Healthy Living

Cook with Nancy's Organic Kitchen and learn how to to turn everyday recipes into tasty and healthier new ones.

For 20 years, Lauren Vidal remains true to the uniqueness of its creations and gives the contemporary woman her own image, focusing on overlays creating purely light styles punctuated by unstructured volumes.

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate With as much time as we spend in our homes these days, we want to create a home that is a retreat, that is what we speak to, but we want our retreat to be safe so this is definitely going to be an option. Certainly they don’t have to take it all the way to major extremes, but they can do little things that will make a huge difference in their health, their design and in the environment.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither...

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate I believe that every home should be a sanctuary and that upon entering it one should immediately feel physically and emotionally protected. What I first noticed upon entering Jim and Nancy Chudas Green Home to select a room to design for an upcoming feature in Los Angeles Magazine was that it had all of those qualities even in the construction phase.

By Bethany Colson, Managing Editor of LuxEcoLiving.com According to the US government, One third of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives; many others will face chronic obesity-related health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma. A recent study put the health care costs of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion per year. With rates having tripled over the last three decades and with millions effected and the percentage of obese or overweight children at or above 30% in 30 states, the childhood obesity epidemic shows no slowing in site... YET. Enter First Lady Michelle Obama. The Goal: Through nutrition education, healthy food alternatives, physical fitness and a coordinated effort between public, private and non-private sector, the challenge of childhood obesity will be solved within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight.

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant The largest organ in, or should I say on, our bodies…the epidermis.  It is defined by the Online...

By Kerin Van Hoosear, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of Seasonal Cooking with Kerin When I jumped on the gardening bandwagon, the first things I started to grow were herbs. I had really started getting into adventurous cooking, and it only made sense to grow my own herbs. If you go to the grocery store, you’re going to wind up spending a few bucks on a couple leaves of basil. Well, I don’t have a few bucks; but I do have a minute to snip off as much basil as I want from my garden, for free. And that’s really what it’s all about: saving time and money while bringing your food to a whole fresh, new level.

...I Wish For Safe Toys Tonight! My last trip to Toys R' Us was disturbing on several levels.  Not having kids of my own, I...

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Why Your Health Matters Most Walk don't run while searching Google for the...

rstBrands offers a variety of sustainable handmade outdoor furniture and utilizes one of the most important sun shields in the development of their products. The patented Sunbrella fabrics who I might add made environmental responsibility a priority decades before the "green" movement.

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World   We had a terrible scare!!! Journey, our 18 month old adopted yellow...

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Oslo Norway, The Chuda's  for LuxEcoLiving What could be better. Two nights at...

by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant A future gift, recycled in a thrift store, made from recycled materials. Now that's a LuxEco Resplendent Repurposing triple header! by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEcoLiving Editorial Assistant

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Santa Paula California Limoneria Ranch An Afternoon in the Orchard Celebrating Sustainable Agriculture Not...

By Megan Boyle, Editorial Director, Healthy Child Healthy World Reproduced with the permission of the Environmental Working Group www.healthychild.org They’re cheap, appealing and easy to find. They...

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Luxury for Less. The most beautiful authentic jewelry, custom designed, one...

  As a closet designer, I became conscious of green design about four years ago. It translated directly into my work when I was asked...

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Santa Ynez California breakfast at The Baker's Table 3563 Numancia Street COME HUNGRY! You...

People spend an average of 8 hours 21 minutes sleeping a day – but spend an average of 8 hours 41 minutes on media...

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Heading Sideways in Santa Ynez Valley from Los Olivos to Buellton Two Great...

The meditation suite, powder room and terrace of the Green Home, was designed to reflect James and Nancy Chuda's love for Buddhism, Zen philosophy...

By Nancy Chuda, Founder of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. It...

The Christmas season is upon us, and people everywhere are gearing up for the holiday. In her book, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas; Gifts, Decorations, and Recipes That Use Less and Mean More, author and LuxEco Advocate, Anna Getty shares with us her ideas on how to create memorable traditions while taking small steps to reduce our carbon footprints, minimize waste, and creatively use what we already have.

By Nancy Chuda, co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World, and Megan Boyle, Editorial Director, Healthy Child Healthy World Reproduced with the permission of the Environmental...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Orchids can be orchidellic     Santa Barbara International Orchid Show And...

By: Francine LeFrak, Founder of Same Sky, a company that handcrafts glass bead bracelets made in Rwanda and LuxEco Advocate My dream is for the empowerment of women and eradication of poverty. In 1994, 1 million people were murdered in 100 days in Rwanda. I spent eight and a half years trying to produce a film about this massacre-- I wanted to tell the story of this genocide. Ultimately, the film never got produced. I was still left with the passion to shed light on this important story. By that time, my focus had also turned to the empowerment of women and girls. It was with the mission of helping the women in Africa that Same Sky was born.

An introduction by Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEco Living and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. In the last two decades, Healthy Child Healthy World has sounded many alarms to awaken parents to the prevailing problems of chemicals in our environment. With an influx of untested chemicals in commerce, coupled by a regulatory system that is stymied by scientific knowledge, the time is now for a complete overhaul of the laws which permit the inhumane testing of chemicals in our air, water and food which affect our most vulnerable citizens. Children are suffering due to these exposures and their health and life expectancy is being altered by an inept system of governance which supplies the demand for agriculture and consumer products without oversight. Years ago, many of us testified in Congress to prevail upon

by Jessica Borges, LuxEco Editorial Assistant As you’re staring blankly into your “so last year” closet full of drab clothing that you just can’t bear to...

Action For Healthy Kids Remember the watershed moment when you first learned about the dangers of pesticides in your food or the toxic chemicals in...

By Alanna Rosette Brown, a writer/filmmaker, LuxEcoLiving Advocate, and author of Moonpennies. Follow her blog at alannarosette.com Make a New Years Resolution: Stand-Up and Walk...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant In 1978, the FDA proposed to ban over-the-counter ingredients triclosan and triclocarban, found predominantly in antimicrobial soaps. According to the National Resources Defense Council, these two common chemicals can cause damage to reproductive organs and production of thyroid and sex hormones. However, it has been more than 30 years and the FDA has done nothing beyond testing. One unnamed environmental nonprofit has had enough, and is suing the FDA for its alleged negligence.

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate In October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored what has turned out to be a biannual competition called Solar Decathlon on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. 20 teams from colleges and universities from the U.S., Canada, Germany and Spain were selected and asked to design, build and operate an energy efficient house powered exclusively by the sun. The winning team produced a house that best blended affordability, ease of living, attractiveness, comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions, enough energy to run all household appliances and hot water as well as producing more energy than it consumes. Workshops were provided about the current state of green design technologies, jobs and the future of the smart grid.

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World  Gainey Winery Santa Ynez California It was truly a gift of nature! Standing...