Baking Soda – the Powder That Works Wonders at Home

We usually associate baking soda with cooking. But we don’t know that the powder has countless other uses which go beyond the culinary sphere, with many having an impact on our health. Below are several practical ideas to use baking soda at home, as compiled by Reader’s Digest:

Add a pinch of baking soda to the soaking water to help soften beans. In this way you make sure cooking them is worth the effort and will not end up eating those hard beans.

If you cut something pungent, the smell of garlic or fish can linger on your fingers long after the food is gone. To avoid that, scrub your wet hands with baking soda, then rinse with warm water. Your hands will smell sweet and feel softer, too.

If you have kids, then give them something to play with. Boil two cups of baking soda with one cup cornstarch and 1¼ cups water until thickened. Remove from the heat and cool. It makes a fun, pliable modeling clay that will keep the kids busy over a rainy day.

The dishwasher normally gets a strange odor after a long use. The solution to this is also within reach: put one cup of baking soda in the bottom of the dishwasher and run it on a rinse cycle. If the smell persists, sprinkle a few tablespoons on the bottom of the washer to sit there between loads.

It’s happened to anyone to forget a pot on fire. If you cannot clean the blackened pot, fill the pan a quarter full with water. Pour in a half cup of baking soda and bring the water to a boil. Turn it off and let it sit overnight. In the morning, you can clean the pot easily.

The tomatoes grown in your garden tasted dully last year? Then sprinkle baking soda on the soil around the base of the plant and this year you will get sweeter tomatoes.

At the end of a hard day, if you have sweaty, tired and achy feet, dip them in a basil of cool water with baking soda stirred in. let the feet soak for 15-20 minutes then rinse and dry. The odor will disappear while the ache will go down. Also, if you get sunburnt on the beach, pour a cup of baking soda into a lukewarm bath, then soak and relax. This will help decrease the pain more quickly.