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| The many uses of vinegar |
Simply Living
August 20, 2012
Are mosquitoes biting?
Have you stepped on an anthill, been stung by a bee or been bitten by a wasp? Is an itchy spot driving you crazy?
Spray it with vinegar.
Feel the relief.
Even though I rarely use vinegar for cooking, a gallon-size
container occupies a prominent place in our pantry. Easy access is essential for useful items and
vinegar holds the gold for versatility and function.
In our household, vinegar’s chief purpose – and one it does
very effectively – is to ease the pain, itch and swelling from insect bites. It also works well reducing the discomfort of
jellyfish stings. I keep a spray bottle
of undiluted vinegar in the car and when we go to the shore, it goes into the
beach bag.
Because there are more insects in one square mile of rural
land that there are people on the planet, bug bites are bound to happen. Many products provide relief for stings but
simple white vinegar does the job effectively, inexpensively and without any of
the questionable chemicals in commercial creams, salves or sprays.
We started using vinegar shortly after settling in Florida. Our children were little and it seemed like
every day somebody stumbled upon an insect encounter. We quickly learned the usefulness of
positioning several spray bottles of vinegar around the house and in the
car. Whenever one of us was stung, we
squirted several sprays of the sour substance onto the bite and rubbed it
in. We may not have been the sweetest
smelling family but at least we weren’t the itchiest.
In addition to bug bites, vinegar helps with housekeeping
chores. If our windows need washing, mirrors
are smudgy or fixtures have lost their shine, a quick spritz of vinegar on a
clean rag rubs away the problem. An
added bonus is that vinegar acts as a disinfectant, especially handy in the
bathroom and kitchen.
There are countless other uses for this versatile liquid composed
predominantly of acetic acid. Folk
remedies tout vinegar for aiding everything from arthritis to the common cold. A quick search online yields numerous sites
proclaiming its many virtues. One of the
most extensive is www.vinegartips.com, which lists 1001ways to use vinegar under
the categories cooking, laundry, gardening, pet care, health, cleaning and
automotive. Spend time reading through
the long list of potential uses and you might think you chanced upon a miracle
cure-all. You wouldn’t be alone. People have been trumpeting the properties of
this fermented byproduct of vegetables, fruits or grains for thousands of
years.
Personally, I take such laudatory claims with a grain of
salt (although in this case, mixing salt with vinegar can create a cleansing
agent that removes tarnish from metals).
I’d rather rely upon personal experience. In our family, vinegar has repeatedly proven its
effectiveness at relieving the discomfort of insect bites and for keeping my
windows, mirrors and fixtures clean.
Sometimes simple things work best. Sure, you can spend big bucks for name brand
products professing to fix this and solve that or you can fall back on time-tested
standards like white distilled vinegar.
If you have an itch to try something different, fill a bottle with
vinegar and spray away that next bug bite.
Until then, you might want to give the kitchen faucets a good shine.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
Do you have a favorite use for vinegar? Share it by posting a comment below.
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