Oh my, bedbugs are on the rise!

Bedbugs have always been a bit of a taboo subject. It's almost as if people hoped that by not speaking of them, they'd never have to deal with them. Unfortunately, we're seeing more and more articles referencing the rapidly growing bedbug epidemic and it's become quite clear that these critters aren't going anywhere.

USA Today referenced a report conducted by Orkin in which US cities were ranked based on the number of bed bug cases reported. While your city may or may not be listed, we have to recognize the fact that these bugs do travel. They're typically picked up in hotel rooms or hand me down furniture so you're essentially bringing them into your clean home.

Did you see the news about the woman who visited Atlantis for a relaxing getaway to be woken up by a bed bug infestation? If you haven't, please check out the full article here.

Ok so now that we know which cities are the most infested and the truth behind how these critters travel into your home, what is it you can do that can prevent them from becoming an epidemic?

• Check secondhand furniture for any sights of bug infestation before bringing them home. 
• Use a protective cover that encases mattresses and box spring, eliminating common hiding spots. Light colors make the bed bugs easier to see. 
• Reduce clutter in your home to prevent hiding places
• Vacuum frequently to remove any hitchhiking bedbugs
• Wash sheets in the highest temperature of water and be cautious when using shared laundry facilities. 
• Protect your home and bed with silver 
• Install door sweets to cover the bottom of doors

While many of the above mentioned suggestions are excellent options for controlling the spread of bed bugs, they can still make their way through your home. To guarantee a restful nights sleep, free of the anxieties of creepy crawlers making their way through your sheets, it starts with protecting your mattress. Carico International's Ultra Tech Silver Collection Sleeping System offers multiple layers fused with silver threads to protect from critters such as dust mites, bed bugs and termites to name a few. This feature is just one of many that Carico has incorporated to ensure you're getting the best night sleep always. Contact us for more information. 

www.carico.com

T: 1800.4.Carico

Email: socialmedia@carico.com

What's in your water?

Do you know what's lurking in your drinking water? Our customer in New York definitely knows what's not in hers thanks to her Carico Nutri-Tech water filter.

She sent us this picture showing us what she found when she cleaned her cartridge after only three months of use. The image on the left is what her cartridge looked like the minute she took it out of the filter and the image on the right is what it looked like after she cleaned off all the residue.

It's pretty disgusting to think all of that you're drinking if you're not using a proper filtration system such as the one manufactured by Carico International.


Click here for more information on how you can make your water crystal clean!

Juice your way through this cold and flu season!

With the seasons changing and the kids going back to school, cold and flu season is in full effect. The most effective method of preventing a common cold is to strengthen the immune system. We find that the best way to do that is through juicing!

Here's a great juice recipe to help boost your immune system this cold and flu season....

Spring Tonic
Handful of parsley
4 carrots, greens removed
1 garlic clove
2 stalks celery

Bunch up parsley and push through hopper with carrots, garlic, and celery.

Tips to Prevent Food Sticking on Stainless Steel Cookware

When making the change from non-stick pans to food safe cookware, stainless steel cookware is often a first choice. However, one thing that has families hesitating to switch, is the perceived challenge of food sticking and ruining the pans. To help ease this “fear,” we would like to share some useful tips on how to prevent sticking on stainless steel cookware. With these tips you can help keep your stainless steel cookware clean, keep harmful chemicals out of your food, and enjoy a much more flavorful meal.

Three tips to keep in mind before you being cooking:
1. Be patient. Cooking in stainless steel cookware does take extra time since you want to prevent food from sticking, but it is worth the extra few minutes. Your food will be much more flavorful and retain its natural juices.

2. Don’t cook above Medium heat. The exact temperature you cook at depends on the type of food, but a general rule to keep in mind is to never cook above Medium heat.

3. Flip once. Try to keep the flipping at a minimum when cooking. The less you flip the food, the less likely your food will stick.

Simple Steps to Help Prevent Sticking:

1. Preheat your pan on a low or medium heat for one to two minutes (or once it has reached the desired temperature). A good way to test if the pan is warm enough is to tap the side of the pan. If it feels hot, it’s ready.

2. Make sure your food is room temperature before attempting to place in the pan. 

3. Instantly add your food to the pan. When you place the food on the pan, you should hear a sizzling sound. If the sound is more of a crackle or popping, the temperature is probably too high. The “sizzling” sound is an indicator that your food is cooking on contact and creating a natural barrier to help prevent sticking—and this barrier helps hold in natural juices! (Here it can take some practice to figure out the best temperature to cook your food at. Different foods “sizzle” at different temperatures.)

4. Allow your food to cook on the one side until the correct or desired “doneness” is reached. The fewer number of times you flip your food, the less likely it will stick to the pan. When you lift the food to flip, tilt the pan with your free hand to help spread the olive oil around again.

5. Once the food is thoroughly cooked, enjoy!

For more information on the best in stainless steel cookware, click here


To read the article from Arthritis Today in full, click here

Do you know what they're pumping into your drinking water?

As it is, we struggle with fully understanding the regulations in place for our drinking water. If you've read previous posts on water, you'll notice the regulations for what exactly is allowed in our water are slim to none. On numerous occasions, certified "clean" drinking water as defined by the government has been found to have traces of lead, bacteria, & carcinogens to name a few. This is water that has been approved clean! Do you trust the government with the water you drink? Ok fine, maybe they just don't manage to get all that is bad out of the water we drink...so they miss a few things? Not too harmless since we can always filter the water to make it pure before drinking. But to now read that the government is catering the idea of possibly purposely pumping in polluted water to our main back up water supply, that's just disgusting! Read on...

A recent article in the Sun Sentinal reported that greater amounts of polluted water could get dumped into Lake Okeechobee to boost South Florida water supplies under a new proposal to roll back restrictions on "back-pumping."

Five years ago, state water managers rebuffed Big Sugar and stopped the controversial practice of redirecting stormwater that drains off South Florida farmland to store it in the lake — while also washing in pollutants from farming.

But now, with the strain of competing Lake Okeechobee water supply needs growing, the South Florida Water Management District is considering a return to back-pumping to help store more water in the lake that serves as the region's backup water supply.

Supporters of back-pumping say the farmland storm water runoff that would be pumped back into the lake would make more lake water available for agricultural and environmental needs alike. They say more water in the lake would enable sending more freshwater to the West Coast to help the parched Caloosahatchee River during dry times, without threatening to sap lake water needed to irrigate South Florida farms.

"It's to prevent the taffy pull, the tug of war between the Caloosahatchee and the [agricultural] lake users for the last drop of lake water," said Barbara Miedema, vice president of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida. "We support back-pumping as a water management tool."

But environmental advocates contend that the phosphorus-laden water that flows off sugar cane fields is supposed to be cleaned up and sent south to the Everglades, not pumped back north into Lake Okeechobee.

The potential damage to wildlife and water quality from dumping more polluted water into Lake Okeechobee wouldn't be worth a slight boost in water supply, environmental groups say.

So what are your thoughts on this? Do you want to let the government control the water you consume? Bottled water is definitely not the answer because many of these bottled water brands have been tested positive for traces of bacteria. So what's the answer? Filtering your water with a trusted water filtration system.

Click here for more information on how you can protect your family with crystal clean water.





 Click here for more on this Sun Sentinal article.

Suffer from migraines? Juicing could bring you some relief!

Did you know, approximately 30 million Americans suffer from regular migraines? If you're part of this statistic, you know that migraines can be crippling and not something that can just be cured with some over the counter pain medications.

A recent article on Health.com quotes that migraines are "a neurological disorder, often inherited, in which triggers ranging from stress to certain foods to even changes in the weather set off a chain reaction in the brain that results in intense pain. Most migraine sufferers are between the ages of 20 and 50 -- women in full-speed-ahead career/family/juggling mode."

Most migraine suffers don't even know they are suffering from migraines and generally don't have the luxury to take many days off to recover from the pain or visit the doctor to see what 's wrong. So they continue their every day routine battling the migraines as they come.

Well what are you to do? The best line of defense is to protect yourself before migraines hit. The same article on Health.com suggests, "Eat, sleep, and exercise regularly (studies have shown that both cardio and stretching are effective at reducing headaches), and try to control your stress, since that is the number-one migraine trigger."

If you're not one to support turning to heavy medication or supplements to treat common disorders or illnesses, the best form of treatment is juicing as fruits and vegetables contain all the vitamins and minerals you need.

This being said, since magnesium has proven to be a smooth-muscle relaxant we'd like to share a delicious juicing recipe found in "Juicing for Life" that is packed with magnesium to help rid you of those dreadful migraines. We hope you enjoy it!


Magnesium Drink

1 Garlic Clove
Small Handful of Parsley
4-5 Carrots, greens removed
2 Stalks celery

Cheers to a migraine free life!

If you'd like to read more of the Health.com article on migraines, click here.

To learn about Carico International's Nutri-Tech Juice Extractors click the image below.

What's lurking in the water you drink?

Some people recognize the fact that their tap water is overly polluted for everyday use. They purchase cases upon cases of bottled water in the hopes that it is free of bacteria and pollutants such as e.coli, chlorine, lead, aluminum, and pesticides to name a few. However, just because it's bottled doesn't mean it's free and clear of all toxic contaminants. Not to mention, the use of plastic bottles on a regular basis isn't good for our dear old planet earth.

So what to do? Do you resort back to drinking tap water with the hopes your water "isn't that bad"? Do you even know what could be lurking in the water flowing through your pipes and to what levels they are found? Hormones, drugs, even pesticides could be flowing from your faucet. No one can say for sure, because the government doesn't require testing for them.

Did you know even traces of arsenic have been found in regular tap water?  Arsenic is especially worrisome: Studies show that it may be linked to an array of health problems, from developmental disorders and heart disease to numerous types of cancer, including bladder, lung, liver, skin, and kidney. Even more concerning, some experts think that arsenic might be harmful below its current EPA standard, a level that was already lowered (from 50 parts per billion to 10) in 2001. "As newer studies come out, they're showing health problems at lower and lower doses [of arsenic], including some conditions, such as immune problems and cognitive effects in children, we've never associated with it before," says Joshua W. Hamilton, Ph.D., a project leader in the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program at Dartmouth College.

In a recent article published by Better Housekeeping it was quoted that, "some areas don't check their water at all or, if they do, don't report test results. We're not talking about just a few rogue violators: In 2009, 28% of all U.S. systems broke at least one significant EPA rule. If the violation is "innocent" — a town lacks the resources or technical expertise to meet the standards — the state or the EPA may lend assistance or money to help. But EPA grants are scarce, so while communities wait for them, residents continue to drink suspect water. The EPA can take legal action as well, or fine a water authority that won't comply — but in the past 10 years, out of thousands and thousands of violations, there have been only 349 cases of towns, other water suppliers, or industry paying a fine for violating any part of the Safe Drinking Water Act."

So considering the EPA allows for certain levels of toxic chemicals to lurk in your water, do you still want to let them have full control of the water YOU drink? Certain solutions can be at your fingertips. Although bottled waters seems like  a good alternative to somewhat protect yourself with the water you drink, what about the water you wash your fruits and vegetables in or bathe your children with?

Carico water filters offer you a solution to not only make sure the water you drink is clean, but to also make sure the water you wash your vegetables, bathe your children in, and wash your car with are free of chemicals and pollutants.

Click here for more information on how you can protect your family with crystal clean water.



And if you're concerned about what's lurking in your water, check out more of the article published in Better Housekeeping by clicking here.

Could the way you prepare your foods be leading to inflammation?

Do you ever get that achy feeling out of the clear blue sky with no real reason in sight? It could be from the foods you eat. Well, not necessarily the actual foods but the way these foods are prepared. A recent study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that frying or grilling certain foods at high temperatures produces compounds that can increase inflammation in the body. Yikes!

The compounds, called advanced glycation end products (AGEs), are known to be scoundrels, showing up in the blood of people with chronic diseases associated with inflammation, including diabetes, heart disease, RA and OA. AGEs detected in blood were thought to come solely from our body’s natural supply of AGEs, but – here’s the bad news – now scientists have found that foods cooked at high temps create AGEs that can be absorbed by the body. Perhaps 10 percent of AGEs we get from eating seared burgers and fried chicken may be absorbed.

Inflammation in the body is what can often cause an arthritis flare up or that achy feeling you get all over. To prevent being exposed to these increased levels of AGEs, you can take the following steps to modifying your lifestyle:

- Limit the amount of grilled, broiled, fried and microwaved meats in your diet.
- Reduce the cooking temperature of meats and proteins. Steam fish and seafood, simmer chicken in a sauce and braise red meat in a cooking liquid.
- Cut down on processed foods. Many prepared foods have been exposed to a high cooking temperature to lengthen shelf life, so they may have high AGE contents.
- Get more fruits and veggies in your diet. Cooked or raw, they’re naturally low in AGEs, and many contain compounds such as antioxidants that can decrease some of the damage done by AGEs.

It's also important to remember by cooking foods at high temperatures, you're basically destroying all of the beneficial nutrients. Particularly with fruits and vegetables, make sure to cook at low to medium temperatures for just a short period of time to ensure nutrient preservation. They should be bright with color after the cooking process not dull and gray.

For more information on cooking at low to medium temperatures, click here



To read the article from Arthritis Today in full, click here

It's time for spring cleaning, indoor air included!

What is it you first think about when spring arrives?

- Putting away winter clothes: Check
- Change batteries in smoke detectors: Check
- Shampoo rugs: Check
- Organize closets: Check
- Dusting off those cleaning supplies and giving the house a thorough scrubbing: Check

All this is a great way to bring in the new season, but one thing you're missing is checking & cleansing the quality of your indoor air. Did you know that despite the thorough scrubbing you often give your home in honor of spring cleaning, the quality of the air we breathe indoors can be 5 to 10 times more polluted than the outdoors. Not only do we allow outdoor pollutants to come into our homes every time we open a door or window, but many of the household products we use on a day to day basis inside our homes could be affecting the overall quality of the air we breathe.

"The Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that of chemicals commonly found in homes, 150 have been linked to allergies, birth defects, cancer and psychological abnormalities."

So what can you do to protect the quality of the air you and your children breathe? Here are a few spring cleaning tips on how to minimize the pollutants & toxic chemicals in your home.

1. Avoid conventional household cleaners
Conventional household cleaners contain chemicals that can be more dangerous than the germs themselves. Every time your children roll around on the carpet or your pets lick crumbs off the floor, they are being exposed to noxious chemicals. Don’t make the assumption that if it’s on the grocery shelf it’s been tested and is safe. Most of us, unwittingly, buy products for our home with ingredients that are either poorly studied, not studied at all, or are known to pose potentially serious health risks. Of the roughly 17,000 chemicals found in common household products, only 3 in 10 have been tested for their effects on human health. Why? Because, just like with cosmetics, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission does not require manufacturers to test household cleaning products before they appear on store shelves.

And, if you’re reading labels expecting to get the whole picture, know that they provide only limited information. Labels often omit inert ingredients that can make up as much as 90 percent of a product's volume. Now, the word “inert” doesn’t mean inactive or neutral as you might believe. The EPA categorized “inert” ingredients as causing long-term health damage and harm to the environment. These ingredients include solvents, dispersal agents, dyes and fragrances, some of which can pollute the air and water. Other ingredients that are not mentioned can be carcinogens or worsen health problems like allergies and asthma.

2. Avoid artificially scented air fresheners

Artificially scented air fresheners include aerosols and plug-ins, because they are made with synthetic fragrances that contain phthalates. These are chemicals that can cause hormonal abnormalities, birth defects and reproductive problems. The NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) found that 12 out of 14 popular air freshener brands contained phthalates.

Plus, aerosol sprays contain flammable and nerve-damaging ingredients such as hexane and xylene, and produce mist particles that can contain a high proportion of organic solvents that when inhaled enter your bloodstream and have negative health effects.

3. Avoid synthetic fragrances in your personal care products

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), there are potentially hundreds of chemicals in a single product's secret fragrance mixture. Fragrances can contain neurotoxins and are among the top 5 allergens in the world. A recent Mayo Clinic study placed fragrances in the 10 most common causes of allergic contact dermatitis, and the Institute of Medicine (a division of the National Academy of Sciences) placed fragrance in the same category as second hand smoke in triggering asthma in adults and school age children.

When you see the word “fragrance” in an ingredient list, you can assume it’s 100 percent synthetic—and not a blend of natural flower extracts. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reports that “95 percent of the ingredients used to create fragrances today are synthetic compounds derived from petroleum, including benzene derivatives, aldehydes, and many other known toxins and sensitizers.” What’s more, “unscented” does not mean a product contains no fragrance. Ingredients used to mask unpleasant odors, usually chemicals, do not have to be identified on the labels.

Children are not immune. Every day they are exposed to an average of 27 personal care product ingredients that have not been found safe for kids, according to a national survey conducted by the EWG.  A whopping 77 percent of the ingredients in 1,700 children's products reviewed have not been assessed for safety!  Cut down on your use of powders, especially baby powder on infants. The FDA warns that powders may cause lung damage if inhaled regularly.

4. Invest in a multi-stage air filtration unit to keep air clean all year round

Many air filters on the market only address one thing. They either assist with pollen and dust, gasses and odors, or bacteria and mold. Very few actually address all three. If you suffer from allergies or respiratory illnesses, you know many of your symptoms are a result of a combination of all these contaminants. Make sure to invest in an air purification system that can address all three contaminate groups. And most importantly, make sure to change the cartridge every year as part of your spring cleaning routine.


Click here to read full article from Veria Living

For more information on how to have clean indoor air all year round, click here

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Itchy nose, watery eyes, & constant sneezing? Spring in here!

So spring has finally arrived! Well, maybe not quite....supposedly it's still a week away but the temperatures are definitely rising which in turn is making the flowers bloom...bloom...bloom....

What does this mean? Allergy season has also arrived. For those of us who suffer with allergies, it's a bitter sweet time of year. The sun is shining, the temperatures are rising, and the sneezing is starting. Although one can load up on the allergy medication to relieve symptoms, it's a terrible way to live- wouldn't you agree?

If you can't protect yourself from the allergens outdoors, how can you protect yourself from the allergens making their way into your home and onto your furniture or into your sheets? Protect your home and the air you breathe with a high quality air purification system. Did you know, the air you breathe indoors tends to be 25 to 100 times more polluted than outdoor air? This is not just from the usual air pollution but also includes allergens such as pollen and pet dander.

Your home should be your sacred place filled with clean, pure air. Make sure to protect yourself and the ones you love from this allergy season by investing in pure air.


Click here to read full article from Fox News

For more information click here

Carico International Air Filters

Best Air Filters

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