Food

Organic Produce and Sustainable Farms are Celebrated at by Myra Goodman at Earthbound Farms Excerpted from The Earthbound Cook Sweet-tart and succulent, strawberries are a true joy of spring and summer. This light and delicious salad uses whole heirloom lettuce leaves as a beautiful and flavorful base for the delightful blending of sweet strawberries, creamy goat cheese, and toasted walnuts. The flavors are melded perfectly by a quick-to-make balsamic vinaigrette that features toasted walnut oil.

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By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Nancy, LuxEco founder and garden guru recommended that I try the Topsy Turvy. Excited about the success of her flourishing tomato plants at The Green Home Under the H she showed me pictures of them on her Blackberry one day while we were chatting. This eco-friendly planter would be perfect for my busy schedule she said, no weeding necessary! Aside from the initial planting, all that Topsy Turvy requires is watering once daily.

Organic Produce and Sustainable Farms are Celebrated at by Myra Goodman at Earthbound Farms Excerpted from The Earthbound Cook I discovered this amazingly simple but intensely flavorful pasta dish when our family traveled to Italy a few summers ago. It was so memorable that it made the top of my list of recipes to try to replicate. Chunks of succulent eggplant get a quick sauté to set their flavor, then are simmered in a light marinara sauce until tender. At the last minute, cubes of mozzarella di bufalo are added, quickly becoming soft and creamy as they melt into the sauce. This dish goes together in no time, especially if you have marinara sauce on hand. If you don’t have time to make my Heirloom Tomato Sauce or the Quick Tomato Sauce, you can fast-track the recipe by using a store-bought version. A word about the eggplant, which is at the heart of this dish: Salting is not required, but it’s important to sauté the eggplant over high heat in the amount of oil specified. You need very high heat to force the eggplant to brown and develop flavor. In the absence of high heat, the vegetable will simply soak up the oil, become soggy, and taste fl at. I serve this dish with a warmed baguette to sop up the extra sauce, and with a light salad of lettuce and endive dressed only with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper.

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By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World   The Brothers know how to bring home the...

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and co-founders of Healthy Child Healthy World West Hollywood California, The Palm Restaurant Photos courtesy of LuxEcoLiving...

Leader in the organic produce business and in sustainable farming practices, Myra Goodman inspires us with eco-tips and organic recipes with her new book The Earthbound Cook. organic produce sustainable farm earthbound cooking By Sahar Ghaffari, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Sustainable farming business woman, Myra Goodman is a popular cookbook author and co-founder of the organic Earthbound Farm, which she started in 1984 with her husband Drew. Her passion for organic foods has catapulted Earthbound Farm into the country's largest grower of organic produce. Myra and Drew's organic and sustainability initiatives have garnered them numerous awards and honors including Global Green USA’s Corporate Environmental Leadership Award and the Organic Trade Association’s Organic Leadership Award. As the author of two successful cookbooks, Food to Live By, and now The Earthbound Cook, Myra is spreading the message that fresh organic foods and produce are not only healthy and delicious, but vital to the sustainability of the environment.

By Nancy and James Chuda founders LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Santa Ynez California, twilight time It's a marriage of two of the most celebrated...

via MindBodyGreen If this isn't an eye-opening image, I don't know what is. This graphic from Visual Economics breaks down what the average American consumes in...

By: Molly Cimikoski, Editorial Assistant What if products that are marketed to assist in living a healthier lifestyle, are actually the ones making us sick?...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World You don't want to miss the breakfast or the bed...

By Nancy Chuda founder and editor-in-chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. Do drop in when in San Luis Obispo. Visit the...

Introduction by Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and Co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. If you haven't had a chance to...

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World A Restaurant Review: S.Y. Kitchen is a dream come true! We...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World To B or not to B at the Four Seasons...

Fight cancer, anemia and high blood pressure with this delicious hummus recipe. By Brooke Rewa, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Add beets to your farmer's market list this week and pull out your food processor, we're making beet hummus. Not only is this hummus recipe simple and flavorful, it's packed with all the benefits of typical hummus plus the added punch of nutrient loaded beets.

Forrest Gump may have been on to something when he compared life to chocolates. You really never know what you’re gonna get in a box of chocolates, do you? The truth behind chocolate is more bitter than sweet. The Ivory Coast produces 40% of the world's chocolate, and it just so happens to also be notorious for this little thing called child slavery. Children, both local and from other third world countries, are sold to farms in this area where they are physically abused while working in risky and inhumane conditions. Some children are sold into the trade by parents who are tricked into believing their children will have better lives at the farm. Others are trafficked, stolen from their families, lured by the promise of…chocolate. In these farms they are forced to work 60 hour weeks with little or no food (depending on their performance on the field). These children lose their fundamental human rights when they enter these farms and “modern” society turns a blind eye to the atrocities. Every time we buy a box of chocolate that is not fair trade stamped, we (often unknowingly) endorse child slavery.

By Nancy Chuda, Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEco Living and Founder of Healthy Child Healthy World While amping up for this year's Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, CA and getting the LuxEco team ready for our "Green Light" Initiative in which we search out and highlight the best natural, organic and eco-friendly products that the Green Movement has to offer, I can't help but to reflect on the evolving nature of "GREEN." Jim and I attended the first Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, CA almost two decades ago... and it was far from gluten-free. We were young, energetic, and held an undying faith that our world was unnaturally occurring; wearing Birkenstock and eating jerky we found our tribe. Or did we? back then, fair-trade was a hearty handshake.

By Bethany Colson, Managing Editor of LuxEcoLiving.com America today is seeing more people being isolated into a world of junk food and unhealthy foods. The U.S is rapidly turning into an unhealthy America with something called a "food desert". What's a food desert? According to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, a food desert is a “place where there is not easy access, affordable access, reasonable access to fresh fruits and vegetables — to a grocery store.” It could be an inner city or a rural town but what they both have in common, besides the low income economy, is their lack of access to fresh produce and to healthy food alternatives. Instead, convenience stores and fast foods with their highly processed foods, packed with refined sugars, trans fats and preservatives are ubiquitous and commonplace. As a result, families are left with few options to serving nutritious foods and their children suffer the consequences. With new generations being fed these types of foods, it is only a matter of time before this growing unhealthy America can see any change whatsoever.

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 Sahar Ghaffari, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant In a recent interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, former president Bill Clinton announced that his recent 24 pound weight loss was thanks to a vegan diet. The 64 year old Clinton went on an “essentially plant-based diet” living primarily on vegetables, legumes, fruit, and protein supplements mixed in with almond milk in the mornings.

It's a jewel of a hideaway in the confines of one of the wealthiest locations in all the world...   Palm Beach Florida. What The...

By Hannah Canvasser LuxEco Editorial Assistant This recipe can be as simple or complex as you would like. Whether you are looking to show off your spring honed barbecue skills and house make your ingredients, or pick up already-made items from your local market, these sliders will leave omnivores confused about their eating-orientation, vegetarians thrilled to be dining at your place, and the neighbors wanting an invite.

By Hannah Canvasser, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Take a break this spring with a refreshing strawberry basil lemonade. With the first strawberries of the season, and a few simple ingredients straight from your farmers market, this extravagant looking beverage will have your friends wondering where you've hidden your bartender. The trick is with the effortless simple syrup, which not only dilutes the fresh squeezed lemon juice, but gives the lemonade its sweetness as well as it's basil background flavor.

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Carmel by the Sea  at The Carmel Country Inn   Like the candy, Carmel...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Reporting from Casa Madrona in Sausalito California A Restaurant Review           ...

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...

Vegan and non-vegan chocoholics can all huddle around the campfire with this easy chocolate recipe for Vegan Smores. By Nancy Chuda, Co-founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving.com and Healthy Child Healthy World I have so many fond memories of being huddled around a beach bonfire, making smores with friends and family. There were never enough ingredients or coat hangars to go around. But if you are like me you will want to treat your friends to a new twist on an old delectable standard with delicious vegan smores. With this easy chocolate recipe for vegan smores, you will win the favor of every chocoholic!

Nutritional Facts can easily help shape your Figure: How to get vegetables in that breakfast Cereal. By Brooke Rewa, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Pulfoods is bringing us a healthy breakfast that both parents and kids can get behind; Crunchfuls cereal. Made from beans and lentils this cereal is the perfect way to sneak in a full serving of vegetables first thing in the morning. With 4 grams of protein and only 3 grams of sugar this gluten-free, natural product is a great alternative to processed, sugary breakfast cereals.

By Nancy Chuda and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and co-founders of Healthy Child Healthy World   Experience ultimate green luxury, fine dining, the spa...

By Jessica Borges, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant As I sit in a cozy coffee shop with the soy latte I was once enjoying, I suddenly wish I had opted for skim milk instead. With my laptop fired up, I stumble upon a website revealing the numerous dangers of what most deem to be a healthy part of one’s diet: soy. Praised for its reputation as a good source of protein while being low in saturated fats, soy is a popular choice for many. What the soy latte orderers of the world aren’t aware of, are the many underlying health risks that come with heavy or long-term use of this popular coffee supplement.

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 Wendy Ross Kaplan, LuxEcoLiving Advocate The term “gluten-free” is becoming more mainstream these days, when a trip to the grocery store can be rewarded with more healthy choices for shoppers. But before the 1960’s, only nutritionists and a handful of health nuts knew what gluten free meant. Nowadays, “gluten-free” has almost a cult following of otherwise regular folks seeking better health benefits and those suffering from diagnosed celiac disease, its varying manifestations and debilitating effects.

Organic grape farmers feel they are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the current labeling of organic wines. By Brooke Rewa, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Organic shopping can be confusing. Organic wine shopping, even more so. Many of us don't have time to stop and read every ingredient on the products we are looking to purchase at the grocery store. This is why we look for known "stamps of approval." The biggest stamp we look for when shopping organic is that of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA sets very high standards for what can be labeled certified organic; which is why we as consumers trust them. They have taken these standards to new levels in the wine industry and it could be doing more harm than good for the world of organics. When perusing your local grocer for an organic wine you will find two different labels; one clearly labeled certified organic and one labeled "made with organic grapes". This is where things get confusing and where organic grape farmers get upset. In order to be labeled certified organic by the USDA wine must be made from 100% organic grapes and contain no added sulfites. Sulfites occur naturally when grapes are fermented to make wine, it is impossible for any wine to be completely sulfite-free. Wine makers have been adding sulfites for centuries. Sulfur protects wine from oxidizing, allows for a longer shelf life and prevents unwanted organisms from growing in th