Fox’s Emily Deschanel Dishes on Being Vegan, Going Green

So there was another article with Emily, on Health.com, that must have been done on the same day as the one I posted here. She's also on the cover of the April '09 issue of Health Magazine.

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Bones star Emily Deschanel spoke with Health magazine about her passion for planet Earth. In this web-exclusive interview she talks about her eco-friendly lifestyle—and how you can go green, too.

 

Q: What’s one simple change Health readers could do to go green?
A: Be aware of what you’re doing in every way. Turning on your light impacts so many things—it affects the environment and uses fossil fuels. Instead of thinking, I need to change this immediately, start thinking about how you are and what you’re doing in your life that you can do better.

Q: Do you ever get disappointed with yourself by forgoing going green?
A: Yes, especially with take-out food. I keep telling myself that I should bring containers to the place and have them fill it up. It’s inconvenient, because if I want them to deliver to my house, I have to look at the pile of containers, and I get disappointed in myself. There’s got to be a better way.

Q: In L.A. there are a lot of resources for vegans, like you. Any advice for going vegan in a small town?
A: You can do it anywhere, but you may want to just start by being vegetarian, or eating less meat or less dairy. And that’s good for your health. There are so many studies that show eating meat and dairy products leads to a lot of cancers and heart disease.

Q: Do you have to be a greenie to win your heart?
A: My boyfriend eats mainly vegetarian, but he’s not totally vegetarian. He ate everything when we first started going out. I did not try to change him, but, I think after he went to enough animal events, and was around a lot of loud vegans, [laughs] he picked up some habits.

Q: What causes are you most passionate about?
A: Animals are what I’m most passionate about. I think that so many people don’t care about animals, or they put people first. And I value them both equally. I’m working with the Humane Society and with Farm Sanctuary, which is a farm animal sanctuary, but there’s a lot of animal organizations that I believe are doing really good works.

Q: How do you juggle it all? Is there a secret to balancing everything?
A: I think it’s important to take time for yourself, even if it’s five minutes. If you can get 20, that’s amazing. Every day, find time for yourself, to really let go and relax. I love taking a bath and lighting candles. I just do breathing exercises, even for a few minutes. And that really kind of centers me.

Q: When and where do you feel happiest?
A: I feel happiest when I’m surrounded by friends or family. Around the holidays I had friends over, and we were in my dining room eating food and drinking wine and sharing stories. I also love driving up the coast and looking at a beautiful sunset, even though that sounds so cheesy.

Source: Health.com

(the url text made me giggle for some reason.)