What do cut flowers and sweat socks have in common? On the surface, not so much. However, if you follow the trail back to where they were made, they both come with a pretty heavy back story the store clerk doesn’t often sell you on.  The story, whether we’re talking Joe Fresh socks or the… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

After nine full years of doing the Ecoholic column in NOW Magazine, we’ve given it a bit of a facelift! Instead of just sticking to the basic Q&A style every week, we’ll be mixing and matching different elements, like our NOW Test Lab (reviewing and ranking products every week – this time, canned tuna), Nature… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

This week at NOW Magazine, we put out our big green issue – beaming with positive vibes! It’s entitled Sure Signs We’re Winning the Eco War. Here’s my piece on being the change, below. *** The ice caps are still melting, greenhouse gases are still climbing, and crazy, extreme weather is still ravaging too many parts… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

After a lunch time talk I gave at Edmonton’s city hall last month, one woman approached me and asked me if I could spend more time talking about the difference between green/eco-friendly and natural. The terms, she said, were too often used interchangeably, and she’s right. We tend to flip back and forth between the… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

How’d you get your eggs cooked this morning…or your shower nice and hot? Natural gas has always gotten a lot more respect on the green-front than other fossil fuels. We hear again and again that it burns cleaner, choking out less smoggy pollutants than say coal or conventional oil, so when we use it in… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Ever wonder what that smell is on your new clothes? It could be one of countless chemical substances used in the making of shirts, pants, outwear, you name it. Not all the hazardous compounds involved will give off a scent or trigger reactions but they are definitely making the workers who make our clothes and… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Ever feel like you’ve got a lot to get off your chest? I did this week so I wrote about hormone disrupting chemicals, not once, but twice (three times if you count this blog). First, in my column covering a conference on hormone disruptors, talking about what the feds are or aren’t doing to protect… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Ecoholic TV: Dry Skin SOS from Adria Vasil on Vimeo. Ecoholic TV is back! Yep, we’re here with more Ecoholic Health Corner and this time I run to my old friend and naturopath Alexandra (aka Alex) Triendl for some extra help tackling winter’s dry skin curse. Got eczema? Psoriasis? Or just plain dry skin? Tune… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

I’d been dreading going out to the shed to pull out my box of holiday gear this year. I had this sneaking suspicion raccoons had been, to put it bluntly, pooping in there for the last couple weeks (this is what happens with a busted shed door!). And while, yes, they did poop on my… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

I love a good craft show. I don’t care if it’s in a church basement, a community hall or a convention centre. They’re the most charming FU to shoddily made, sweatshop-manufacturing, in my opinion. And the One of a Kind Show is really the mother of all seasonal craft shows. The place is so big,… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

If you’ve been anywhere near a mall or retail store of any kind lately, you know the holiday gift buying season is upon us and quickly escalating in frenzy-factor. My family isn’t big into holiday gift swapping (you should have seen the eye-rolling I got from my siblings when I suggested we at least make each… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Ecoholic Health Corner – Cold & Flu from adria vasil on Vimeo. Feeling crummy and trying to cure what ails you? Check out the latest Ecoholic TV for the scoop on why you should bypass Buckley’s and make a beeline for more sustainable  options. My old pal and naturopathic doctor Alex Triendl shares some her… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

If your fries (or, more precisely, the potatoes cut into fries) were zapped with radiation would you want to know? In this week’s Ecoholic column in NOW I dig up  a lot of dirt on what irradiation does to your food as well as what signs to look for to know whether it’s been zapped.  At this point,… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Some guys could probably survive on a bar of Irish Spring alone. In truth the average man uses six personal care products a day (think shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, shaving cream, deodorant, aftershave), which ads up to a whopping 80 chems every morning. That number spikes for the growing posse of styly metrosexuals, Queer Eye for the… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Hand me a top hat and cane and I’ll sing about palm as a supercalafragalistic  plant-based petrochemical replacement. Gee willikers, you can add it to everything from lip balm to bathroom cleaner – amazing! But the song and dance come to a screeching halt when you start probing palm’s rainforest record. You know how headlines… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Most of us, when given a choice, would choose to know when our s@!*’s been messed with. You know, like if you dropped my toothbrush in the toilet when I wasn’t looking, then opted to shake it off and stick it back on the sink without telling me. Or if you spliced a toxin into… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Trying to eat less meat? Wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole? Either way, more and more of us are sinking our teeth into meat alternatives. You know, veggie burgers, fake chicken cutlets, you name it. The name of the game amongst veg products these days is “anything meat can do we can do nicer.”… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Did I mention I used to own my own one-woman sweatshop? Yep, I was, ironically, working in the anti-sweatshop movement by day and sewing a stack full of wide leg pants in my kitchen by night.  I paid myself, well, nothing. After a while of outfitting my friends with poorly sewn clothes I decided to… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

I’m a little suspicious of my plates. The scrapes and scratches on these Kengington Market imports have me wondering whether they’re leaching something dodgy. And yet, I never bothered to buy a lead test until two readers contacted me recently wondering about their ceramics. Then I got to reading. Here’s what Health Canada has to… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

You’re busy, I’m busy, we’re all busy. Which is why it’s kind of nice when a company saves us all a little time and donates to a charity in our names. You know, like a shampoo giving $1 to the breast cancer. What could be wrong with that? If you’ve seen the film Pink Ribbons,… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Ever been traumatized by a hair cut? Maybe a bowl cut left you in tears or you decided, two minutes too late that, no, a pixie cut doesn’t really suit your face. Salon trauma gets physical too, think burning scalp and a searing rash. (For your sake, don’t go googling medical pictures of chemical burns… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸