Barely over a year old, founder Kelly Magill wrote yesterday to confirm the bad news. “We’re not going to be publishing Positively Green any longer,” she said. “E The Environmental Magazine will be fulfilling our subscription obligations and everyone will receive all the outstanding issues that they have coming.”

PG follows in the footsteps of such great green-themed mags as PLENTY and Domino. Is anyone else ready for this year to be over?

It’s coming.

VegNews magazine has announced that their most anticipated issue of the year, The 2009 Veggie Awards, has been packed and shipped to readers. Of course, the real world is just to slow for us — so we managed to pull some strings, send in some vegan-powered ninjas, and sneak away with a partial list of the 2009 winners. (We also bribed Editor-in-Chief Joseph Connelly with some free cooking classes from Alicia Silverstone; but he has absolutely no idea that she has no absolutely idea of this arrangement.)

This year’s poll was the largest ever — with nearly 35,000 ballots cast in over 62 categories!

Without further ado, here are the 12 winning picks we have in hand. Subscribers will get to enjoy the full meal shortly! Check them out after the fold:

VegNews Reader Picks:

Favorite Bakery: Babycakes NYC
Ecorazzi Says: No brainer. Babycakes have been rocking our tastebuds since owner Erin McKenna dropped the vegan naughty nosh on unsuspecting dessert mavens three years ago. Yum. This year we wrote about them three times — from Martha Stewart’s most recent promo to W Magazine’s praise of the cookbook with the same name to actress Lake Bell saying, “You don’t know its vegan, it’s so good.”

Favorite Vegetarian Meat: California Veggie Burgers by Amy’s
Ecorazzi Says: A savory blend of grains, organic vegetables, mushrooms, and walnuts. We hear unicorns make it.

Favorite Condiment: Vegenaise
Ecorazzi Says: Managed to score an endorsement from Gwyneth Paltrow in her GOOP newsletter. Unfortunately, she probably uses it on her turkey sandwiches.

Favorite Veg-Friendly City: New York City
Ecorazzi Says: Feel like getting a few biodynamic cocktails at Counter and then heading uptown for some Seitan Piccata at Candle 79? On a tighter budget? Maybe just some hand-cut fries at Pommes Frites and some vegan ice cream at Lula’s or Stogo? If you’re VEG in the Big Apple you can bet on one thing: you’ll NEVER go hungry!

Favorite Podcast: Vegetarian Food for Thought
Ecorazzi Says: Sick of sucky, boring podcasts that leave you feeling underwhelmed? Vegetarian Food for Thought is a comprehensive vegan podcast that celebrates being VEG in a fun, fresh way. So what are you waiting for? Get out those earbuds and turn up the volume.

Favorite Celebrity: Ellen DeGeneres
Ecorazzi Says: We called this one back in June in our Top 5 Vegan Celebrities of 2009 — which was odd, because the year was only half-over and it would have been pretty embarrassing if she’d started taking diet tips from Hillary Swank.

VegNews Editor Picks:

Product of the Year: Daiya Cheese
Ecorazzi Says: Daiya Cheese is to vegans what crack is to junkies. One bite of this ooey-gooey cruelty-free alternative and you’ll swear it’s the real thing. I mean if it’s good enough for Ginnifer Goodwin, it’s good enough for us!

Website Launch of the Year: CrazySexyLife.com
Ecorazzi Says: No questions asked, Crazy Sexy Life has redefined the way we view wellness. Loaded with some awesome contributors (including Ecorazzi’s own Michael Parrish DuDell), a well-stocked online store and a vibrant community forum, CSL is your one stop shop for all things positive. Make sure you check it out today!

Scandal Breakers of the Year: Operation Pancake (Quarrygirl)
Ecorazzi Says: If there’s one thing that vegan restaurants in and around Los Angeles learned this year, it’s that you better damn well know what’s in your food. Quarrygirl put into motion one of the greatest investigative reports we’ve ever seen from a blog worthy of a 20/20 special.

Veg Event of the Year: Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale
Ecorazzi Says: What’s better than a bunch of yummy vegan baked goods? A bunch of yummy vegan baked goods raising money for some awesome causes. On June 20 through June 28, Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale encourages groups across the world to celebrate their VEG pride with a vegan bake sale to support animal causes. Tummies full and money raised? We like the way that sounds!

Best Celeb Comeback: Alicia Silverstone
Ecorazzi Says: If you read the Razz on a regular basis, you know that we’re Alicia Silverstone CRAZY right now? This chick is back in action and ready to change the world! Grab a copy of her new book The Kind Diet and check out a behind the scenes look at her recent photo shoot.

Top Techie of the Year: Biz Stone
Ecorazzi Says: We love this co-founder of twitter and vegan activist for causing us to think in small, succinct sentences and expressing in 140 characters. (Just like that sentence! Damn, we’re good.)

Bonus! Click here to discover the 2009 Book of the Year!

Want to see the rest of the winners but haven’t yet subscribed to VegNews? You can pick up an advanced copy — or just celebrate year long with a subscription for a cheap $20.

Yvonne Smith

Smith, officially a vegan, won what appears to be a free photo shoot with the magazine and is posing, not surprisingly for the mag, in a bikini. Her website is a popular stop for vegans and vegetarians alike — filled with videos, recommendations on vegan products, and other inspiring and informative articles.

We think she looks gorgeous and congratulate her on the win! You can follow Yvonne on Twitter by hitting her up here or visit The Traveling Vegetarian site here.

For the third year in a row, GQ magazine is celebrating their charitable initiative, called the Gentlemen’s Fund, which honors the contributions of men who are dedicated to working towards a better world. Celebrity ambassadors for the effort include Ashton Kutcher, Adrian Grenier, Mark Wahlberg, and Josh Duhamel.

“The Gentlemen’s Fund is about ordinary men doing extraordinary things,” said GQ publisher Peter Hunsinger. “In these times when resources contract, needs escalate, and I am pleased that our sponsors and celebrity ambassadors are bringing awareness to our readers and finding ways for men to give back.”

Kutcher has partnered with HP to support UNICEF, Grenier and Nautica will help Oceana, Josh Duhamel and Ketel One vodka have selected the Pat Tillman Foundation, and Mark Wahlberg and Gillette will support the Mark Wahlberg Foundation. Check out their individual PSA ads below:

We are truly seeing the rise of one of Hollywood’s greatest philanthropic leaders.

With his Parade article, Damon touched upon the act of giving, lessons learned from childhood, and how poor nations are struggling to cope with the demand for clean, fresh water. A bit of his words are below:

When I was a boy, my mom had a magnet on the refrigerator with a little picture of Gandhi along with a quote from him. It said: “No matter how insignificant what you do may seem, it is important that you do it.” As a child, I was raised to believe that, and to this day I do my best to live it.

Nowadays, sentimental magnetized credos have gone the way of nostalgia, and technology has forever changed the way younger generations communicate. But those are still really good words to live by.

I got an allowance of $5 a week when I was a kid, but I never spent much money on anything. My mother was involved in all sorts of causes, and when I was about 12, I started sending a little bit every month to one of them. I learned then that you find one thing that matters to you, and it changes your whole mind-set.

Here’s something that matters to me right now. Every 15 seconds, a child dies because of a lack of clean water and sanitation. I should probably repeat that: Every 15 seconds, a child dies because of a lack of clean water and sanitation. A billion people on our planet will never have a clean drink of water. There are 2.5 billion people in the world without toilet facilities. That kind of deprivation isn’t even on our radar in the U.S., but in Africa it’s the central preoccupation of many people’s lives. And the most devastating thing about it is that it takes so little to change it. Just $25 will give someone clean water for life—yes, just $25 will change someone’s future forever.

I’ve taken a lot of trips in the last few years to places like Africa and India and Haiti to try to learn what conditions are like. You can read about extreme poverty and possible solutions, but it’s really powerful when you get to meet the people and shake their hands and listen to their stories. I try to keep my trips short because my kids are so young that my wife, Lucy, can’t come. We don’t like to be separated, but we both feel it’s so important to learn about these things. There’s so much I don’t know. In the future, I know these trips are something we’ll do as a family.

Click here to continue reading Matt’s piece for Parade.

Megan Fox’s self-confessed “girl crush” Olivia Wilde covers this month’s issue of GQ magazine — as we’re happy to hear that her fine physique is due in part to her vegan diet. The 25-year-old actress, who plays “Dr. Remy ‘Thirteen’ Hadley” on the television drama HOUSE, recently told PEOPLE that the only time she breaks down for something with cheese in it is while watching The Godfather and craving pasta. Perhaps she would enjoy some Godfather organic vodka as well? More pics of Wilde’s shoot in GQ below.

via Examiner

Much criticism has been lobbed on Gwyneth Paltrow for her GOOP side-project — a weekly wellness newsletter that covers everything from eating better to shopping. While our reactions sway between scorn and praise depending on the topic of the week, we nonetheless find GOOP to be an interesting, if not always practical, piece of the celebrity landscape.

One Esquire journalist wanted to take things a step further than just reading and dissecting Paltrow’s advice. For two weeks, Richard Dorment decided to use GOOP to dictate his daily routine — from eating to exercise to acupuncture. “I would read all her newsletters and regard her every word as gospel,” he wrote. “and maybe I might feel good after a few weeks of the Goop life. It’s not as if I could feel any worse.”

What happened? Well, the article is a hilarious intersection of normal everyday guy with the not-so-normal world of a celebrity — but Dorment sticks with it, even though the first couple days were rough. “Feel hungover,” he writes during day three. “The hunger isn’t in my stomach but in my throat. I am craving KFC. I never crave KFC. I don’t even like KFC. And yet I want it. My tongue feels swollen. I have a headache. This, I am told, is part of the natural detoxification process. It blows.”

After the detox, by sticking to the recommended diet of no red meat, organic vegetables and lots of water, Dorment starts to feel recharged. Going through the motions of a few other GOOP activities (including acupuncture, reading, and exercise), he completes the two-week period with this conclusion:

At the end of this two-week experiment, I can report, without qualification or caveat, that I felt very, very good. I was sleeping better. I had more energy. I’d lost nine pounds. (People liked to remind me that this was all water weight and that I’d probably gain it all back, but that’s just noise to me.) Revolutionary or not, Gwyneth’s way worked, and if it worked for this sinner, it could work for anybody. Case closed.

Granted, Dorment ends the piece saying that the whole experience wasn’t that much fun — and a bit expensive for things like acupuncture. Perhaps the greatest complaint, and one that all us non-celebrities can relate to, is that he just doesn’t have lots of time to commit to feeling good. “I came to realize that I couldn’t live the life I wanted to live while doing all the things Gwyneth Paltrow thought I should do. So for those reasons and a few more, I began slipping back to where I’d started. Now I try to eat more vegetables and spend a little more time in the gym.”

Still, it’s pretty incredible to see how an average guy’s body can benefit from just a few of GOOP’s recommendations. Rocket Science, it isn’t — but in a society of fast food and poor nutrition education, taking a bit of GOOP’s advice for what it is, and less for who’s behind it, might just be worth chewing on.

First we had her discussing her naked gardening tendencies this morning — and now we have a few more quotes from her interview in the September issue of Health magazine. The 32-year-old actress chats up her vegan lifestyle, the possibility of kids (next year?), and why a plant-based diet will make you feel more “juicy”.  Some highlights:

On her new book “The Kind Diet”, and how choosing the right foods can help you feel more sensuous:

“You can hear your needs and desires more clearly. You’re just more juicy—there’s just this lightness that happens. …Once you’re informed, then you can be really gentle and kind to yourself, but giving yourself all the fights life has to offer – like mental clarity and vitality – all while making the planet better”

On some gardening advice for Michelle Obama:

“Compost, for sure. We have a badass compost. I bought a baby bag of worms eight years ago and put it in the compost, and now there are bazillions of them. And it’s like the dirt is so delicious, you could eat it!”

On her vegan diet being a lifestyle:

“It’s weird to be 32 now and feel and look younger… Right after I first made the switch to a plant-based diet, people were literally telling me, ‘What have you done? You’re sparkling.’”

To read the full interview, jump here.

Rachael Leigh Cook

The actress sported eco-friendly fashions for the cover and is looking forward to her new compost heap at home.

About being green she says “It’s the right thing to do. I’m consistently surprised to see people who want to tempt fate with their beliefs about the myth of global warming. That’s really terrifying to me. So I think I have to overcompensate for some people who aren’t with the program.”

So you know you’re a big deal when your book convinces Oprah to give veganism a try. I mean let’s be honest: that’s golden. But landing on Vanity Fair’s 2009 International Best-Dressed List? OK, now you’re officially famous! 

Sharing the honor with stars like Penelope Cruz and Anne Hathaway, Quantum Wellness author Kathy Freston is proving that cruelty-free fashion is the way to be!

Here are some stats that Vanity Fair shared about the rockstar writer: 

Residences: Los Angeles and New York City.
Occupation: Writer.
Personal Style: “Cruelty-free (no fur or leather).”
Style Icon: Grace Kelly.
Favorite Fashion Purchase of 2009: “Four custom-made Peter Soronen shift dresses in gorgeous, happy colors; classically chic.”
Favorite Up-and-Coming Designer: JMary.
Luxury Boutique: Mameg, in Los Angeles.
Shoe Designer: Stella McCartney.
Vintage Store: Frock, in New York City.
Bargain-Hunting Locale: Target.
Watch: Cartier Roadster.
Cause: Animal protection.

Three cheers to Kathy for continuing to represent the cause in a fun, fresh and fashionable way. We think your tops!