DIY: On Cleaning a Tooth or Two

I panicked a little at the grocery store over the weekend when my usual brand of toothpaste, Dr. Ken's, was missing from its usual spot on the shelves. I'd loaded up on it a while back during a sale and have no idea of when they ran out or of whether they've stopped stocking it. Not too long ago, the grocery store in question had gone several months without carrying the organic variety of Vegenaise I love and then recently resumed carrying it without explanation -- asking the staff about it had proved useless. Basically, there's no telling when or why a favourite item will vanish, so I try to stock up on non-perishable favourites when I can -- particularly when they go on sale. Dr. Ken's toothpaste became my "usual" brand because on top of being vegan, its taste isn't overwhelming and it's generally one of the more inexpensive of the brands carried by local stores. So with a little less than a half-tube of it left to go and refusing to shell out additional money to taste-test a different brand, I found myself with enough time to turn to Google to locate information to try to make my own.

Aside from containing animal ingredients and of having possibly been tested on nonhuman animals, commercial toothpaste often contains artificial sweeteners and flavours, as well as chemical preservatives. Much has also been written over the past couple of decades about the hazards of fluoride, whether added to toothpaste or to drinking water (please note that I haven't read enough about this issue to weigh in one way or another, myself). Considering that brushing your teeth is something you (ideally) do at least a couple of times a day, aren't you concerned about what it is that you're putting on your toothbrush and into your mouth?

A while back, I'd spent the better part of a year as an impoverished college student brushing my teeth with plain old baking soda. I would just sprinkle some baking soda on a small plate, wet my toothbrush, dip it in and then brush. Mildly abrasive, baking soda helps scrub plaque and stains off your teeth, leaving you with whiter looking teeth and fresher breath. It also raises the pH level in your mouth, which in turn combats the enamel-destroying acid created by the bacteria in your mouth. Concerns have been raised over baking soda being too abrasive to use regularly without wearing down tooth enamel, although this mostly becomes a problem if you brush too hard to begin with or use too firm a toothbrush. That being said, my dentist once told me that far too much gum damage is actually caused quite specifically by people brushing their teeth too hard -- something to keep in mind whether or not you use baking soda.

There are recipes for homemade toothpaste or tooth cleaner all over the internet. Seriously. They're common on a variety of blogs and websites because they appeal to the environmentally responsible (think of the packaging saved by making your own), to the thrifty and to the health-conscious. As it turns out, making your own toothpaste is so simple that it would also make sense that it catch the attention of penny-pinching, environmentally conscious, superfluous chemical avoiding vegans. The most common one you'll find is a variation on a combination of the aforementioned baking soda (with or without hydrogen peroxide), vegetable glycerin (for smoothness) and some sort of essential oil or extract such as peppermint or cinnamon for an all-natural fresh taste. Here's one example on the Instructables site. Here's another on the Vegan Epicurean blog. As an alternative to glycerin, some recipes use coconut oil. Find a recipe, try it yourself, then tweak it.

Let's face it: Sometimes vegan personal care products can be a bit pricey. This is one example, however, of how easy it is to make a cheap alternative of your own. A few years ago, I'd weighed the idea of integrating more do-it-yourself, vegan-friendly, frugal and sustainability-focused posts into the blog. Maybe this is a good time to revisit that idea. Please feel free to comment below if you have suggestions for future posts. Are there any items for which you'd like to find DIY alternatives to tackle at home?

Related post: DIY: Animal-Free Shampoo

How to Make Your Own Soy Milk

I found a number of recipes for homemade soy milk online, most with only slight variations. Many of them called for the use of a soy milk making contraption, however, which I'm guessing that most people don't have on hand. I neither have one, nor do I intend to get one--I've got too many electric kitchen gadgets as it is, and want to scale back on what I already have and use. I found a number of videos, as well, using the same. I ended up finding this one below on YouTube and really liked it. It shows how easy it is to make soy milk from scratch using nothing but the most basic kitchen tools, a blender and your stove (or other source of cooking heat).

Given the relative ease with which most people can find soy milk in stores these days, the idea of making it yourself may not seem that appealing. The cost-saving benefit is worth noting: Dried organic soy beans are cheaper to use and you will indeed save money making it yourself--up to half or more of what you'd pay for the commercial soy milk. When you make it yourself, you get to flavour it however you like it. Also, remember the energy and resources wasted during the manufacturing of commercial soy milk and of its packaging, and of where that packaging often ends up even if it may be recyclable. Another thing I've been noticing is that the availability of organic soy milk seems to declining somewhat, with brands like Silk switching from organic to beans that are almost certainly genetically modified, and then sometimes even reintroducing organic versions at higher prices.

So do indeed use organic beans and give this recipe a try. Save that soy pulp (also called "okara"), since it's incredibly nutritious and there are innumerable recipes available on the internet, particularly Asian recipes, in which you can use it. Enjoy!

Vegan Simplicity

When I started writing My Face Is on Fire a couple of years ago, I did so with a couple of intentions. I wanted to write about veganism, but I also wanted to write about other issues involving the ethics of consumption that have to do with over-consumption in general. Cheap oil (among other factors) has facilitated a sort of rampant consumerism in "developed" countries, and this consumerism has enabled our becoming disposable societies. Cheap oil facilitated the Green Revolution, which has left us with a hyper-industrialized agricultural system which has poisoned the land, water and air around us, and which has also left global food production--much of the world's actual seed supply--in the hands of a very few gigantic biotech companies. It's also left us eating questionable concoctions out of disposable (albeit sometimes recyclable) paper, plastic and metal packaging--foods whose ingredients sometimes travel halfway around the world to get to the machines used to slap them together before they hit the store shelves.

So along with talking about the ethics of veganism, when I started this blog, I wanted to focus on the things we can do to reduce our consumerism by eating lower on the food chain, relying less on manufactured goods, and supporting agricultural practices that don't involve tithes to Monsanto (i.e. practices which are instead focused on supporting organic agriculture, and on even growing some of your own food while avoiding chemical fertilizers, pesticides and frankenseed). I think that with veganism as its foundation, an ethical consumption mindset that also involves consideration for treading lightly can lead to a lifestyle that is healthier for us, for non-humans, as well as for the environment we all share. It can also be a fun and educational process, as you teach yourself methods you can use to simplify your life and pass on any acquired knowledge or skills to others interested in learning more.

I'm sure that some vegans get a bit of a negative knee-jerk reaction to mentions of things like "locavorism" and "small-scale organic farming" because of the emphasis often placed on animal use and exploitation when discussing either--particularly in purportedly hip mainstream articles about either topic. The truth is, though, that there are so many benefits to be enjoyed from incorporating a variety of fresh and unprocessed plant-based foods into your diet and in knowing what's been used to grow them. I also think that along with treading more lightly when choosing what we eat, that we have so much from which to benefit in learning how to simplify our lives in other ways that leave us consuming--and spending!--less.

I've been chatting with a number of fellow vegans (as well as non-vegans) over the last few months, mostly via email or in some discussion forums, about how pricey or difficult to track down certain processed vegan items and personal care products can be. While doing this, I've realized that there are too many instances where veganism ends up deemed "too difficult" because of the expense or scarcity in some stores of items with otherwise readily-available non-vegan equivalents. In many cases, the items in question are, in fact, items that are neither critically essential nor completely unaffordable if consumed in moderation. That being said, while extending the blog's focus to include the exploration of less expensive lifestyle choices for vegans that rely less on manufacturing and instead lean more towards sustainability and voluntary simplicity, that could be an interesting "issue" to tackle. Over the next while, I hope to include tips, tricks and do-it-yourself instructions for a variety of things that may be helpful to those interested. I look forward to getting some feedback on it all in the posts to come.