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By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” In the 1970s, several senators began to recognize a literal truth behind this Chinese proverb. They realized the importance of teaching the man how to provide his own food source. When the government grasped the self-sufficiency and power of being able to fish, or in this case garden, they began granting $100,000 per year to gardening programs. This evolved to $100,000 to each of 20 metro areas around the United States, one of them being Los Angeles.

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 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: 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 "All that is authentic and true to one’s...

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...

You might think that the greatest political, cultural, economic shock of our lifetimes, right here in the USA, would unleash a torrent of salient and incisive commentary. There's been some good, some confused, some angry. But mostly what I've seen is a kind of mouth-open shocked.

Just last month marks the fifth year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the catastrophic natural disaster that claimed more than 1,800 lives in the Gulf coast region with damages totaling $80 billion. After the devastation of the hurricane and consequent flooding, it seemed to its residents and many around the world that New Orleans, specifically, was making a painstakingly slow recovery. Frustrated by the sluggish progress, actor Brad Pitt founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2007 to help rebuild the hardest hit region of New Orleans, the Lower 9th ward.

Pope Francis, called the unfettered pursuit of money "the dung of the devil." Capitalism is key when it comes to Apple.

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant The Carbon-Free Home by Stephen and Rebekah Hren boasts “36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit” as...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Come fall of 2010, Washington state will begin construction on the U.S.’s first-ever electric highway. All being made possible by a $1.32 million federal grant, 10 level-3 charging stations will line the Interstate-5 at 80-mile intervals, from Oregon to Canada. Electric car commuters—now behind the wheel of newer versions, such as the Leaf and the Volt—will have plenty of leeway along the I-5 before the 100-mile charging range of their vehicle runs out.

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

A book review by Nancy Chuda, Co-founder of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World of Luka And The Fire of Life, Salman Rushdie, Random House Jim and I were treated to a magical evening: time spent listening to Salman Rushdie in person at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles. Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie or Urdu sael main rvdi/ is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He achieved notability with his second novel, Midnight Children (1981), which won the Booker Prize in 1981. Most of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent and his style is classified as magical realism mixed with historical fiction. One theme that has captivated readers is the connections he weaves between Eastern and Western worlds.

LA Pollution: It may not go away any time soon! By: Linsley Oaks, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant Los Angeles: home smog contamination, congested freeways, smog, and long commutes. “No body walks in LA” as that famous pop song of the 80's astutely observes. And for the most part, they are right: no body does walk in LA. Which is creating more and more pollution in LA. Even the most casual observer covering ground in this megalopolis will take note of how few pedestrians there are. It is a car culture; people sometimes cover 40 + miles in a day just to get to work and back.

By Dow-Yung Kou, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Have you ever been at a loss for what to do with tissue paper or wrapping paper that you get during the holidays. It usually just accumulates, and by the next year, the wrapping paper looks too tattered to reuse and you end up throwing it away. Well here is a perfect solution! Make ornaments out of them!

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 and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World There are reasons why you should care and support the California Rangeland...

By: Molly Cimikoski, Editorial Assistant With the latest Kellogg recall virtually banning several of the sugary cereals that children (and the young at heart) have...

Actor, director, producer, and social activist George Clooney has been journeying throughout Southern Sudan this past week in an attempt to bring attention to the war-torn area. The region is three months away from an independence vote which could possibly see the largest country in Africa split into two sovereign nations.

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.

Author of Family Dinner and Producer of Inconvenient Truth, Laurie David shares her concern about antibiotics in food production and what that means for the overall health concerns. By Laurie David, Author, Producer and LuxEco Advocate Originally posted on Huffington Post I worry. A lot. My worry gene works overtime. A doctor once told me it's called an "overactive checker" (or as I like to think of it, my OC). As far as afflictions go, it's not terrible. OC's are good to have around. They see danger from miles away. They pay close attention. Motherhood can be particularly tough on OC's. We know too well that there's no such thing as "out of sight out of mind." But over the years I have come to terms with my checker, and now consider it a trusted friend. It was my checker that helped me raise my kids with a minimum of cuts and scratches, rear three dogs from eight-week-old puppies, and eventually opened my eyes to the looming dangers of global warming. It's the same trusted checker that is screaming, "Wake up! Wake up!" on the issue of antibiotic resistance.

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed landmark bill AB 1437, which requires that all shell (whole) eggs sold in the state of California be laid by cage-free hens as of 2015. This means farmers have five years to get hens out of the over-stuffed henhouses and into a space where they can stand and spread their wings without constriction.

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate Lori Weitzner's products have been seen on movie sets, an Olympic Village, the Wynn resorts, prestigious stores such as Tiffanys’ and even museum walls. Important design museums have been exhibiting and acquiring Lori’s work for their permanent collections including London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and Montreal’s Musee Decoratifs. In 2006 she was the subject of her first solo exhibition at the Institute of Arts in Minneapolis. Lori is also the recipient of more than 20 awards and honors, including the esteemed Best of Neocon.

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. Gosh, I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to write this letter. I...

I'm not going to drop into the expected female rhetoric as to why Hillary...I will leave that to Gloria Steinem and all of her predecessors who paved the way for this act of liberation at a time when our world needs to heal more than ever.

By Nancy Chuda founder and editor-in-chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World The Worlds Greatest Cheese and Cheesemongers Before Adam Moskowitz found his...

    Green Lighting By Lush Huxley, Editorial Assistant LuxEco Living On a bright and sunny Wednesday in Los Angeles, I am sitting in a pleasant backyard under...

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. It all started when I updated my Facebook status this past week. Bernadette Bowman thinks that children should be carded at Starbucks. This bold statement after witnessing an nine-year old boy, who I honestly mistook as a “little person” speaking in tongues, spouting the following in rapid-fire speed: “Venti half-white-mocha-half-caff-vanilla, easy ice, with 3 shots, pour affogato (this means: to drown) with extra whip, and caramel drizzle frappuccino.” Parents, it’s three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon: DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE??

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 James and Nancy Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World What a dream! We spent our Midnight in Paris and every waking...

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....

When it comes to the holidays I am always looking for an excuse to make something different.

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.