z

Shopping and eating seasonally from your local farmers market tastes better, has higher nutritional values, promotes healthy eating habits, reduces environmental damage from shipping foods, and can even be kinder on your wallet. Farmers Market Eating Habits Seasonal SpringBy Hannah Canvasser, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Shopping at your neighborhood grocery store, many don’t realize that most of the abundant supply of produce comes from thousands of miles away, and is picked before ripeness to give consumers what they demand. Who would have thought that we could have peaches in October and butternut squash in June! Although off-season and premature picked produce will color and soften on the way to market, taste and nutritional value will be lost. Understanding what produce is available during certain seasons, and shopping at local farmers markets can change these eating habits. Here are a few reasons to stay local and seasonal with your eating habits: Farmers Market Eating Habits Seasonal SpringTaste and Nutritional Value: There are many products available at local farmers markets that will not only be rich in flavor, but high in nutritional value due to ripeness when picked and seasonality. Artichokes, asparagus, avocados, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, corn, red pepper, green beans, peas, and beets are all great spring vegetable additions to your kitchen. Try a spinach artichoke dip as an appetizer or some tasty grilled portabella mushroom sliders to entertain with friends. Mango, pineapple, grapefruit, kumquats, lemons, oranges, tangerines, strawberries, cherries, nectarines, peaches, plums, melons, and lavender are very popular throughout spring and will enhance your eating habits. With your pantry now stocked, relax with a refreshing strawberry basil lemonade and fresh avocado grapefruit salad, or indulge with some lavender bread pudding.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Saying goodbye to a feathered friend We lost her yesterday. It...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World.   In Paris, fashion takes on new heights when it comes...

By: Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant for Resplendent Repurposing series If you have seniors on your gift list, you may be struggling with what to buy them. The best, and greenest answer may be: Nothing, as in no-thing. It’s the old story: What to get the person who has everything? Most older people have more junk than they’ll ever need – and are trying to get rid of it. Very often they’re downscaling, going from a multi-bedroom house to a smaller one, an apartment or into assisted living. The last thing they want is one more dust-catcher. So don’t buy them any, unless they’ve specifically requested it. (Ever wonder what percentage of landfill contents are made up of unwanted gifts? I’ll bet the number is staggering.)

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.

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...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Cows have a voice too! If you can stomach, actually bare...

Steve Jobs might find a way to cut to the core of a major human rights issue impacting the health of children who get their daily dose of vitamins from eating apples. You can write to him sjobs@apple.com and let him know he's got to get on this issue ASAP.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Here's a LuxEcoLiving4U time saver. It's called Hay Handle.           Time...

By Caleb Penn author, producer, director and Jacob Breslauer, director of photography and editor. Caleb Penn Mocking Birds Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in...

By: Will Lana, Green Investor and LuxEco Advocate If you find yourself traveling in the Four Corners region of Northwestern New Mexico you’ll see many...

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...

How to navigate high fructose corn syrup and sugar substitutes to avoid harmful artificial sweeteners in favor of plant based alternatives. By: Molly Cimikoski, Editorial Assistant What if products that contain high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners, which are marketed to assist in living a healthier lifestyle, are actually the ones making us sick? As of 2007, American consumers were spending 21 billion dollars 21 billion dollars annually on diet, or low calorie, drinks. From the outsider perspective, this still seems like progress compared to the alternative statistic, with 64% of Americans qualifying as overweight or obese. But what if you found out that the sugar alternatives that many diet products promote are not only ineffective as weight loss methods, but are also dangerous to your health?

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Designers and scientists have been working on different approaches to transportation issues as they become a greater concern with the ever-growing population. China has begun to address their own issues of overcrowding and transportation with their new concept busses that will drive above cars. Imagine driving through a tunnel that is moving above you!

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate Lori Dennis’ desire to be part of the solution to waste and pollution in the interior design and construction fields led her to write “Green Interior Design” which came out last month. Along with beautiful images of her work, it is a manual of resources for anyone wishing to create green interiors.

It's a safe bet to say that there aren't too many people in the world who haven't experienced the warm soothing smell of cinnamon as it slowly bakes into your grandmother's extra syrupy sweet potatoes, or as it blends with the apples and buttery crust from your mom's apple pie. What most of us, particularly in the Western World, fail to realize is that we are victims of a very cruel irony.

By: Linsley Oaks Green is the new pink, black, and red.  And I am not talking about runway spring fashions.  I'm talking ecological wisdom and...

By Kerin Van Hoosear, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of Seasonal Cooking with Kerin Did you know that most kids’ meals in restaurants have twice as many calories as the meal you’d serve them at home? Not only are the majority of these meals laden with saturated fat and salt, but some even reach a whopping 1,000 calories! Such a meal is high in calories for an adult, and for a child that’s just ridiculous.

By Zhenya Gershman artist, art historian, educator and contributing author to LuxEcoLiving I “met” my parents not long after they first fell in love.  I...

By Rachel Sarnoff, Writer and Founder of EcoStiletto.com and MommyGreenest.com and LuxEco Advocate I’m a journalist by trade and I’d been writing about fashion and...

New USDA regulations for organic milk have just been adopted earlier this month on February 12, 2010. Family farmers, animal rights activists and organic...

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...

Cancer Patient’s Best Friend By SULEIKA JAOUAD reposted from The New York Times Blog  Suleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer. When...

By Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful...

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 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 Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. This week marks the one-year mark of my being out of...

Having watched Griffin Dunne's (Joan's nephew and actor) brilliant new documentary, Netflix, "The Center Will Not Hold" I began craving salted almonds and ice cold cokes; the magical combo that supposedly got her literary motor running everyday of her life.

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Skeptics would say that Darryl Carpenter and Otis Goodman of C.W. Roberts in Florida did not thoroughly think their...

By Rachel Sarnoff, Writer and Founder of EcoStiletto.com and MommyGreenest.com and LuxEco Advocate Who can get Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix, Liv Tyler, Jenny McCarthy, Daryl...

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 Alanna Rosette Brown, a writer/filmmaker, LuxEcoLiving Advocate, and author of Moonpennies. Follow her blog at alannarosette.com Make a New Years Resolution: Stand-Up and Walk...

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 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.

By Alanna Rosette Brown, a writer/filmmaker, LuxEcoLiving Advocate, and author of Moonpennies. Follow her blog at alannarosette.com Self-doubt is one of our biggest gremlins, as...