Kitchen Soap

The best kitchen soap is a versatile dishwashing liquid that leaves your dishes sparkling clean and free of any soap residue, smell, or taste. There are a few very important factors to consider when choosing a dish soap:

Your dishes showcase the the food and not the dishwashing liquid or detergent used.
The dish soap leaves your hands soft and smooth, while it is tough on grease.
The dish soap is a safe and effective fruit and vegetable wash.

When you plan, grow or shop for the best food, and then spend time preparing exquisite meals to enjoy with friends and family, you want to taste and smell only the food. Good kitchen soap is very important. Irritating kitchen soap that smells and tastes like something unrelated to the food, not only is it poorly effective at keeping your dishes free from unwanted bacteria, it is a waste of time, energy, and resources.

Good kitchen soap

Good kitchen soap is versatile, can be used as a fruit and vegetable wash, a floor and window cleaner, and a cooking and baking tool, pot and pan cleaner, and dish washing soap.

It shouldn't be hand soap vs dish soap. It's hand soap and dish soap.

Click here to see how to hand wash dishes, using simple, water saving methods.

Real food is grown in dirt and is transported in trucks. Depending on what kind of food you eat, much of it is processed in factories and warehouses, whether it's organic or not. Large work places are filled with people, fork lifts, packaging of all kinds, etc. No matter how much toxic bleach and other "industrial cleaners" are used, you probably wouldn't eat there, let alone anything that fell onto the floor. It's a good idea to wash food, before you ingest it.

A good natural dish soap is also a good fruit and vegetable wash. Wash your fruits and vegetables, the same way you would wash your dishes, except use drinking water, if your drinking water is different from your household water.

Hand soap and dish soap

Do you really need hand soap and dish soap? If you get the right soap, you only need one soap to really clean everything well. Well made Castile soap is gentle enough to effectively wash hands and sudsy enough to collect enough grease and debris from an eggplant Parmesan casserole dish or greasy pork chop pan.

This is the instant Liquid Soap gently lifting up all of that burnt caked on foot from the stovetop

This is the Instant Liquid Soap in a foaming pump used for hand washing.

Both hand soap and dish soap are intended to clean but are usually not the same. Most hand soaps are some sort of gentle on skin soap intended to clean your hands but not much else.

Most dish soaps are detergents, containing harsh, non food grade chemicals that cut through grease. As a comparison, a dish soap gel will clean 1-3 dishes before you need to add more to your sponge. The same amount of good sudsy Castile soap will clean 5-6 dishes before you need to add more to your sponge. The soap should be gentle enough to clean the dishes and your hands at the same time.

hand soap vs dish soap

If you feel any of these symptoms when washing dishes, maybe it's time to switch from a toxic dishwashing detergent or liquid, to natural Castile soap as dish soap.

Foggy and headache-y when using your dish soap
Rough scratchy and or itchy hands during and after washing dishes
Taste or smell your dish soap when eating. Eating chemical dish washing detergents can cause illness.

Consider making the switch to good natural dish soap and save on headache remedies. Hand creams will actually make your hands smooth and beautiful instead of simply giving you relief.

Eating well and enjoying good health begins at home with the best food and dish soap. Good dish soap is part of a healthy lifestyle.

Liquid Soap Refill makes an excellent vegetable wash

Sparkling clean hand washed dishes

Wash your farm fresh eggs right before you crack them open

Good dish soap has many uses

I cook a lot. Sometimes I get fancy. I call the way I run my home kitchen, "A Live Kitchen". This means that I always have something in process. Pies baking, sauce cooking, meat thawing, vegetables fermenting, sourdough starter and bread rising, garden seeds starting, seeds saved for next year, micro greens sprouting. You get the idea.

The eggs in the photo above, are gifts from my chickens. Each one comes with a protective wax coating on them, called the bloom, which protects the egg and the potential chick inside from bacteria. It also enables the eggs to be stored at room temperature. We store them in egg cartons on a shelf or in an egg basket, because we get great joy looking at them. Theoretically this also retains the best flavor and keeps the most vitamin D intact. Did you know that organic fresh eggs are an excellent source of Vitamin D?

I wash each egg in the kitchen with soap and water, right before cracking it open. It removes any dirt that could potentially contaminate the egg as it is removed from the shell. This small extra step controls the potential spread of disease. My chickens, like all chickens, bathe in dust and dirt, step in poop, and then help clean it off of each other.

Read more about the bloom on raising happy chickens.

Wash everything

Good kitchen soap is essential. It needs to clean well, rinse off well, and not pollute my home with synthetic, toxic fumes. Wash everything; fruits and vegetables, kitchen countertops and cutting boards, windows in the house and in the car...all with the Waterless Hand Soap. Keep a bottle in each of your cars, at work, and in your purse or briefcase for washing my hands when you're not near running water.

Use natural Castile Instant Liquid Soap for a fruit and vegetable wash.

Click here for Dehydrated Watermelon instructions

Great for hand washing dishes, eggs, a fruit and vegetable wash, you can use the no plastic bottle Liquid Soap Refill, to complete your sustainable homestead journey. 1 bag of soap noodles dilutes to 32 oz. (1 quart) of Instant Liquid Soap Refill. For dilute at home instructions, click here.

Good kitchen soap will clean your stovetop. Read about it here.

Good kitchen soap cuts grease

Diluted Liquid Soap Bar Concentrate makes a great dish washing soap. See the suds?

Sparkling clean dishes, free from a detergent smell or aftertaste, are an essential component of good kitchen soap and a healthy kitchen. The suds have the important function of collecting excess dirt and grease. This is what makes natural soap work.

At this point in our own personal history, we have moved from eating out to eating in, even if we bring in prepared food. Enjoy being home and in your kitchen. Make it a comfortable, happy place to feed you, your family and friends. Get creative. Cook a lot, enjoy as much local bounty as possible. A healthy kitchen is a place to grow ideas to make a more sustainable world.

Choose from 5 different natural essential oil scents

Instant Liquid Soap is the perfect stovetop cleaner. It's gentle on your hands while being tough on built up, caked on grease. Click here to read How to Clean your Greasy Stovetop using zero waste natural soap methods

Tear open pouch at notch
Fill pouch with water to top of label. Gently stir.
Pour into a reused plastic bottle. Use.

The future starts now as you end single use plastic bottles. Click here

Garden Fresh Food

See those mud splatters on that beautiful green pepper? I picked that and did a preliminary wash, in my garden sink, but I washed it again with soap and water in my kitchen, just to make sure there was not a speck of grit, sand or dirt left.

Recipes

How to hand wash dishes perfectly every time

Click here

How to clean your stovetop. Click here

Click here for my Blueberry Custard Pie made with fresh eggs

Click here for Butternut Squash Soup

Caramelized Onions click here

Fermented vegetables and Salade de Céleri click here

Click here for Hot Pepper Paste

Click here for Sourdough bread starter

Click here for apple cider vinegar recipes

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Caramelized Onions

Spruce up any dish with caramelized onions.

Ingredients:

Onions - anywhere from 1-5

Flour for dusting - any kind you have in your pantry, about 1/2 teaspoon per onion

Olive Oil

Salt and spice. I prefer powdered chipotle (which I use as a default spice)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Peel the onions. Slice in half, and then slice into rings. Place in a mixing bowl.
Coat with olive oil. Mix well so all of the slices are coated in oil
Dust with flour. Mix so there is a dusting of flour on every onion slice
Sprinkle salt and chipotle or whatever spice you prefer and mix well.
Spread in a baking pan and bake for 30 minutes. Add to any dish.
In the photo below, you will see the caramelized onions mixed in with leftover buckwheat groats, cauliflower, and sausage.