Seven ways to naturally beat those stubborn allergies. The growing culture of Flea Markets. Why your fashion choices say about your political views. A DIY pedicure will get your feet ready for summer. Dandelion roots are not just a yummy addition to your salad, they could also soon be used to make rubber. How greed and green can work together to produce good. Being an early champion of sustainability and good sense wasn’t easy. Five girls pushing boundaries and effecting change. Is spinach the antidote to our health crisis? A late-blooming artist of the botanical world.
HEALTH & WELLNESS: 7 Ways to Beat Allergies Naturally
Aaa-choo! ‘Tis the season for Kleenex, eye drops, and decongestants. Allergy season is upon us. Its symphony can be heard in the refrains of sniffles, sneezes and nose blowing. If you suffer from the wide array of seasonal allergy symptoms such as fatigue; sinus congestion; itchy eyes, nose or throat; or watery eyes, don’t let a high pollen count get you down this summer. Here are 7 natural ways to beat allergies from my latest book, Allergy-Proof.
7 Ways to Beat Allergies Naturally, by Michelle Schoffro Cook, Planet Green
SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING: The Flea Marketing of New York
They came for freshly shucked oysters and straight-off-the-leg prosciutto. They came for clacking vintage typewriters and old LPs repurposed as dog tags and bracelets. And they came, to the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene last Saturday, searching for meaning and connection in their rudderless lives. “Flea markets proliferate a volume of goods needing to be sold and people who are hungry — emotionally and aesthetically — to sort out the meaning of life,” said Michael Prokopow, a history professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto, who teaches a course called “Stuff,” about things and their meaning. “For most people who go on these ritualized scavenger hunts looking for something that they may not know exists, it is a kind of pilgrims’ process through the detritus of the past.”
The Flea Marketing of New York, by Ashley Parker, The New York Times
SUSTAINABLE STYLE: Your fashion choices reveal your political views, whether you want them to or not
There was a time when tags like “Made in the U.S.A.” meant something. During war times, when buying cotton was limited by choice to only the bare necessities (unless you wanted to be considered unpatriotic by your neighbors), we could directly trace how our consumption habits related to our society’s values. Since then, flag waving morals within fashion have more or less disappeared along with the great American garment factories. With the internet, the world is a much smaller place and sadly, our sense of social values and our concern for our neighbors seems to have shrunk, as well.
From Flash Sales to Philanthropy, It’s the Politics of Fashion, by Louise Lagosi, EcoSalon
HEALTH & BEAUTY: At-home DIY Pedicure Recipes
A winter’s worth of ill-fitting boots and dry air is enough to really do a number on your feet. And while vanity is the main reason many of us pamper our feet more once sandal season hits, there are several health reasons to do so as well. Reducing the likelihood of infection is plenty enough reason, and there’s some evidence that massaging your feet helps with increasing blood flow to the rest of the body, which helps us feel more energetic.
Get Your Feet Sandal-Ready with These DIY Pedicure Recipes, by Colleen Vanderlinden, Planet Green
INNOVATION: Dandelion Roots as a Potential Source of Rubber
Synthetic car plastics will eventually be blowing in the wind like those yellow heads of dandelions, the herbaceous perennial foliage that grows in lawns and alongside highways. Does thinking about it make you want to sneeze? Forget the pollen. Ford has been itching for a new kind of rubber for its cars, and dandelions could be the answer.
America’s Favorite Weed Hits the Road, by Luanne Bradley, EcoSalon
CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY: How Greed And Green Can Work Together To Produce Good
Sustainability isn’t easy. It’s tough to implement, and the costs can be even more difficult to quantify, which is why it has taken so long for businesses to embrace the mission. Having developed many a new product over the years, I’ve observed, with a touch of cynicism, the evolving discourse around both the emotional and economic benefits of sustainability. Some of my cynicism stems from the overt greenwashing that has surrounded so many products, doing nothing but cloud the debate, confuse consumers, and ultimately slow the progress of economically viable sustainability. In many ways, it has actually sullied the term “green” to the extent that it pains me to use it when discussing sustainability with my clients. That being said, designing for sustainability requires a passion and commitment to think differently, as demonstrated by now-storied brands such as Patagonia, Method, and Interface Flor.
How Greed And Green Can Work Together To Produce Good, by Richard Watson, Co.Design
DESIGN & SUSTAINABILITY: It Wasn’t Easy Being an Early Champion of Good Sense
How would you feel if you had written a book, which was, in your own words, “derided, made fun of, or savagely attacked” by your peers? Or you were forced to resign from a professional body, which then threatened to boycott an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris if your work was included? All of these slights — and more — were heaped upon the designer Victor Papanek after the publication of his 1971 book “Design for the Real World.” Why?
An Early Champion of Good Sense, by Alice Rawsthorn, The New York Times
FUTURE HOPE: Five girls pushing boundaries and effecting change
Although women still lag behind men when it comes to pay and presence in the boardroom, an emerging generation of girls sees only possibility. They have a wealth of opportunities open to them, and are breaking new ground.
Amazing Girls: Five Stories of Ingenuity, Creativity and Perseverance, by Andrea Newell, EcoSalon
GOOD WATCHING: Is Spinach the Antidote to our Health Crisis?
The documentary film Forks Over Knives starts in the middle of a health crisis. In a video montage, statistics on heart disease, obesity rates, prescription drug use, and the cost of healthcare are interspersed with sound bites from the likes of Bill Maher, who declares, “the answer is spinach!” While the tone is dark, Maher’s prelude stands for the hope within this film. Forks Over Knives compels us to consider that spinach is in fact an antidote to our disease of affluence.
The Antidote To Our Health Crisis Is Spinach, by Adriana Velez, Civil Eats
GOOD READING: A Late-blooming Artist of the Botanical World
In the late 18th century, the twice-widowed Mary Delany created nearly a thousand breathtakingly beautiful and intricate paper “mosaicks” of flowers. Glued onto black backgrounds, they were not only stunning but also botanically precise. Mrs. D., as her latest biographer, the poet Molly Peacock, sometimes calls her, began this project in her early 70s and only stopped roughly 10 years later, in 1783, when her eyesight declined. Today the collages reside in the British Museum.
An Artist of the Botanical World, by Andrea Wulf, The New York Times Book Review
