In this tough economy, many people have juggled their priorities, putting more emphasis on making ends meet and allowing things like their impact on the environment to slip down the list. But Adria Vasil, a Toronto-based environmental writer, is on a mission to reverse that.

Currently, Vasil is appearing at venues around the GTA to promote her book, Ecoholic Body, which aims to reconnect readers with the environment and their own bodies.

“I think that Canadians have gotten away a little bit from the environment over the past couple of years and distracted by the recession,” says Vasil. “So I kind of wanted to come in and say, ‘Well, hey, pollution isn’t just a distant problem that doesn’t affect us. It’s actually quite personal and actually it comes into our homes and our bathrooms via the products that we use every day.’”

Vasil is a long-time champion of the environment and her weekly “Ecoholic” column has been running in Now magazine since 2004.

Ecoholic Body is the latest installment in a series following on the heels of Ecoholic, which examines eco-friendly products and services in the Canadian marketplace, and Ecoholic Home, which shows readers how to green their living spaces. Ecoholic Body is a 470-page guide on all things personal, from toothpaste to apparel, explaining which chemicals are lurking in which products (yes, even your jeans and flip-flops), and listing some eco- and body-friendly alternatives.

“That’s the whole point of Ecoholic [the series], really — to present the solutions and to offer up names of which are the good products and which are the ones to avoid,” Vasil says. “I take the guesswork out of it for people.”

This book also features Vasil’s “Mean 15,” a list of 15 chemical substances to avoid, including everything from estrogen-mimicking substances to simple palm oil, which she describes as an “environmental menace.”

She writes chapters for all ages, from anti-aging skin care to baby care, asking readers to re-examine products that have been casually used for years. Vasil points out that, when tested, babies umbilical cords have been found to contain 358 chemicals, up from 287 when her Ecoholic book was first published. 

“We start off polluted in this world,” she says, “… but what we can do is limit and restrict the chemicals that we can control by reducing the amounts of them that we bring into our households and bathrooms.”

Adria Vasil will be speaking at Cedarbrae Library, 545 Markham Rd., tomorrow (May 8) from 1 p.m.