Lifestyle

By: Molly Rovero LuxEco Editorial Assistant A recent report created for North Carolina’s Waste Awareness & Reduction Network (NC WARN) was titled “ Solar and...

By Alanna Brown, a LuxEcoLiving Advocate, creator of Brown House Online, and author of Moonpennies The gatekeepers are gone. The agent, the editor, the lawyer,...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World LuxEcoLiving Hotel Le Meurice Paris the Salvador Dali...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant These days, any given suited politician, uniformed worker, outfitted student, or swaddled infant wears a garment no far cry from that of Iron Man. Synthesized and industrialized just like the incredible transforming suit, our clothing comes with all sorts of modern finishes. We purchase the wrinkle-free, stain resistant, flame retardant, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-static, odor-resistant, permanent-press, non-shrink fabric, smoothed-to-boot with softening agents. But the irony in this is that these resistant retardant protectants end up doing more harm than good. Every anti-fill-in-the-blank means more chemicals in your clothing.

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: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Imagine a world without fossil fuel powered cars! This is what the Los Angeles chapters of the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Architects teamed up to do when they created Rail LA, a group dedicated to "healing the wounds of past infrastructure projects" and helping transition from "an automobile based society to a transit based one." They seek to raise awareness about the myriad of benefits that high speed rail can have for Southern California, such as a reduction in emissions, mitigation of traffic congestion, and countless other environmental concerns related to society’s daily reliance on fossil-fuel-powered transit.

A hearty "Haha" or fit of laughter may just be the key to a happier and healthier life. By: Kammie Daniels LuxEco Editorial Assistant A person must smile nearly a quarter of a million times to create one wrinkle. 15 seconds of laughter alone can add two days to your life span. One hearty chuckle burns over three calories. In today’s image and age-conscious society, where children want to grow up, adults want to hit the rewind button, and those in their twenties are considered to be in the "prime of their life", modern research is revealing that laughter is much more than just funny business.

By Jessica Borges, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant Move over Great Wall of China, the Great Green Wall is coming and it’s much more colorful and eco-friendly. In an effort to subdue the advancing Sahara Desert and lessen drought in Africa, the Great Green Wall will consist of a band of trees over 4,000 miles long and nine miles wide.

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. UGH. It’s PMS Week.  I cannot tell a lie. I have the...

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....

By  Florence “Flip” Ross a LuxEcoLiving Contributor         I never thought I could disclose My deepest feelings, held inside To put them down in honest prose Would...

    To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.~ Ralph Waldo Emerson The Post Ranch Inn is the most...

By Merry Elkins, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Ken Kragen knows what it’s like to accomplish the impossible. He’s done it time and time, again. This time every California Community College Campus and Student is his beneficiary with his Hands Across California campaign on April 17th, 2011.

  Le Train Bleu is a best kept secret. Even most parisien's won't share. Dine surrounded by beautiful Belle Epoque artistry, savor the food and wine...

Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Twenty two years ago Jim and I lost our...

By Nina Montee Karp a LuxEcoLiving  advocate for womens health and founding member of Healthy Child Healthy World Reposted courtesy of The Huffington Post You'd never...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World   Have you ever had a center stage moment when you...

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 Nancy and James Chuda founder of LuxEcoLiving and co-founders of Healthy Child Healthy World The Best Cheese in the World Series LuxEcoLiving caught these cheese...

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant First up on our journey through Lotusland is the Lotus Garden: a center for spirituality. Lotus flowers are significant to many eastern cultures, such as the Buddhist and Hindu religions. This beautiful flower emerges from the murky depths of mud and contrasts the dark water with its vibrant petals.

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series I apologize for my absence the past few weeks, but I was squatting at the Betty Ford Clinic in a serious rehab program. Unbeknownst to me (that would be called denial) in addition to my toxic, time consuming addiction to Facebook (who, by the way, is okay with our just being “friends”), I also discovered, when I no longer had Facebook to be my “other relationship,” that I had a pretty sick and needy relationship with my cell phone.

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant It seems BP has finally begun to make good on weeks of promise to fix the Deepwater Horizon wellhead that has been gushing crude oil into the Gulf Coast. It has taken nearly 3 months for them to initiate a plan that might hold back the oil, but at last, crews worked through the weekend and fitted a new 150,000-pound cap to the wellhead on Monday. They began tests Tuesday, which may take up to 48 hours, to see if the cap will be strong enough to temporarily contain the oil and gases.

By Stephanie Nickolson, Healthy Green Interior Designer and LuxEco Advocate Originally published at Natural Home & Garden Air pollution abounds in our homes and businesses, but many air purification systems are not safe to use. A Key to Healthy Green Design in your home starts with purifying indoor air quality with plants. Have you ever walked into a store, restaurant or other environment and couldn’t stand the heavily scented aroma that someone used to try and cover up another (worse) scent? Well, I have. It’s one of my favorite stores that I frequent and whenever I enter the washroom, I cannot wait to get out of there as the air is so heavily perfumed it makes me feel ill. This is not an effective remedy, nor is it healthy. Anything that exudes that much fragrance is certainly loaded with phthalates. Most commercial air fresheners mask odors but do nothing to remediate them.

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

The first time I fell in love it was 1999. I was 11 years old, and the James Bond film “The World Is not Enough” starring Denise Richards had just come out.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Health World Getting older. It's not easy. Nora always found a way to...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Emily and Robbie Wilson pay homage to the...

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 Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, Executive Director/CEO, Healthy Child Healthy World and a LuxEcoLiving Advocate   Is there a link between the environment and illnesses such as...

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: 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.

In its first year, HSUS has started a program called Pets for Life (PFL) which is addressing this and other major concerns.By reaching out to the communities and offering assistance with service needs free of charge their mission is to not only change the face of poverty for pets but infuse optimism and inspiration for their owners.

Michael Bernard Beckwith, Founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, has galvanized a community of thousands of followers in his trans-denominational movement. Beckwith's ability to...

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...