Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Improve Your Indoor Air Quality with House Plants!

Household Plants Give New Meaning to "Going Green"

Improving indoor air quality is one of the hottest topics for homeowners today...for lots of reasons. These days, we spend more hours indoors than ever before. And as a result, we are subject to a growing array of toxins, pollutants, allergens and irritants...everything from carbon monoxide to pollen to cigarette smoke to chemicals. All of which can be harmful to your health (not to mention your furniture, floors and walls).

Today, our friend Mark Highland of West Chester, PA-based Organic Mechanics Soil appeared on ABC-TV's Good Morning America to talk about how certain indoor plants can not only make your house look great, they can significantly improve your indoor air quality by actually drawing pollutants out of the air and replenishing with fresh, clean, breathable oxygen.








According to Mark, here are some common plants that you can find at your neighborhood florist or home store that are particularly good at improving indoor air quality:
  • Peace Lillies: Remove benzene, a chemical found in tobacco smoke.
  • Ferns: Removes toulene from the air, a chemical found in printer and copier inks and glues.
  • Anthuriums: Help remove the ammonia and other harmful chemicals produced by cleaning products from the air.
  • Dieffenbachia: Helps remove formaldehyde from the air. (Be careful -- the leaves from these plants are poisonous to children and pets!).
  • Sansevieria: Remove acetone from the air, often found in nail polish, paints and paint removers.
One way that you can be sure that you're getting an indoor-friendly plant is to look for the O2 For You label. These plants have been identified for their IAQ and oxygen-generating abilities.

Filling your house with these plants has other benefits. They're inexpensive. They work better than many commercial air filters and indoor air quality products on the market. And they make your house look fantastic!


Related Information from Horizon Services...

Aloo Methi Cutlet

Inspired by the spinach Cutlets @ aayi's Recipes i tried this aloo-methi cutlet for my kids snack box, yipee!!! it worked, he liked very much. So, i m sure, it will definetly work with kids!!!

Ingredients (approx 8 cutlets)
2 Large potatoes
two tight fist Methi leaves
1 tbsp rice powder
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
Salt to taste
Sooji/Rawa for coating the cutlets

Method
Wash, peel and Cook the potatoes until soft. Wash the methi leaves. Mash Aloo and mix with all the other given ingredients to form a dough. Make small balls out of it, press it a bit to make it flat, roll it over sooji and shallow fry on a Tawa on a low flame. Enjoy with Tomato Sauce

You can also find this @ LYRO#Potato happening @ Sindhi Rasoi

Spicy Bulgur Dhokla

I met with a Dietician Last Week. After taking all my medical condition to consideration, she made a Diet Chart.I was amazed to see how much i can actually eat and how little i m eating now!!! Eating Less will/can/may Slow down your metabolism and there by slowing down your weight loss. So, guys if you have any underlying medical condition and planning for a weight loss plsssss do consult a doc and dietician, Helps u a lot!!!! Actually when i started this blog and my Dieting for a healthy lifestyle one of my blogger buddies actually advised me to go and meet a Health Coach. Thank you dear for your concern!!!!

Here i m with this post Spicy Bulgur Dhokla which i made for my breakfast!!! Trying to avoid refined products in my daily diet (as advised my by dietician). Tasted so great and a very filling breakfast!!

As per Wiki
Bulgur (also bulghur or burghul)[1](from Turkish bulgur [2], known as πλιγούρι, pligoúri, in Greek, bollgur in Albanian, as burghul (برغل) in Arabic, and as gurgur in Aramaic) is a cereal food made from several different wheat species, but most often from durum wheat.Bulgur for human consumption is usually sold parboiled, dried and partially de-branned. Bulgur is a whole grain. Bulgur is sometimes confused with cracked wheat, which is crushed wheat grain that has not been parboiled.

Ingredients
1 cup Brown Bulgur
1/2 cup beaten yoghurt
2 tbsp Green peas
2 tbsp Sweet Corn
1/4tsp Eno Fruit Salt
Salt for taste

1 tbsp freshly grated coconut
2 green chillies
ginger as per taste
coriander a tight fist

For Seasoning
1 tsp Canola Oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
hing, turmeric a pinch
curry leaves 2 sprigs

Method
Soak bulgur in Hot water for 5 minutes and Drain. This makes bulgur fluffy!!! Grind together coconut, green chillies, ginger and coriander without water. Mix Bulgur, beaten yoghurt, grinded mixture and salt. This mixture should be of Idly batter consistency. At this stage if the batter is too tight jus add  1 tbsp yoghurt. Now add fruit salt and mix well, you can see the bubbles forming as you mix it well.
Now pour this to a greased pan and steam cook it till done. Check by inserting a clean knife/toothpick, when that comes out clean, it is done. Takes approx 20-30 mins.
Once done, take it out of the steamer/cooker, Now for the tadka, heat oil,splutter mustard seeds, add hing and turmeric and curry leaves and pour it over the dhokla. Let it cool for 5 mins, then unmould and Hog!!!!

Sending this to Show me you Whole Grains, hosted by Divya of Dil se and MLLA-22 hosted by Ruchikacooks, Event Started by Susan of Well Seasoned Cook