Lemon is a fruit that we could describe as all-terrain. It is very versatile in the kitchen, and we can include it in countless recipes. A few drops of lemon are enough to add an acidic and unique touch to salad dressings, sauces or directly on any preparation – such as meat, fish or soups – to enhance its flavor. Always without going overboard to prevent the personality of the dish from being ruined by the taste of lemon.
It is essential for macerating some foods, such as when making ceviche. And its zest is also used to give juiciness and flavor cakes and other desserts. There are countries like Morocco where pickles are prepared with lemon and salt that are then used in other recipes such as salads, soups or their tagines (stews prepared in typical containers with a round base and a cone-shaped lid made of clay).
In addition, it is very popular among home remedies to cure – or better cope with – a cold. Surely with the drop in temperatures and when colds begin to appear, you have ever prepared a soothing infusion – and full of vitamin C – with lemon peel and other ingredients such as ginger root, some clove seeds and honey.
But lemon – its juice and peel – do not only have culinary properties. In ancient Greece it was used as a preservative to keep some foods such as meat fresher for longer, or to disinfect water. And the Romans used the oil made from lemons to scare away insects by applying it to their clothing.
Lemon is one of the natural products that is most used in homes as an ingredient to create powerful cleaners. If we also add it to vinegar, the mixture becomes one of the most powerful to undertake almost any cleaning task. So, when you use lemons in any of your recipes, don’t throw away the peels. We are going to explain how you can make an economical and effective cleaning product at home without much effort.
- We are going to accumulate all the lemon peels that we discard in a container.
- When we have enough, we are going to fill it with white cleaning vinegar.
- The key now is to let this mixture rest for several days – at least 15 – so that the peel releases all its benefits and joins those of the vinegar.
- After this time, we are going to filter the liquid and we can completely discard the lemon peel.
- We are going to put our homemade cleaner in a spray bottle, so that it will be much easier for us to use it on the surfaces we want to disinfect.
- To make the formula less aggressive, we can dilute it in water to use it.
- We will avoid using it – of course – to clean natural stones such as marble in kitchens or bathrooms, as it can cause some damage. The best thing to do if you think you are dealing with a delicate surface is to first test a corner with a little bit of the cleaner and wait to see how it reacts.
Where to use it
This mixture will give us very good results to clean different areas of the house. We are going to give you some ideas, so you know what surfaces you can use it on:
- We can use the mixture as a disinfectant on kitchen counters, bathroom pieces, tile walls or we can even pour a small amount into the bucket of water for washing, which will help us disinfect our floors, leaving a feeling of freshness in the floor. atmosphere and very good citrus smell.
- In case it hadn’t crossed your mind, it is also a very effective formula for cleaning windows and mirrors that you have distributed around the house.
- And it is very useful to neutralize bad odors, for example in the garbage can, thanks to the essential oils of lemon macerated in vinegar.
The power of citric and acetic acid
Lemon is a powerful cleaner thanks to citric acid, which is also a great disinfectant – which will help us in the battle against bacteria and fungi – and has a high degreasing power. We can also use it as a bleach. This fruit is, therefore, a great ally to eliminate grease stains in the kitchen, as a polishing product, as a deodorant to eliminate bad odors or to eliminate some stains on white clothes.
We find the same characteristics that we attribute to lemon as a cleaner in vinegar: it is an effective degreaser and disinfectant thanks to acetic acid. Both ingredients together make them very powerful and capable of eliminating bacteria and germs from any surface without having to use other more aggressive products that we can find on the market.
For uses related to cleaning, the vinegar that is usually used is the distilled white that we can find in the drugstore section of the supermarket or neighborhood store that we frequent. It has a higher degree of acidity, but does not leave stains like apple cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar would.
Like lemon, vinegar also has some use in washing clothes, but in this case we would use it as a fabric softener, adding a few drops to the washing machine drawer; It is an option to consider for people with atopic and delicate skin that can be attacked by commercial softeners.
With baking soda
If you want – or need – the cleaner to be even stronger, you can add a little baking soda. Together they are the perfect triad. To make a cleaner with these three ingredients, what we will make is a paste with the mixture we already had of lemon and vinegar. We will use a small amount to which we will add the baking soda powder until we achieve the desired consistency.
With this paste we can clean countertops, sinks and other surfaces exposed to grease accumulation in the kitchen such as ovens or microwaves without much effort. But it will also be a great ally, for example, to put an end once and for all to the limescale accumulated in the faucets at home, also returning them to the shine of the first day.
#Lemon #peels #vinegar #homemade #cleaning #formula
