Review of Miracle Sleep Natural Talalay Latex Mattress: It's Da Bomb

After roughing it on a $70 inflatable camping mattress for 5 years, we finally broke down and splurged on a real mattress. Well, actually the inflatable mattress finally busted at the seams after I over-inflated it a bit much. So we really didn't have a choice.

Our $70 inflatable mattress served us faithfully for 5 years before busting a seam

Some background
Knowing that I was content with an inflatable mattress, would you believe that I am a mattress snob? It's true, I am. For this, I blame my sensitivity to chemicals and odors. In the past, when I was sick (I'm all better now!), I developed MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity). MCS can be a real problem when one needs to buy a new mattress. Typically, mattresses are manufactured using a myriad of noxious chemicals (e.g. formaldehyde, glues, isocyanate from the polyurethane foam). These mattresses continue to off-gas nasty odors for months and possibly even years. No thanks.

Having MCS is an even bigger problem when on a limited student budget. So I sewed my own mattress using organic materials. It was a queen size, about 4 inches thick, and comprised layers of organic cotton batting topped with a 2 inch natural latex topper. In all, it cost $200 to make. I got a good four years out of it and brought it with me to PA when I married my dear hubs in 2008.

I guess my dear hubs wasn't a fan of my hand-made organic mattress. Because in late 2008, as a wedding gift to ourselves, Spencer bought us a brand new $500 mattress from The Original Mattress Store. It was plush and comfortable to lie on, but oh boy did it stink. I put my activated carbon blanket ($159 from Nirvana Safe Haven) over the mattress to help absorb the odors and that made it tolerable. But after a few months, the mattress was still off-gassing. So, we got rid of it.

Thus began the era of the Inflatable Mattress. :)

Fast Forward Five Years
I had my heart set on a Talalay natural latex mattress but most of these cost upwards of $1500 in queen size. There were also mattresses marketed as 'latex mattress' (e.g. the $600 Ultimate Dreams Latex Mattress) that are actually a combination of natural latex with a core/base of HR Foam (Polyfoam), thus not 100% latex.

I ordered this queen-sized Miracle Sleep 6 inch natural latex mattress as a set (box spring and mattress) for $1000 from Amazon. Getting it as a set was $200 cheaper than buying just the mattress.

This mattress has absolutely no odor. It appears well put together from quality materials. It is firm (I ordered 'firm' figuring if it was too firm I could always add a plush topper). It conforms to my side-sleeping contour yet feels nicely supportive. Among other plusses, it claims to:

• Reduce pressure points, disperse body heat and maintain a neutral temperature environment
• Be antimicrobial, hypoallergenic, inhibits the growth of bacteria, mold, mildew and is dust mite resistant
• Extremely durable, maintains it shape, no need to flip the mattress, and has a 20 year life span
• Available in soft, medium and firm support

I'll update a few months down the line as I get more acquainted with my new favorite purchase, but right now it's LOVE!

Box spring foundation, 6 inches of firm natural Talalay latex foam. Put on my own allergy/bed bug barrier mattress casing and topped with a plush mattress topper. 

It's hard to tell from the pic, but the materials are good quality. No odor!

Review of the Green Star Juicer: Fresh Raw Unheated Juice a Worthwhile Investment

I've owned two Green Star Juicers in my lifetime. I bought my first one in Malaysia 15 years ago (back then it went by the name Green Power). And I bought my second one in the US eight years ago. They both still work great. True workhorses.

I did a lot of comparison shopping prior buying. I knew, from my previously experiences with centrifugal juicers, exactly what I did not want. 

I didn't want a centrifugal juicer because: 

• These juicers heat up quickly and in turn, 'cook' the juice. 
• The juicing action is 'violent' - the fruit/veg is shredded on a grater and hurled against the sides of the sieve/filter then centrifuged at speeds approaching Mach 4 to get the juice out. 
• Centrifugal juicers don't do a good job with leafy vegetables like spinach, cabbage, wheat grass.
• The semi-cooked juice oxidizes/turns brown super quick and can't keep longer than 30 minutes. (Well you could, but it would just look and taste nasty, plus not do you much good).
• There is typically a fair amount of wastage (wet pulp) as the centrifugal juicers aren't efficient in extracting all the juice.
• Most centrifugal juicers don't allow for you to juice continuously - when the pulp holding container is full, you'll need to stop juicing, open it up and empty the pulp out before you can juice some more.
• Clean up is a real drag - I don't like scrubbing the filter. At all. It takes forever.

The Green Star juicer is everything that the centrifugal juicers are not. 

Twin Gears

The 'twin gear' that is the heart of this very cool contraption, gently 'triturates' / 'masticates' (i.e., cuts into teeny pieces) the fruit/veg that are fed into it, at a slow speed of 100 rpm. The pulp passes into a screw press capped with a filter/sieve, which presses the juice out through the filter while the dry pulp exits at the end. This has a few pretty awesome results:

• The juice stays unheated, because the motor and gears don't get hot.
• The juicing action is gentle, and the resulting juice doesn't oxidize thus keeps longer. (I keep in airtight single serve glass jars for up to three days, and only need to juice twice a week).
• The Green Star excels with leafy vegetables. I feed them down the chute and once they hit the twin gears, they get pulled right in. 
• The pulp comes out DRY. That means more juice in my tummy. And more savings, especially since I juice all organic veg/fruit.
• I can keep juicing till the cows come home, since the pulp exits at the end and the juice comes out direct into my jug. 
• Clean up is a snap. Disassembling and rinsing and scrubbing takes two minutes or less. I swear!

Fruit and veg feed into chute, dry pulp comes out the end, yummy juice goes into the jug!

Why buy a Green Star Juicer?

The Green Star gives the best value for money for what it does. At $600+, it's definitely more expensive than most centrifugal juicers, but not too far off the top-end ones like Breville, Tribest and Omega. (Compare prices online at Amazon). But if you want to be able to juice vegetables, want to maximize juice extraction of your organic produce, don't want to waste too much time cleaning up or juicing every single day, yet want fresh juice on hand every day, then the Green Star is well worth it.

Buying a Green Star Juicer is buying into a Lifestyle of delicious, raw life-giving juice, for life hehe. 

Organic celery, green apple, pineapple, carrot and lemon juice. 

Of course, this is merely my opinion :D

What's your favorite juicer and why? Please leave a comment!