Wednesday, March 24, 2010

home made vs store bought

This debate has been in my head for quite some time now. Since I've been getting more and more into the cloth diapering world I see that there are alot of cloth diapers and diaper products made by SAHM (stay at home moms). At first I was thinking, "oh i probably don't want those because they aren't as well made as a more manufactured (or branded) cloth diaper such as fuzzibunz or bumgenious (if these are SAHM too sorry!). But it made me think, why is manufactured better than home made? Why do I want to buy gerber baby food instead of make my own? Why does a chemical cleaner clean better than vinegar and water? Why can't I make my clothing, cleaning supplies, diapers, wipes, anything? Why is it better to just buy it.

Here is my opinion, it's not fact or backed by any statistics, it's just my thought.

I think there are two main reasons.

1. America is lazy. It's true. We would rather someone else do the work and we just go buy it. Heck we have other people buy stuff for us! everything is neatly packaged and ready for us to go buy. There is almost no real thought to what we buy. We just go and buy. We assume it is safe and healthy and a trust worthy product. But really we know nothing about the product. I don't know where gerber baby food is made. I don't know what the facility looks like. Does it look like my kitchen? if so i wouldn't buy their food...lol jk

2. Commercials are in our face 24/7. Companies pay advertisers big bucks to sell their products. maybe even too much. Why do you buy pepsi? is it because Britney Spears endorses it? Or did you buy that sling because Angelina Joli has it? Do we really know anything about these companies? Where does our food come from (i have not watched food inc but i want to). we buy it because we see it and it's convienent. I mean it's all in one store. OUr cloths, food, automotive, sporting goods, toys, all in one place.

So I've come around lately. I currently make my own laundry soap, its cheaper and it works really well! I did notice that when i ran out of my soap (it takes 24 hours to set the soap) i used some store bought soap and it made my clothes smell strong and my throat was burning. I think B was uncomfortable too.
I'm looking into making my own dishwasher soap and household cleaners. They really work just as well and store bought ones and they are more eco friendly because they use natural products that don't pollute the water. YOu also aren't throwing away so many bottles and boxes.

I encourage you to do the math, do the research. If you cloth diaper, look for SAHM's to support. I'm not endorsing any here but if you want some websites, email me.

These are my thoughts. I'm not a writer, i just write what I think.

2 comments:

My New Life As Mom said...

It's funny that you talk about this because I'm currently sewing my own reusable baby wipes.

I'll post about them when I'm done.

Annie said...

Great post! Love it :)
Yes, I totally support WAHMs and I need to start making my own laundry detergent.

However, I do buy disposble baby wipes. I have like 100 cloth wipes I serged up myself but don't use. Why? Because for some reason I cannot figure out how to make them not have a musty stink as soon as they get wet. I have tried soaking them in detergent, washing with dishsoap....nothing. I have tried using them dry until the diaper change when I get them wet. But as soon as they are wet they smell musty. And Josh refuses to use musty smelling wipes - so to keep him changing diapers I use disposable wipes.