Lifestyle

By Nancy Chuda, Founder of LuxEcoLiving.com Betty White makes 88 look like a new-aged hippie whose secret is more than just getting good dietary fiber....

Scientists with the National Institutes of Health are on a mission—being called the Human Microbiome Project—to find out what these microbes do exactly. Which ones are fighting for or against us, and how might they have the potential to counteract disease?

...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 Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and  co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Artist Mary Nohr Courtesy of LuxEcoLiving "She's got your back...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant For those who spend the extra dough to shop organically, it is fair to expect that a market touting the sale of only organic goods should supply consumers with fodder and non-fodder products on an even keel. One such market, the well-known and widely shopped Whole Foods, is making sure those expectations are met. As of June 1, 2011, the organic grocery chain will require that all personal care products and cosmetics making an “organic” claim can prove it.

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Hollywood has a new act, even better than Avatar-inspired CGI and 3D—it is a movement to create cleaner, greener production. On August 11, The Producers Guild of America launched an extensive listing of U.S.-based products and services that are eco-friendly. At www.greenproductionguide.com filmmakers and the like will find green vendors in an array of production departments, ranging from craft-services, to set design, to hair and make-up.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World The french may think they know it all or even have...

Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief  of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Step back in time. Over twenty years ago when...

By Florence “Flip” Ross, LuxEco Advocate We are all familiar with the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” but when I travel through Israel I can’t help but think “When in Israel, do as the Israelis do.” How remarkable they are at accomplishing the impossible. When they tried to build a harbor in Ashdod, they called in all the experts they could think of to help them do it. The experts from Holland (whom for sure they thought could accomplish this, since their country too was below sea level) told them it was impossible. Imagine their disappointment, but not to be deterred they said: “Okay, we’ll do it ourselves,” and do it themselves they did.

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Join LuxEco Living as we explore the wonder and magic of Lotusland in Santa Barbara California. In today’s episode...

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. Fire! Aim! Ready! Or as Willie Wonka would say, “Strike that. ...

By Grace Robertson, LuxEco Advocate Keeping Austin Weird With…South Congress Trailers! Austin is a great place to live because of its’ fun people, great music, and uniqueness. Its’ motto is Keep Austin Weird, which is a perfect name for this individualistic place. In my opinion, walking in downtown Austin is a whole different experience from walking in any other city.

Meridith Baer is a storyteller. For the past 15 years, Meridith has designed interiors by imagining who might live in them and telling their...

By  Florence Ross, author, poet and  LuxEcoLiving Advocate Indescribable In my lexicon of languages, of all the words I know I cannot find the proper words for...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. This year Healthy Child Healthy World is celebrating its twentieth...

By Kerin Van Hoosear, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of Season Cooking with Kerin In a country where childhood obesity rates have more than tripled in the last thirty years, it is refreshing to see teachers like Mark Wagner combat that statistical nightmare. As head of the Organic Garden Club at Palmquist Elementary School in Oceanside, Calif., he’s getting kids excited about gardening and eating right. “I really wanted to promote nutrition awareness. That was my main goal,” Wagner says. When he arrived at Palmquist four years ago, the school garden was a fenced-in patch of waist-high weeds. Now it’s filled with ground crops and fruit trees that the students are not just excited to grow, but to eat as well.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Menopause is not inherited it's a fact of...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Needless to say, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has devastated the United States’...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World For most people the diagnosis of cancer is a daunting...

By: Nancy Chuda, co-founder of LuxEcoLiving.com and Healthy Child Healthy World "One need not be in California long before he feels his soul beginning to stir. The air is magnetized...the consciousness awakens ...the soul must speak." Ganna Walska, the flamboyant opera singer who wrote those words in her memoir, had not merely tired of New York. After a six-week stay in the Hollywood Hills in 1940, the 53-year-old Mrs. Walska truly believed that her destiny lay in this "sunny land" where "people are decidedly more interested in your being than in your pocket."

By Lacey Szczepanik, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant It only requires around 60 seconds of listening to the news to conclude that it’s pretty bad out...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World LuxEcoLiving's founders Nancy and James Chuda with Journey   It's...

The Fairmont Miramar Hotel and Bungalows gets 5 Paws! Excellent location, fabulous service and extra treats for Journey.

Yay if you recycle!!!  But there is more to the story! Annie Leonard's "Story of Stuff" is pure genius! Take 20 minutes out and think...

By Alanna Brown a LuxEcoLiving Advocate and creator of Brown House Online Developments in digital media spiked in the 21st century and have yet to...

By Jessica Borges, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant We can all thank the sun for making trash disposal a more eco-friendly task; and while we’re at it, we can also thank the creators of BigBelly Solar Trash Cans. These solar powered beefy looking trash cans are sprouting up on street corners in several metropolitan areas with goals of being more cost, time and energy efficient.

The Advent of Lignocellulosic Ethanol is a Biomass Boon By Derin Richardson, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant There are a myriad of alternative fuel breakthroughs that been discovered this century--hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol, biodiesel, etc.--but there is one, recently discovered energy source that you either may not have heard or know little of. Enter leaf biofuel. As it is scientifically labeled, lignocellulosic ethanol is the progeny of refining biomasses such as wood, grasses and/or any non-edible parts of a plant. It is a potentially sustainable and renewable biofuel, like using vegetable oil to produce biodiesel, however the insubordinate and resillient nature of this biomass make it problematic for industrial applications.

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

By Nancy Chuda founder of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World "There is a fountain of youth; it is your mind, your talents, the creativity...

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 Janine Johnson, Founder of Green Wave and LuxEco Advocate Where do you start in telling your tale? Typically it’s an introduction, and...

By Alanna Brown, a LuxEco Living Advocate, creator of Brown House Online, and author of Moonpennies   We all love the feel of a new paperback...

By Merry Elkins, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Best known for being a star-maker, Ken Kragen, who is also an author, teacher, and film and television producer, has charted the career course of some our most celebrated entertainers including Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, Tricia Yearwood, Olivia Newton John, The Bee Gees, The Smothers Brothers, Harry Chapin and more; but nothing he has accomplished in his illustrious career has ever achieved the significance or the scope of his philanthropic work. For breathing life into Hands Across America in the 1980s where young and old alike joined hands across the country to call attention to hunger and homelessness here in the US; for setting in motion and organizing the recording We Are the World, that brought together 45 prominent recording artists including Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and Bruce Springsteen to raise $64 million to feed people in Africa and for founding USA for Africa to distribute the money, he received the United Nations Peace Medal, something few civilians receive and an honor for which he is most proud.

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and co-founders of Healthy Child Healthy World     Santa Barbara's San Ysidro Ranch is a posh, plush puppy...

By Bethany Colson, Managing Editor of LuxEcoLiving.com After months of rally efforts, raising donations and even conducting neighborhood bake sales, the Hollywood sign has finally...