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A friend of mine recently gave a talk to an audience of 35 rural kindergartners. Her topic was nutrition. She asked them each to draw a picture of where their lunch came from. Two of the kids drew pictures of cows. The remaining 33 drew one of the following: chicken nuggets, an Oscar Mayer “lunchable” and a Chef Boyardee microwaveable ravioli container. When she told me this I wanted to cry. Read on…

My eight-year-old stepson is pretty active. I used to refer to him as “the zoom-zoom kid.” When his little brother started crawling, they began bearing a striking resemblance. Now we have two “zoom-zooms” in the “hizzy.”

Suffice it to say, I am always on the prowl for green means of helping my kids grow healthfully and as chemically free as possible. With our family’s genetic history of drug dependence and alcoholism, I think it best for my kids to look to nutritive supplementation rather than “fix-me pills.” Read on…

Yoga advocates encourage their students to work with natural forces rather than against them. This is, in practice and theory, a philosophy that tends toward deep observation of nature and human interaction with it. Back in the day, students would retreat into the natural world regularly to deepen their practice.

One of my mentors, Swami Nirmalanda, was a huge proponent of the ecology of yoga and was known to many as “the Anarachist Swami,” due to his encouragement of personal reflection upon one’s spiritual values and their incorporation into daily living. Being an angry teenager with a big anarchist “A” on all her school materials, Nirmalanda spoke my language. Read on…

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Bisphenol A (BPA) stinks. Canada and Japan have outlawed it completely because, besides being a known carcinogen, it is suspected of accelerating puberty and contributing to learning disabilities in children.

When you consider the recent study commissioned by the WWF (pdf) that alleges BPA to be an endocrine disruptor to both humankind and wildlife, things get a bit more scary. The WWF reports that baby polar bears and certain types of fish are being born with indiscriminate reproductive organs after being exposed to high levels of plastics and other toxins that leech into their water supplies. Read on…

It's always a treat when parents can introduce their kids to an important topic like ecology by way of a fun activity such as singing. Below is an entertaining music video of children vocalizing with musician and songwriter Jack Johnson about reducing, reusing and recycling. It's a catchy tune that your children might like to sing along to. Johnson is an adult entertainer primarily. And he is a long-time environmentalist, both in his life and his craft. Here's the video: Read on…