Healthy Living

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate. Jill Salisbury, founder of Chicago based el: Environmental Language, formally educated and trained as an Interior Designer, has found her true calling and passion in the design and manufacturing of furniture. Ten plus years ago, while working as an interior designer, she began learning about the benefits of sustainability but wasn’t able to find furnishings that were stylish and had any kind of environmental initiative. “There wasn’t anything available and I felt the Interior Design community needed to have what I call the Eco-Chic Alternative where you can have style with environmental integrity and promote a healthy indoor air quality for your clients.”

Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World In 2000, many children's health advocates applauded Congress's decision to...

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...

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 Lorri Ballance Laird, LuxEco Advocate Three summers ago, I suddenly found myself exhausted and depressed.  I slept for four to five hours a day...

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate As I wind down for the year I find myself thinking about a book called The Home Within Us and how much that says about my design philosophy. Everything I approach as a designer lies first and foremost in the feeling of comfort, well being, creating a place of safety and sanctuary. Problem solving, space planning, furniture and color selection comes later but it is driven by these things.

By Megan Boyle, Editorial Director, Healthy Child Healthy World Reproduced with the permission of the Environmental Working Group www.healthychild.org On Oct. 1, advocates for children’s health gathered...

By Megan Boyle, Editorial Director, Healthy Child Healthy World Reproduced with the permission of the Environmental Working Group, www.healthychild.org. For parents, feeding a new baby can feel...

By Christopher Gavigan, CEO and Executive Director of Healthy Child Healthy World and LuxEco Advocate Interview Conducted By Nancy Chuda, Founder of LuxEco Living and...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Santa Ynez California Photo credits James Chuda for LuxEcoLiving Ugg! It's...

Get rid of hazardous substances in your home and clean house with these great green cleaning products. By Brooke Rewa, Lux Eco Editorial Assistant Household cleaning products are full of hazardous substances that put our loved ones at risk. A clean house can be especially dangerous to children and pets. Toxic chemicals from conventional household products can be found on your floors, counters, carpets and transferred directly into the mouth of your pet or child. Many everyday cleaning products contain petroleum based pesticides and denatured ethanol, a type of ethanol that has one or more substances added to it making it poisonous. While we know little about the long-term health affects and environmental damage these hazardous substances can cause, it is safe to say the outcome cannot be good.

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.

By Robyn O'Brien, Founder of Allergy Kids Foundation and LuxEco Advocate Now, I’m not sure where you stand on this whole food thing. But if you’re anything like me, you probably don’t want someone telling you what to eat. So when friends first started trying to educate me about terms like organic, local, natural and grass fed, I have to admit, I tuned out (and probably rolled my eyes). Because the reality is that food is never just food. Food is comfort. Food is family. It is security. It is politics. And it is loaded.

By Rachel Sarnoff, Interim Executive Director, Healthy Child Healthy World, Founder of EcoStiletto and LuxEco Living Advocate Steep yourself in information about rates spiking to epidemic proportions in childhood autism, asthma, cancer and more, and you’re bound to become a maternal hypochondriac.....At this point, I must sound like a broken record. But believe me when I tell you that the more I learn about the connection between a child’s environment and his or her health, the more I understand how incredibly high the stakes have come to be. This is about our children. It’s about their right to breathe. It’s about their right to live. It’s about doing everything that we can to prevent the nightmares that Nancy, Jim and Christine endured. If this is what we’re fighting for, I’m all in.

By Kerin Van Hoosear, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of Seasonal Cooking with Kerin Did you know that most kids’ meals in restaurants have twice as many calories as the meal you’d serve them at home? Not only are the majority of these meals laden with saturated fat and salt, but some even reach a whopping 1,000 calories! Such a meal is high in calories for an adult, and for a child that’s just ridiculous.

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...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World I've been fascinated by the long lasting power of orchids....

By Nancy Chuda Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Santa Ynez Valley Historical Museum and Carriage House LuxEcoLiving Custom Saddle...

By Rachel Sarnoff, Writer and Founder of EcoStiletto.com and MommyGreenest.com and LuxEco Advocate I’m a journalist by trade and I’d been writing about fashion and...

I love the idea of finding the best vintage designed places to shop. And American made for sure at The TeaBerry Cottage.

What happens when you pair artisan farmstead cheese from Cowgirl Creamery in northern California with some of the finest master cheesemakers from The Wisconsin Cheeseman and you add the finest varietal wines, both reds and white, from one the most magnificent wineries in the world?

By James and Nancy Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Santa Barbara California Earl Warren Showgrounds   "The most dangerous 8 seconds in sports."...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Whole body, mind and spirit Olivia helps others heal In July,...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World When you walk in the doors of the Brown Butter...

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...

It's no secret that when plants are harvested for their life sustaining and nutritional qualities that every part of the plant that can be used is.......Of the various plants that serve multiple purposes, the nutmeg plant is the only plant that yields not just one, but two spices.