It’s amazing what the sight of a big old tree can do for the soul. I love the city but I get twitchy and cranky if there’s no green space in sight. Humans just weren’t built to live on pavement, so we can, unconsciously, get pretty edgy when we’re not getting enough contact with nature, even if… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

If you’re up on your celebrity gossip, you’ll know Bradley Cooper recently drove to dinner with his ex in a Prius, and Jennifer Lawrence shops at Whole Foods with colourful, reuseable shopping bags. But when the curtain is pulled back, how green is the industry behind the actors? ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Hey gang! Hope you had an awesome Earth Day! I figured there is no better day/week/month to launch my newly revamped website. It merges ecoholic.ca, ecoholicnation.com and adriavasil.com all in one cozy little corner of the web. There’s tons of stuff crammed under one green roof. Under Columns, you can follow the weekly Ecoholic column that I’ve been writing for… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

The summer after 9th grade, my parents moved my little brother Mark and I from Montreal to suburban Mississauga, a gaping 35 kilometres from downtown Toronto. Back in Montreal, I was used to taking the city bus to school downtown and subwaying around to meet friends. In Mississauga, I quickly figured out you’d have to… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

You know when you think something’s going to be quick and breezy and it ends up being a knee deep slog through muck and fog? Well, that’s sort of what happened with my bronzer column. I thought I’d toss together a light column on summer makeup, until I remembered that mineral powders are mired in… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

“You never do any columns for guys,” my editor grumbled a few weeks back. I gasped. “Are you saying the frying pan and cleaning cloth guides that we just published are a woman thing?” I prodded loudly, making sure our banter was audible to the whole news room. To be honest, in my house, my… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Some people dream in technicolour, I dream in solar panels. Well, not every night or anything, I’m not a lunatic. I’m still saving for a house clad with shiny blue panels (oh wouldn’t it be awesome to go off-grid and never pay a utility bill again?). In the meantime, I’ve got a little guide here… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

If you’ve ever met a hemp enthusiast, you’re probably already schooled in the plant’s superpower uses in clothing, snack bars and hacky sacks. But in his newly released book – Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Agricultural Revolution –  comedic investigative journalist and solar-powered goat herder Doug Fine shows just how deep… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Once spring hits full swing so does wedding season. If you’re already engaged, well, congratulations! When’s the big date? You planning on sealing the deal with a wedding band? Have I got the column for you. In the latest Ecoholic, we dig deep, real deep, like belly-of-the-earth-mining-conditions-deep to, er, extract the truth about which rings… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

My grandfather Nick was what you’d call a Black Sea Greek. In fact, he was a Greek born and raised in Crimea, from another messy time in history – the years leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917. My family fled after my great-grandfather was shot for being on the losing side. By the… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Everyone washes their hands (we hope) – the question is what are you washing with? Bar soap is a good way to avoid plastic packaging and unrecyclable pumps (click here for my bar soap guide) but considering the popularity of liquid hand soaps, they deserve their own special guide. So voila! In this issue of… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Maybe it’s the defiant Montrealer in me, but I really don’t mind a -30 day as long as the sun is beaming down from its blue sky perch. Of course, it helps if you’re tucked warmly inside. Okay, maybe that doesn’t count as a true love of the cold, but I’ll take icy blue skies… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

My family stopped exchanging Christmas gifts a good 15 years ago. My sister, in med school at the time, told us she just didn’t have time to shop for us (pshaw, what an excuse!). And just like that, the whole card castle crumbled and we gave up the whole swapping tradition ever since.  Instead, we… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

With the festive season in full swing, most of us are, let’s just say, enjoying holiday spirits a little more enthusiastically. Whether you’re sharing a hostess gift or stocking your wine rack for your own celebrations, be sure to check out the Ecoholic wine guide, with a ranking of five of the most popular along… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Hey peeps, this is prime example of a week that blends and stirs together different living, breathing elements of sustainability in action. You’ll find my guide to greener sweaters, made lovingly, without sweatshop labour and with greener, more sustainable fibres. You’ll also find my Q&A with a prominent thinker on the new green economy –… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Whether you’re writing a “how I spent my summer vacation” essay or taking notes for linguistic anthropology, there would be no school without paper. Well, okay, fine, the school of life and the school of hard knocks aren’t quite as reliant on paper products, but you get the point. Either way, Ecoholic is offering up… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

If there’s one totally random thing I miss about being a kid, it’s having someone pack you a lunch. Thankfully, my mom knew how to pack a pretty bad *ss one. I still remember the ‘yeah, my lunch rocks!’ joy that would rush over me when I’d crack into her Montreal bagel melts with each… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

In honour of the end of summer (did I just say that?), I’m reviewing the vessels that carry the very key to life on earth. Yep, I’m talking water canisters. Ever since purportedly leach-free polycarbonate plastics found in old Nalgene bottles were caught seeping estrogen-mimicking BPA, then Sigg finally came clean about the BPA in… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

I don’t have to hang around the cast of True Blood to be told I’ve got really tasty blood. Mosquitoes, sand fleas, you  name it, they devour me. I’ve tried a lot of natural bug repellents over the years and was looking forward to sharing some of my faves with you, but then I’d have… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Okay, so the sun may not be shining where I’m sitting a hop, skip from Lake Huron (it’s pouring rain, actually) but it’ll be back soon. This is summer after all, so since my own sunglasses are scratched to s#*@ and people around me keep mentioning cracked or lost shades, figured it was high time… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

I’m not going to lie, I love a good street dog. Since I gave up meat in my teens, I’ve slathered on roadside sauerkraut, mustard and onions on jumbo-sized Yves veggie dogs at dozens of Toronto hot dog stands over the decades. That doesn’t mean I believe the stuff is good for me. I’ve written… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸