Eat Dance Live

A number of events over the past few days have given me the drive to rant again. While I often go on about food or fitness, today's topic is beauty. My first point: Beauty is not vanity if it is pursued with self-love and care . I've talked about skin and " beauty regimens " before, but I'll stress again that if I learned one lesson from my mom (though I promise I've learned many), it's that your skin is your biggest organ and because it's on the outside, it deserves a lot of care. The problem is that most of us believe that taking care of our skin is a vanity. We have equated getting a botox treatment or splurging on some wrinkle cream with getting a natural exfoliation treatment or putting organic lotion on every night. To me, the first is unhealthy, while the latter is totally healthy, and is just basic health and wellness care. I've been made to feel that going for a facial was like I was going to commit a crime, that I was being overly self-in...

As I mentioned before, yet another one of the reasons I love my mom is because of the discipline she gave my sister and I to take care of our skin. Even better, she's always been very adamant that we use high quality and natural products, which is especially important given the amount of 'stuff' they now put in personal care products (here's a pretty straightforward guide for what to avoid written up by the Organic Consumers Association and the Green Patriot Working Group ). Having struggled with acne during my teenage years, I've been amaz ed by what a vegan and especially a raw diet has done to clear up any remnants of damage. However, putting body lotion on every day for as long I can remember has kept the rest of my skin silky soft for years (and I really believe in doing this because my mom's skin looks about 20 years younger than anyone else's her age)! My skin is one thing I feel like I can have bragging rights about (it's good to acknowledge y...

After having gone to yesterday's Senate Finance Committee Hearing on the nominations of two new USTR ambassadors (Mr. Siddiqui and Mr. Punke), today's shout out goes to Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon who seems to be one of the only people running the government who understands that "sustainable agriculture" means organic agriculture and not the development of biotechnology. Having spent increasingly more time in the halls of Washington, I've been amazed (and mostly disillusioned) at how many people think "sustainability" means feeding the world and increasing yields through more robust usage of Genetic Modification . And Siddiqui is definitely one of those people. How Siddiqui was nominated to the post of Chief Agricultural Trade Representative at the office of the USTR, I don't even know. Considering his current vice-presidency at Croplife America, the country's biggest agrochemical industry trade group, I don't know how you could e...

As I've mentioned before, I'm one of the DC interns for the Organic Consumers Association . The best working perk of my life is that my awesome boss has taken me to the OCA's newest offshoot, Via Organica ("the Organic Way") in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for the week. Our director, Ronnie Cummins, is truly the most inspiring figurehead of the organic revolution that I've met. He and an amazing team of activists here launched Via Organica about a year ago to bring organics to a new level in Mexico. Continuing the OCA's tradition for grassroots activism, VO has begun a number of projects to help San Miguel's compasenos reclaim their land and dedicate it to sustainable, organic farming. VO also has a fully operational farm on their land through which they partially supply the Via Organica store and cafe in downtown San Miguel. In addition, they hold workshops and classes to teach local compasenos about everything from affordable green buil...

(repost from my article for the Organic Consumers Association) Ignoring its dedication to providing low-income women, infants, and children with more “nutritious foods”, WIC’s increasing cuts to its list-approved organic foods should no longer be tolerated by WIC recipients nor by responsible taxpayers. As  recently mentioned , a growing number of states have been preventing WIC recipients from purchasing organic products based on three major excuses: the ‘high’ cost of organics, a lack of scientific evidence that organic produce is more nutritious than their conventional counterpart, and recipient preferences. Organic Food and Nutrition To the OCA, WIC's first major area of concern is the stubborn adherence to the belief that organic produce has not proven to be more nutritious than conventional food. On the contrary, a number of doctors and nutritionists are increasingly telling expecting mothers to favor organics to limit their and their child’s intake and exposure to unnecessa...

(repost of my article for the Organic Consumers Association website) Am I the only one who finds it frightening that low-income pregnant women can't buy organic produce with their WIC allowances? It's one thing to have to be on welfare, and quite another to have people make your food choices for you. I was fuming when I found this out: The Truth Behind WIC: Organic is NOT an Option! By Chantal Clement Organic Consumers Association Straight to the Source In February 2009, Washington State decided to remove organic milk from its list of ‘approved foods’ reimbursable by the Women, Infant and Children Program (WIC). Though this decision led to serious backlash from organic consumers and supporters nationwide, what may be a little known fact to many is that slashing organic produce from WIC approved food lists for ‘reasons related to cost’ is currently being practiced in almost every single state. Forbidding organic products from WIC is frighteningly not...