health Archives - Homesteader DepotHomesteader Depot

Mold is Growing in Your Home RIGHT NOW…But Where?

If you’re sitting in your house sneezing, coughing, and dealing with skin, eye, and throat irritations, there is most likely mold present somewhere. People that are suffering from asthma or allergies know precisely how damaging mold can be to their health. Those with a healthy system aren’t going to notice mold growing somewhere quite as quickly. While you can’t control the mold you come in contact with outside of your home, it is possible to contain and eliminate it from your house. Start by checking some of the most common places where it gets found. What is Mold and Why […]

8 Amazing Uses for Tea Tree Oil

Contrary to its name, tea tree oil is not remotely related to the tea plant. It is actually native to and only grown in Australia. Which is probably why its benefits have gone largely unspoken of until recently. It is important to note that tea tree oil is very toxic if swallowed. However, it can be used topically, and its ability to disinfect naturally makes it a viable alternative to harsher synthetic products. Antiseptic and Antifungal One of the most popular uses of tea tree oil is as an antiseptic and antifungal treatment. Its antibacterial properties make it […]

7 Little-Known Miracles of Beeswax

Bees are amazing creatures. Well organized and extremely productive, they are able not only to make their own food (honey) but also the custom facilities they live in and store the food (honeycomb). In addition to pollinating naturally occurring and farmed produce, they do more for us than we can imagine. Beeswax is literally bee’s wax. It is the waxy secretion their bodies produce to make their honeycombs. And, it has as many health benefits and other uses as the honey that makes them so popular with us. Beeswax has been used for millennia. It has appeared in Egyptian tombs […]

7 Steps for Easy Canning

If you decide to get into the wonderful world of canning, be prepared to experience some of the more flavorful food you’ve ever experienced at a fraction of the cost. Canning allows you to pick or buy produce when it’s at its peak maturity and preserve that flavor year-round. The simplest canning process is Water Bath Canning. To get started you’ll need a few inexpensive basics, many of which you may already have, or be able to find at your local thrift store or flea market. The absolute essential musts are: A pot that holds enough water to cover any […]

The 6 Easiest Superfoods to Grow

We talk a lot about health on this blog and a lot about gardening. Of course, there’s a huge area of overlap between the two subjects! Gardening is so beneficial for your health, as there is no better produce to eat than the kind you grow yourself, not just because you can control everything that goes into the soil, but because you can pick it fresh and enjoy it on your plate within hours of picking. This means you will be eating the optimum nutrition since the produce has so recently been alive. For this reason, pretty much anything you […]

Healthy Sweet Tea (Video)

Well, Memorial Day has come and gone, and while it’s not officially summer until June 21st, the bar-b-ques have started, the pools are open, and you’ve probably already done some tanning in your front lawn. With summer often comes delicious sweet tea, which is a staple summer drink in the South (apparently, this is what “tea” means in the Southern states. There is no other kind of tea but sweet tea, so don’t ask, or at least this is what I’ve been told). The downside of many sweet teas, especially those purchased at the store as opposed to homemade, is they’ve got […]

8 Health Benefits of Green Tea

Green tea is much more than the complimentary beverage offered at Chinese food restaurants! Whether you love or hate the taste, it’s worth knowing about its amazing health benefits. Green tea has been used for centuries in China and throughout Asia to treat a number of maladies and diseases, everything from regulating blood pressure to killing cancer cells. It is a wonderful natural supplement to take because it’s list of benefits is long, but it’s also quite affordable. You can get a month’s worth of green tea for a few dollars! That sure beats a lot of other expensive herbal […]

How to Flavor Milk Kefir

A few months ago, we shared an article on how to make milk kefir, a cultured dairy product that’s packed with nutrition and beneficial probiotic bacteria. If you’ve ever bought kefir in the store and enjoyed it, that could be due to the fact that it tends to be flavored when packaged and sold. So, if you make your own milk kefir and dislike it compared to something you’ve bought from the store, this could easily be why. Flavored kefir is delicious and just as healthy, and relies entirely on the sweetness of the cultured dairy and the fruit added […]

How to Use Apple Cider Vinegar for Beautiful Skin(Infographic)

Apple cider vinegar is probably one of my favorite substances on the planet. It is so versatile and beneficial, and every time I’ve used it for some kind of natural remedy, it works amazingly well. I’m also among the small percent of the population who also enjoys the taste of it (well, in moderation…) While I could go on and on about the benefits of apple cider vinegar, I thought I would instead share this great infographic. You see, among all the amazing benefits of apple cider vinegar is its many options for naturally improving your skin and complexion. From […]

Why You Need to Rest if You’re a Homesteader

Homesteading is a lot of work. It’s definitely work that’s quite worth it, and if you are a homesteader, it’s probably what you signed up for. You are probably the kind of person who was willing to sacrifice the ease and convenience of modern life to roll up your sleeves, pull on your work boots, and get dirty doing what you love most. If you’re a type-A personality and absolutely live to work, that’s great. Or maybe you get stressed out easily, and overwhelmed by all the spinning plates of homestead life. The thing is, regardless of how naturally hard-working […]

Life In The Country Is Free of Pollution….Right?

It is a very common assumption that urban centers tend to be much more toxic and polluted than rural communities or wilderness. And there’s good reason to think this. Cities have far more toxic emissions from the many vehicles that go in and out of the city every day, the high concentration of factories, plants, and refineries, the shere volume of people densely populating our nation’s major urban centers. It is true that there is much pollution in cities, as anyone who’s ever overlooked the Los Angeles basin on a sunny day can attest. Cities produce a huge amount of […]

What’s The Deal With Healthy Fats?

You’ve probably heard a lot of buzz over the last few years concerning “healthy fats”. However, mainstream diet wisdom has for years been that reducing fat intake is the best way to lose weight and stay healthy. So what is it, is fat good or not? I think part of the confusion comes from a misunderstanding and misuse of the word “fat”. Fat simply sounds like it will make you fat, so many people assume that “low-fat” would, naturally, make you less fat. The problem isn’t in the macronutrient fat, the problem is in the type of fat, the recommendations for how […]

6 Creative Ways to Use Bone Broth

You’ve probably heard of the growing popularity of bone broth lately, and if you haven’t, you should definitely know about it. It’s not really anything new, but recent trendy diets have emphasized the regular consumption of hearty, super-nutritious bone broth as a way to get essential vitamins, minerals, and, most importantly, gelatin. Gelatin is a wonderful addition to any healthy diet, but particularly beneficial for anyone concerned about bone or joint health. The great thing is it’s very cheap and easy to make, unfortunately, it’s not always so easy to find creative ways to consume it! Especially this time of year, […]

How to Make Kombucha Tea (Video)

We’ve covered a lot about culturing in the past, and kombucha tea absolutely needs to be mentioned. It is one of the easiest home cultures to make and a great place to start if you’d like to get started with culturing. Kombucha is created using a fermentation process, it contains a large number of healthy bacteria known as probiotics. These bacteria strengthen your digestive tract and support your immune system, as they absorb nutrients, fight infection, and illness. Your digestive system is the second largest part of your neurological system and with 80 percent of your immune system located in your gut, it’s no surprise […]

Why You Should Know About Leeks

Many Americans have no idea what a leek is, but they should! Many other cultures know the depth of their health benefits, as well as delicious, savory flavor. Known scientifically as Allium porrum, leeks are closely related to other aromatic vegetables such as garlic, onions, shallots, and scallions. Like these relatives, they grow from bulbs, and have dark, green, tightly wrapped leaves. They resemble very large scallions, and usually grow about 12″ tall and a few inches in diameter. Leeks can be grown year-round, but are most commonly available fall through early spring. Their flavor is similar to that of onions and shallots, […]

The Ultimate Guide to Health Diets

It can be overwhelming trying to eat healthier these days. It seems like every day there’s new information about the health benefits of a certain food, while the current fad diet preaches the elimination of that diet. If you browse healthy recipes on Pinterest, there’s lots of confusing terms applied to different recipes that might make finding the right recipe for your needs difficult. If you are wanting to try a new cleansing diet, eat healthier, or simply understand what all these diet buzzwords mean, this simple guide is for you. Since this is a site about homesteading and we […]

The Benefits of Homemade Soap

When was the last time you looked at the ingredient list on the soap that you buy at the grocery store? Most people never stop to take the time to look at this list, just getting what they’ve always bought or whatever marketing plan and commercials have told them a good soap should be. When you start to look at the ingredient list though, chances are good that you will find quite a few things that you can’t pronounce, including chemicals that may not be as good for your skin as you believe. It makes far more sense to go […]

Dirt Cheap Foods for Homesteaders

Whether you’re an urban homesteader or full-blown, land-owning, farmer, you have probably come to a time in your life at some point in which you had to keep your budget tight. If you are saving up for land, land development, or simply trying to budget and spend in a smarter way, food is always one of the biggest expenses, and it can be hard to know how to cut back on food spending without going for less healthy, processed foods. Fortunately, there are many wonderfully healthy and nutritious foods out there that are not only good for you, they’re dirt […]

The Easiest Way to Consume More Liver

We have been covering the health benefits of liver recently, including a very delicious way to prepare it that makes it quite enjoyable to incorporate into your diet. This way to prepare it is liver pate, which is made out of mostly liver and butter. While I certainly find this recipe to be quite delicious and enjoyable, it’s also pretty caloric and rich, and not necessarily what you want to eat on a regular basis. There are also many who simply do not find liver pate to be enjoyable, in fact, they find it to be just about as repulsive […]

Simplest Bulletproof Coffee Recipe

You may have heard of bulletproof coffee, which is gaining massive popularity among foodies everywhere. It is an aspect of the bulletproof diet, a book and diet plan designed by a man named Dave Asprey, that focuses on lots of good fat, moderate protein, and low carbohydrates. Healthy fats are making a huge comeback, after decades of “low-fat” being considered healthy, nutritionists have changed their tune on saturated fats, which they now say make up an important part of a healthy diet. And bulletproof coffee is a great way to make sure you’re getting healthy fats, and make your morning coffee […]