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By Nancy Chuda Co-founder of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World. Recently, Jim and I payed a visit to Michael and Karin Cronan in Oakland California. After a great meal and three hours of delightful conversation, Michael handed us a gift. It came wrapped in a magnificent cardboard envelope, a serious Cronan design. We opened the meticulously wrapped present to find white linen paper with an embossed design, one that only Michael could have conceived. On the design the letters SHARE. were placed in the center of the most magnificent art work. In the giving spirit the Cronan's have brought to the world, through their genius work in branding names like Kindle, Tivo, and now Healthy Child Healthy World, we are the proud recipients of yet another one of their aspirational ideas. SHARE.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Prevention through education is worth more than cure In 1991, two...

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 (originally published on eHow.com) In the month of April 2010, the United States spent $25.5 billion on electricity, using a total of 266.3 billion kilowatthours. While those numbers include retail sales to residential, industrial and commercial sectors, household owners have the power to drastically decrease electricity use overall by dropping the residential portion. Home dwellers have many options for reducing their monthly electric bill while simultaneously helping the environment.

My new hero, Annie Leonard of the internet phenomenon The Story of Stuff, is at it again.  This time, in honor of World Water...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief  of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World "You step into the main greeting room and you know...

No matter how different we all may be, as humans, we are all we have. We must stop hating each other. We must stop refusing to see each other. We must decide to love each other.

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...

What the Frac?  Pollution from the use of thousands of chemicals to derive natural gas from shale is threatening the health of our children...

By F.R.E.E. Will, LuxEco Editorial Assistant, Author of In The Spice Cabinet series The purpose of this article and the series as a whole is to examine the ingredients that go into some of your favorite dishes, particularly the benefits some of the more familiar (and some not so familiar) herbs and spices contain.

LOHAS Second Annual Los Angeles Networking Event & Reception - Provides Forum for Green Business Leaders. LOHAS, the producers of the annual LOHAS Forum is...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant "Isn't it wonderful that none of us need wait a moment before starting to change the world," Penelope Jagessar Chaffer quoted from the Diary of Anne Frank after Nancy Chuda (Healthy Child Healthy World and LuxEco co-founder) presented her with the HCHW Moms-on-a-Mission honor for inspiration Wednesday night. Penelope is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the first black female director to receive a BAFTA award nomination. Above all, however, she is a mother, proven by her dedication to complete her most recent documentary, Toxic Baby, despite the adversity that arose in the process. In accord with Anne Frank’s legacy, she waited not a moment before embarking on her five-year journey to make this film and thus start to change the world, one mother at a time.

By: Nina Montée Karp, Executive Producer & Director, The Path of Wellness & Healing and LuxEco Advocate The reality is harsh: 1 in 8 of our mothers, daughters, sisters and friends will hear the words “You have breast cancer” at some time in their lives. In fact, every 3 minutes in the US, a new woman is given this frightening diagnosis and as many as 25% of these women will ultimately die of that disease. The figures are startling, but here is, perhaps, the most surprising number of all: Only 10% of women with breast cancer have a family predisposition to get it. In other words, 90% of all breast cancers are provoked not by inherited genes, but by environmental triggers. This is critically important because it means that in up to 90% of cases, breast cancer may be preventable!

Text By: Kammie Daniels; Video By: Marcus Inglizian, Basil Vernon and Kammie Daniels Sitting in the lively O!Burger, looking out over the bright space filled with, among others, neighborhood hipsters, middle-aged men direct from the gym, and couples in close conversation-all customers greeted by a genuinely friendly staff- Basil and I said to one another, “I like this place already.” The food, we’re happy to report, is equally appealing. From the french fries and condiments to the burgers and fresh buns, everything is organic at O!Burger, the first burger joint in Los Angeles serving exclusively 100% certified organic food.

Hands by Guido Daniele Hands by Guido Daniele By Florence "Flip" Ross, LuxEcoLiving Advocate and Contributor If I could bring the planet Earth, back to its natural beauty If I could sing its praise, and make the world assume its duty If I could make the industries clean up their foul pollution Our air, our water, would be clean, and would be the solution If I could force our corporations to help clean up our planet

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 Lush Huxley, LuxEco Editorial Assistant do something about this disaster? While BP is trying to make it look like everything is under control they are foolishly dismissing the people that are ready and willing to solve the problem. BP shunned these guys in their May 21st press release, where they publicly asked “Individuals and organizations… to discontinue the collection of hair for the hair boom.” Considering this rejection, one might expect Summer and her crew to flip the bird to beurocracy and start a renegade clean-up on their own. The truth is, however, that at the moment BP has all the dumpsters on lock down. To work around this, the team is working on getting contracts for an incinerator to dispose of the dirty booms. They are holding back the clean-up until they have a legally and logistically sound way to dispose of the refuse, which is good news for those who hate seeing the good guys end up with criminal records.

By: Annie Huang, LuxEco Living Marketing Assistant People bike for many reasons such as exercising, commuting from one place to another, or simply just touring around...

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 Nancy Chuda, Founder and Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Set amidst the blinding snow storms and cold of Wyoming's high country, LIME CREEK is a Faulkneresque glimpse into the lives of a family of people committed to solidarity, simplicity, and a respect for life. The story centers around Spencer Davis and his sons. Henry captures the intimacy and connectedness of their harsh outer lives that draw them even closer together as they all bear witness to the eternal cycles of life and death; where the reveries of innocence trumpet the hard edges of experience.

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant At the March 2010 CeBIT, the world’s leading tradeshow in the digital industry, Global eSustainability Initiative (GESI) announced an important new member. Research in Motion, which makes Blackberry, will be joining the organization. That’s right, Blackberry is changing its color…to Green. The widely popular smart-phone maker has come under recent scrutiny for its practices, or lack thereof, regarding sustainability. One Greenpeace report stated, “the Blackberry Pearl, which lost a lot of points in the life cycle criteria and for poor energy efficiency, and did not even meet the Energy Star standard.”

In Tom Shadyac's Film "I Am," he poses a solution to a battered world: Compassion- It will right whats wrong with the world. By Nancy Chuda c0-founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World As a society we are not immune to disasters-- not in the face of mother nature who rules. Man does not have dominion over nature. But what man instinctively has is the desire to help those in need. Having compassion is the only way we will survive through disaster and hardship.

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 Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Travels without Journey...well sort of... We traveled to this beautiful haven...

In a rare look at the Deepwater Horizon rig, Kerry Sanders from The Today Show flew over the oil-soaked Gulf of Mexico.  As far...

Travels with Journey The Cliffs Resort is a 5 star Doggie Haven Hotel It's a classic experience! The book, Eloise at the Plaza, the story about...

Journey left his heart in San Francisco and was thrilled to be invited back to the one and only Fairmont Hotel. This time our boy wonder got to stay in the Tower Suite named after the Spreckels family. What a treat!

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. My apologies for being a few days late with my third...

By Kerin Van Hoosear, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of Seasonal Cooking with Kerin Perfect for autumnal cooking, try your hand at Roasted Butternut Squash Mac ‘N’ Cheese (and don't forget to buy your ingredients local and organic!) First, to roast the butternut squash you'll need: one hot oven 1 butternut squash (medium sized), peeled and cubed (about 1/2" x 1/2") 1/2 tsp of nutmeg 1 1/2 tsp sage salt and pepper olive oil

When I was a little girl, I remember my mother saying to me, “Nighty, night, don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Fortunately for me, I had no idea what she was talking about, as I had never encountered a bed bug. But that may not be the case for millions of people the world over, as more and more bed bug infestations are currently being reported

By Lisa Adams, Designer and CEO of LA Closet Design and LuxEco Advocate Maximizing a closet is the number one issue for most people, and...

By Nancy Chuda Founder of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World For those of you who have never been to the land down under, Australia, why not consider visiting Olivia Newton-John's homeland in 2011. I have been blessed with Olivia's friendship for nearly forty years and have traveled with her throughout this magnificent country many times. We gave birth to our daughters, Chloe and Colette in 1986, (six weeks apart) it wasn't too long after that we boarded Qantas Airlines loaded down with car seats, bottles and prams, hoping sleep would be a safe refuge while in flight. Thirteen hours. No way!

By Lacey Szczepanik, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant I have two beautiful pet babies; Diggs, my proud, empathetic and cautious boxer, and Mo, my silly, sleepy Staffordshire terrier. I take my role as their guardian very seriously. When my pet Diggs was two years old, he was diagnosed with mast cell tumors, a form of cancer prevalent among boxers. I was devastated. I went through all the stages of grief. Denial; “Excuse me Mrs. Veterinarian, my dog has a small ‘bump’ on his side. Bump. Not lump. Lumps are scary. This is simply a ‘bump’.” Anger... directed more at God than anyone in particular. I lost Diggs’ brother much too early in life and found it cruel to be faced with another premature goodbye. Bargaining. Depression; full on who-needs-food and why-would-I-get-out-of-my-pajamas-or-leave-the-house-when-I-could-sit here-and-stare-at-my-beautiful-dog kind of depression. And finally Acceptance, and by acceptance I mean he’s alive today and he’ll be alive tomorrow SO THERE. Maybe the anger and denial are still sprinkled on top of the acceptance. A shocking 20-25% of our furry four legged pets end up dying prematurely due to Cancer. (Perdue University Department of Veterinarian).

We got lucky! Six years ago we adopted the most "labradorable" puppy.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World "Reiner's new flick reaps a pot of gold...