Water is essential for life. So it's a wonder that we often treat this important ingredient of health and sustainability so casually.

Many of us are only faintly aware that toxic chemicals from everyday products - shower curtains, water bottles, baby bottles, toys, shampoo, cosmetics - contaminate our bodies. Now, a small study sponsored by a coalition of environmental health groups confirms that we are walking chemical laboratories. The study, "Is It In Us", tested volunteers across the U.S. who were found to have toxic chemicals in their blood and urine.

Imagine that you could wiggle your nose and magically get a quarter of a million dollars (yes, $250,000), better health, great legs and buns (your own), a sharper mental edge, easy parking everyday and an enjoyable commute, and maybe a couple new friends for good measure.

Lululemon Athletica is all the rage in the world of pilates and yoga gear. I challenge anyone to go into a class and not see at least 50% of the students in the sporty yet flattering gear. I was recently getting my Lululemon fix and bought what would appear as just a t-shirt, but this innovative piece of cloth has far more to offer. The BBB Sheer VNeck is an everyday super light t-shirt to wear to the gym and is made with vitasea technology consisting of seaweed which releases marine amino acids, minderals, and vitamins into the skin upon contact with moisture. In addition, the fabric provides anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, stress reducing, hydrating and detoxifying features.

Michael Moore has done it again. His movie Sicko shows what the Medical Industry and Big Pharma are up to and have been up to for years. (evidently since the Nixon Presidency) Michael exposes the greed going on in corporate medicine. That is the only consideration. The bottom line. It  is all about the money.  They just don't care. People are treated in prisons better than people with no insurance on the street. Canadians do not pay for health care. All Canadians' medical and pharmaceutical  needs are provided free by Canadian Health Care .

Sicko is shining the light of visibility on  the health care industry. Actually it functions more like a disease care industry. It's practices are inhumane. The movie makes it clear that the medical industry does not care for patients who have no money. Michael filmed one hospital dumping a disoriented elderly woman who had no money to pay her bill in the middle of the streets of East L.A.  But, do corporate hospitals care? It is one less person taxing their company. Hey, at least they gave her a ride out there.

The doctor's and nurse's do care. It is just their hands are tied by procedures and policies that the corporate CEO's and CFO's lay down.

As we are increasingly exposed to pollutants in the air that we breathe and the water that we bathe in, it makes sense that respiratory and skin problems are on the rise. These health issues take the form of asthma, no seasonal allergies, breathing difficulties, skin rashes, and countless other modern maladies.

I grew up in the transition zone between the suburbs and farmland, close to the North Sea in England. My friends and I spent our summers playing in farmers fields, creating burrows in hay stacks and tunnels through the wheat and barley fields. The most profound memory I have of that time is perhaps the simplest one. On one particular sunny day, around the time I was ten, I found myself spending the day alone. I tunneled through rows of wheat stalks and lay down in the middle of a fully ripened wheat field on a bed of dry grassy stalks. Held in a sea of warm grain that gently swayed in the breeze, I felt drunk on the musky, earthy fragrance all around me. Looking up at the deep blue sky through the golden heads of wheat, my heart was perfectly content. All seemed perfectly well in the world; everything was just as it should be.

At last week’s Sustainable Business Council event here in LA, the topic was health and wellness. As a cool bonus at the event, the organization brought in Green Bliss, a mobile eco-spa, to provide free treatments. It was then that I realized just how much is going on in this industry.

Listen up ladies (and highly secure metrosexual men), your standard manicure and pedicure is under deep scrutiny by the EPA.   

According to Grist:

The U.S EPA has given two Seattle-area non-profits a $100,000 grant for a three-year "Toxic Beauty" project that will educate owners and consumers about the downsides of pretty paints, as well as looking into alternative products and equipment. And in Oakland, Calif., the Participatory Reearch, Organizing, and Leadership Initiative for Safety and Health -- or POLISH, like you didn't see that coming -- educates cosmetology students about industry regulations and plans to partner with the University of California-Berkeley to research air quality in local salons.