Eco18 Questions: Julieanna Hever

Each month we will ask a new eco-maven 18 questions about his or her life, occupation and advice for other like-minded people. This month we connected with Julieanna Hever, best selling author and plant-based dietitian shooting her own show for Veria Living TV in New York City.  Julieanna has recently appeared on Dr. Oz, E! New, Yahoo! TV and HLN Headline news, talking about the health, economic and environmental benefits of plant-based nutrition.

1. What is your name (and age)?

Julieanna Hever, MS, RD, CPT

2. What is your occupation?

Plant-Based Dietitian, author, speaker

3. Do you have a “green” memory growing up?

I read John Robbins’ Diet for a New America and learned about our personal impact on the environment. My passion was sparked then and continues to dramatically increase as I learn and discover more.

4. What’s your favorite meal?

Green smoothie or a huge salad with tahini-based dressing

5. Who/What inspires you to be more “green” in your life?

I am inspired to be as green as possible simply by witnessing the world around me. Everyday I see the vast damage we are creating in our environment when working with clients and seeing the dramatic health impacts of the chemicals found in our food and the types of food they are consuming. Factory farming is the number one contributor to environmental decline. This is one of the primary reasons I advocate a whole food, plant-based diet. Personally, I do not eat any animal products and strive to do all that I can to be green…recycling, reducing, using eco-friendly light bulbs, minimizing water use, purchasing recycled products when possible, etc.

6. Where on the “green scale” do you fall?

No matter how hard I try to be green, I know there is always more I can do. As with most goals in life, being green is a journey. I strive to do better and continue to make changes to the best of my ability.

7. What are the most rewarding and most challenging parts of your job?

I absolutely love my job! The biggest reward is when a client, student, or reader of my book(s) tell me about their extraordinary results…that they reduced or got off their medications, reversed their chronic condition (such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol), lost weight, enhanced energy, ran their first marathon, etc. Fortunately, I get to see this on a regular basis, and this is what fuels my passion to keep teaching and guiding others towards achieving their goals. The most challenging part is that there are only 24 hours in the day and I want to do more! I wish I could take on more clients, speak more, and write more. But I feel blessed to have found my dream career!

8. Where’s your “greenspot”: food, bodycare/beauty, oceans, home or neighborhood, explain:

My green spot is definitely food…I am a Dietitian, so nutrition is my expertise. The gorgeous part of this is the fact that eating a whole food, plant-based diet directly impacts the health of our oceans, neighborhood, rainforests, air, climate, soil, and more.

9. Where do you turn for your news?

I read and watch as much as possible…I love searching the internet for food and health news and try to seek out a broad array of different sources. I also love finding primary research articles on Google Scholar and PubMed.

10. What is one environmental change you vow to make in the next year?

My goal is to use less paper towels!

11.If you could trade places with one person from any time in history (past or present) for one day—who would it be and why?

Albert Einstein. I have always wondered what it would be like to live in that ingenious mind.

12. You have a meeting with the leader of every country in the world. You have 30 seconds to tell them anything you want. Go!

If you want to save billions of dollars in healthcare costs, dramatically improve the health of your people, stop the destruction of the planet, help feed the hungry throughout the world, save over 10 billion land animals per year, save our air and oceans, please support a whole food, plant-based diet and take political interests out of our food and healthcare industries. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes need to be prioritized so that they are more affordable and accessible than fast food, instead of the other way around. Medical care should focus on prevention and lifestyle instead of disease management. Schools should return to having physical education as part of their daily agenda and the food provided should be healthful and promote optimal mental function, as opposed to sugary, fatty processed items that hardly resemble real food and interfere with growth and education. Please consider emphasizing a diet close to nature so that your nation can thrive, be more productive and healthier.

13. You have the chance to send one tweet to all the tweeps in the world. Let’s hear it in 140 characters, or less!

The #1 most effective choice u can make to stave off chronic disease & maintain ideal body weight is to eat a whole food, plant-based diet!

14. If there was one industry/product that you could make more eco-friendly, what would it be?

I wish we could make the farming industry more eco-friendly. Conventional farming is destroying our climate and air, causing rapid deforestation and desertification, depleting our soil, creating dead zones in the oceans, killing off thousands of species a year, and harming our entire ecosystem. Current methods are unsustainable and need to be drastically revised.

15. Where in the world would you most like to be right now?

I love the two cities I spend the most time in: Los Angeles and NYC. I would also love to travel more internationally and have a mild obsession with Italy, even though I have only been there once.

16. What is the best book you have read recently?

I have read a bunch of great books lately, but my two favorites are Lisa Bloom’s Think (It really does make you do what the title suggests…) and Jane Velez-Mitchell’s Addict-Nation: An Intervention for America (the information is priceless and she sums up the biggest problems in the U.S.).

17. What makes you cringe?

I cringe when I see long lines at the drive-thru of fast food restaurants, candy being given out at schools on a regular basis, and anything to do with animal agriculture.

18. What do you want your legacy to be?

I will die happily if I was able to help a huge amount of people see how easy and fun it is to eat healthfully!