How To Draw Save Environment

Julia Roberts shares her tips for protecting our environment

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Julia Roberts doesn't seem to want for much — she's got a happy marriage, beautiful children, an incredible career. And the woman who has it all must know it all too, right? Wrong. The star is quick to list the litany of daily dilemmas that plague a lot of us, as she recently revealed: "I am a wife and mother of three. My days are busy and fun and full of questions that need answers. What to wear? What to cook for breakfast? Is your blanket my responsibility? Paper or plastic? Has anyone seen my keys? Why is your sister crying? What time will you be home? Where to start?"

Luckily, Roberts found just the right person to answer that last question. Though she had considered herself fairly eco-savvy, she nevertheless began to feel that she wasn't doing enough to protect her family — or her planet. She wants to raise her three kids, twins Hazel and Finn, 4, and son Henry, 1, to be healthy, conscientious people who are aware of their impact on the Earth, but it seemed a daunting task. Enter Sophie Uliano, a passionate environmentalist and yoga instructor who quickly became Julia's go-to "green guru for advice on living green while looking great.

A petite, blond dynamo with a lilting British accent, Uliano is a Mary Poppins for the new millennium: Rather than advocating a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, Uliano will recommend rubbing sugar on your skin to increase its glow — and then offer numerous other homegrown tips and tricks. It's no wonder Roberts has said she immediately felt that her life was about to change: "This is what I've been waiting for...someone to tell me what to do!"

For Uliano, living green comes naturally. "I was raised in England, with a mother who grew our vegetables in a garden and dried our clothes outside," she says. "But when I moved to Los Angeles, obviously I made some compromises. Because of the yoga work I was doing with celebrities, it was like I had a Jimmy Choo in one world and a Birkenstock sandal in the other. So I wanted to find a way to bridge those two worlds."

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The result was the new book Gorgeously Green, in which Uliano offers an eight-step program for living healthier without having to become a "crunchy granola, Earth-mother type who never wears makeup.... That's not the sort of woman I'm talking about," Uliano says with a laugh. Instead, she's talking about someone a lot like Roberts, who got an early draft of Uliano's book and was an instant fan — so much so that she wound up writing the foreword. Not long after, the two women set up a "green group" for Roberts and her closest girlfriends, who gathered at Roberts's home to learn about everything from nontoxic nail polish to safer cleansers.

"There we were, on Julia's kitchen floor, huddled around this big bucket, making an all-purpose cleaning spray out of water and essential oils," Uliano says. "It was very hands-on." Roberts and her pals also kept journals, in which they wrote about their concerns and their hopes. "It got very emotional," Uliano recalls. "There were tears shed when we'd start to share about our children and what we want for them."

Uliano found Roberts to be a particularly apt pupil. "Julia actually loves homework," she says. "Every week, she'd say to me, 'Okay, so what can I do now? I want homework!' And she really meant it! I think she wanted me to have a big red pen and to give her a grade!" So Uliano set her to work, telling her to start reading labels and rid her medicine cabinet of makeup containing harsh chemicals. Eventually, Roberts and Uliano tackled the great outdoors, planting an organic garden at the star's home. "We did all different lettuces and beans and carrots. And sunflowers for the children, which they planted themselves," Uliano says. Just watching Mom's garden grow taught Hazel, Finn, and Henry a valuable lesson in patience.

"Julia is such an unbelievably conscientious mom that she explains everything to her kids," Uliano says. "But Finn wanted to know, a few hours after we planted the carrots, why they hadn't grown yet and if he'd be having them for dinner that evening. This taught him that a carrot is something that needs weeding and watering and caring, and that it's a great moment when you can pull it out of the ground and eat it. When a child understands that, he's so much less likely to waste food or think of it as gross. He's put such time and effort into nurturing it."

The (surprisingly simple) truth about "going green":

While most people can't be as lucky as Julia Roberts and have a green guru guide them toward healthier living, even the easiest changes can yield big results — from more radiant skin to cleaner countertops. For the new book Healthy Child, Healthy World, author Christopher Gavigan spoke to dozens of stars about the simple ways they've created a safer, more wholesome environment for their families. Going green doesn't have to mean single-handedly saving the Earth. Instead, it can be just reading a label, thinking a little, and making new choices. Here, celebrity moms share their healthiest habits and biggest breakthroughs.

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"When it comes to living a healthier life, I really feel you have to call your own shots. I'll make things myself, partly because it's fun, partly because I've been doing it since I was little, mostly because it gives me a sense of control. I've made homeopathic treatments and aromatherapy treatments. I'm constantly looking for the best products out there, and I helped my hairdresser launch a line of organic hair-care products, free of animal products as well as parabens and sulfates [chemicals thought by some experts to have a negative impact on health and the environment] called David Babii for WildAid. Ten percent of the money goes toward protecting endangered species.

"Food is another area where I try to exert control. Cooking is one of my favorite things to do; when I'm away on a set and can't cook for Ryder, it drives me crazy. I like to get as inventive as possible. He doesn't like veggies, so I boil them, puree them, then hide them in his food so he doesn't say, 'Mommy, I see something green....' Often I put them in lasagna or other kinds of pasta. I'll also put flaxseed oil or a flavored omega-3 oil in peanut butter. It's all about taking charge. You can't stop your child from doing what they're going to do outside the home. But I can do something — quite a lot, actually — about the products in my home. That requires my being as conscious about things as possible, what I put in and on my body. Plus, I believe in constantly finding new ways to do things — myself."

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"When my son was 3 months old, I took him to the zoo. At the polar bear exhibit, Wyatt's face lit up when he saw the baby polar bear. It was amazing for me to watch them connect — these living beings who share a planet. But I also felt panic and overwhelming sadness knowing the impact our environment is having on polar bears and on us.

"Yet I see something very hopeful in kids — the birth of new activists. Kids don't just feel helplessness and panic but a sense of injustice, too. I sometimes think the thing that keeps adults from acting is cynicism, a belief that we can't really change things. Kids aren't like that. They're awake to what's around them, so they can actually do something about it. We teach our kids all these ideals: Let's leave the Earth a better place than we found it. Kids are motivated not just by what's in their heads but by what they actually see, like a baby polar bear. They can be the ones to motivate us, their parents, to change."

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"When you make choices to live better, greener, and more organic, it's not always so clear-cut; that is, you want to do the right thing, but you also have to do what works for you and your lifestyle," Shields wrote recently. "Sometimes that means choosing the lesser of two evils.

"When you become a parent, you would think the choices become more obvious, and they do — you always know who comes first — but then there are still trade-offs; there always are. I've changed all our products to eco-friendly ones, but sometimes I have to bring in something less eco-friendly as a supplement. I use all recycled paper products except toilet paper.

"I realize that just because I can't go all the way and in every area, I still can make a sizable difference. In my mind, I may still lament that I haven't gone even farther.... In my actions, though, I try always to be forward-moving, to focus on the change I am making."

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"I never wanted to make my own apple juice or puree my own peas. But now I make healthy choices about food, and I only wish someone had really, really explained to me the consequences of not doing that when you're around young kids. I always heard, 'It's important to eat your vegetables.' We all did. But it wasn't until I was older that I realized just how important it really is, and what damage can be caused by not appreciating that.

"When my kids were younger, if they didn't eat what I put out for them, it was no big deal. I didn't enforce it (and I hate the word 'enforcer'). I wasn't a big vegetable eater myself. I never said anything to them like, 'These carrots and spinach are so great, I can't wait for you to taste them.' It was just so much less friction to do SpaghettiOs or pizza again. And since I'm not a great cook, it was easier in that way, too.

"As my son got older, his habits, like those of most kids his age, were pretty much set. In high school, we had the three-bite rule: He had to take three bites of spinach or broccoli or whatever. Sure enough, he took his three bites and that was it. There was no pleasure involved whatsoever. For him, it was like a prison sentence. Now, my son is in his junior year of college, and I have to bribe him to eat a salad. Recently, we went out to eat and I said, 'Will, you've got to order some vegetables.' And he replied, 'Well, I wasn't taught to eat that way.' And you know what? He was absolutely right. He wasn't.

"It's just about my biggest regret as a parent. Instead of letting them eat Ho Hos and Twinkies and saying, 'If you're good, I'll let you have some ice cream,' why couldn't I have said, 'If you're good, I'll let you have some apple slices'? I'm not saying that, if I had it to do over again, my son would never have gone to one of those ice cream birthday parties. But it's about education and moderation.

"Kids learn manners from their parents; why shouldn't they learn from them the beauty of asparagus? I'm not one of those mothers who could ever have grown her own garden. But if I had to do it all over again, I would really celebrate the joys of carrots and broccoli and spinach. I certainly would have felt better had I tried. And, of course, my children would have, too."

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"My mom has always been conscious of the environment and health issues. When I was growing up, we would go to farmers' markets and even had wheatgrass in the kitchen. She started a curbside recycling program in Santa Monica, CA, in the seventies, and each week I drove with her to the recycling center.

"It wasn't until later that I understood the harm that can come from pesticides and other chemicals in food. As soon as I did, I tried to eat foods that were organic, grown locally, and not processed or full of preservatives. That was reinforced when I became a parent. When I'd read about what pesticides do to small animals, I thought, Why would I expose my child to that?

"Now, we also do other things to protect our family's health, from installing a water-filtration system to using nontoxic shampoos. I try to open the windows in the day — an old-fashioned airing out — even in winter, because the air inside the house is often more polluted than the air outside.

"I just want my kids to be as healthy as they possibly can. And I feel like eating well is the best start for living well."

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"Some things are important for the world to know...like how long I shower. Seriously. I take a three-minute shower. I even brush/wash — brush my teeth while I shower. Here's why: I learned that every two minutes in the shower uses as much water as a person in Africa uses for everything in their life for a whole day — drinking, bathing, cooking, and cleaning — everything! When you become aware of all the things you do, and the effect those things have, you want to make small changes ... When I found out that my cell phone charger still uses energy when it's plugged in and it's not being used, I began unplugging it. It all goes back to awareness and knowing better and then making a simple shift in habit. Eventually, it just becomes second nature. If we all begin to learn from one another and share some of the things we do, we just might be able to affect the world for the better through these little rituals."

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