Interview with Sophie Uliano, author of The Gorgeously Green Diet

It is one thing to recycle your daily newspaper and bring your own tote bag to the grocery store but when it comes to making over your diet and lifestyle behaviors, each of us has our own comfort-level with what it means to be green. While many believe that going green means giving up everything from their favorite hamburgers to swapping out their car for a bicycle, Sophie Uliano,  the author of The Gorgeously Green Diet as well as its predecessor, Gorgeously Green, shares with us simple steps that anyone can take to add more green living in their life.

We had the opportunity to speak with Sophie who believes that her plan which is more of a “live-it” lifestyle plan rather than a diet can be followed by anyone who is passionate about taking care of herself (and the planet).

Listen to the interview below

How have your life experiences influenced your decision to lead a Gorgeously Green Life and follow the Gorgeously Green Diet?

I’m a mother and a working one too. So my life is very fast-paced and crazy at times. This book was written for those women out there who share the same kind of life as I do.   The Gorgeously Green Diet is what I have found to be true and has worked for me and my life and I wanted to share this information with others.

Can you give us a snapshot of what The Gorgeously Green Diet is all about?

Many people believe that in order to be eco-friendly, you must give up a lot of things. But this is not at all what The Gorgeously Green Diet is about. It’s about living a whole and beautifully-lived life that is accessible to anyone. I wanted to take into account our differences as women such as our budgets, our time and our access to good food.  Seventy-five percent of working women today work in an office. So this book was essentially written for  them. Some women may not have access to a health food store or to farmer’s market  and some may not have time to shop for and make a wild salmon dinner every night. Therefore I created  three different eating plans – light green, bright green and deep green – depending upon one’s own comfort level with the notion of living green, with one’s available resources to live a green life and with one’s own budget.

Take the light green plan, for instance. It is for the beginner who wants to take baby steps into adding more green to their life. It is for the woman who shops at a regular grocery store and doesn’t consume a lot of organic food. For those that want to dip their toes in the water a bit deeper, they can opt for the bright green plan and for those who are ready to really go for it from making their own yogurt and eating all organic, there is the deep green plan.

This plan allows you to choose your own eating plan based upon your own lifestyle and personal preferences.

Being green is obviously very “in” right now. Why do you believe it is so important for our own personal health to eat and live more responsibly?

Green is an umbrella subject. I believe that we have begun to realize the cause and effect relationship from all of the decisions we make and how this cause and effect relationship impacts our health and the health of the planet. We are also now becoming more aware of how inextricably linked these two things are.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what is in our food. The labeling practices in the U.S. are very limited in comparison to those in Europe where you can tell if you are eating a food that was made with genetically-modified (GMO) ingredients. Even things like additives are carefully disguised in the U.S. We are so used to reading the labels for calories, fat grams and carbohydrate grams but we should go beyond that by asking how was it produced, where did all of the ingredients come from and as we start to eat more responsibly, weight loss and beauty will also follow.

What are three of your personal favorite Gorgeously Green products that you can’t live without in your kitchen?

Number one is olive oil. In fact, I have an entire section in my book dedicated to just olive oil. In my kitchen, I have two kinds of olive oil: pure olive oil that I use for cooking and extra virgin that I use to dress a finished dish. It is important to note that not all olive oils are equal in quality, many are cut with hazelnut oil which take away from its purity and taste. Second, I can’t live without my immersion blender. I use it from everything from soups to making my own mayonnaise. Last is a new food chopper that I just received from someone. I love this very recent addition to my kitchen appliance so much because I can quickly chop an onion, a salad  or any other fruit or vegetable in no time at all.

Here is the complete interview with Sophie Uliano.

The Gorgeously Green Diet is packed with not just powerful information about green living but also simple and delicious recipes for how to take care of your health and your beauty while also preserving the protecting Mother Earth.