS!  In line with the fake food pyramid to fool you, get the picture yet?

And the biggest con, “Nutrition Facts”  Really?  The way you slip positive words into titles, it’s everything.  Like there is nutrition in this box, it’s a FACT… see it says right here… NOT!!!    My college degree minor is in advertising, I know what I know.

No one can read that long list of slop that they call food, in fact in “healthy protein bars” they are inside that flap hidden, and sometimes, UGH… sometimes they print black type on red backgrounds, and you cannot read that!!

Instead the larger text is emphasized on the front, doesn’t take any requirements to say “all natural”  and you can show a very large blueberry photo, say, on a box of “healthy pancake mix” like there is such a thing, and that can take up to X% of the area of the front of the bag, no matter the quantity, if any, is in the bag.

This makes me sick to my stomach, I’ve pointed out to blank stares about the Nutrition Facts. They pulled tricky math on us, still do.

So the trickery never stopped. People have gotten comfortable believing otherwise, and our grocery stores are a mine field of bad so-called food. But knowledge is power.

This also applies to pet “food.” I am an INGREDIENT reader and know that if they put that truth a bit more clearly, people would never feed it to their dog. The “advertising” is everything else to trick, fool, mislead, push legal boundaries of word usage, all of it. I have to get out readers to see most ingredient lists.. and that is just wrong.

So I redesigned a popular dog food bag. These are the actual ingredients off of the back of the bag where they hid it.

I just moved it to the front of the bag, with real “truth in advertising” practices, the way it should be practiced.

A little history about Deception in Advertising, read about it: https://klintmarketing.com/subliminal-messages/

The food pyramid we grew up with was just wrong, and the admission of lies that led to it is finally being unraveled. That’s not the focus on this website though I’ve followed that trail for a long time and am pushing down a lot of frustration about how we got here.

Here is the new food pyramid right on the federal website at https://realfood.gov/ discussing eating healthy to heal. Finally! It’s a start.

Irony.

Created for margarine.

Advertising at its best, or worst.

Had us convinced for awhile.

Irony. Created for margarine. Advertising at its best, or worst, it had us convinced for awhile.

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