Lets talk acids and alkalines... ... in my last food post I talked a little bit about acids and alkalines when I told you why I decided not to eat any white flour nor any refined sugar for (at least) a year. Some of you asked why sugar and white flour is bad for you so I thought it may be a good idea to write a little bit more about acids and alkalines (which are only PART of the story of why white sugar and white flour is bad - the other part is all about the gut flora which I may write about someday too).
Now, what is the story with acids and alkalines? Your body maintains a delicate acid-alkaline balance and everything, truely everything, in your body (and outside too actually - like water, soil...) is affected
by pH. PH stands for “potential hydrogen” and it is the measure
of hydrogen ions in a particular solution, like your blood for example.
The pH scale measures how acidic or alkaline a
substance is and ranges from 0 to 14. Seven is neutral. Below 7 becomes
increasingly acidic, above 7 increasingly alkaline.Proper
pH varies throughout your body for many reasons. For example, your
bowels, skin and vagina should be slightly acidic – this helps keep
unfriendly bacteria away. There is a constant balance throughout your body when it comes to acids and alcalines. Hence, acids are not always bad and alkalines not always good - its all about the balance.
By far the most important measurement is your blood. For optimal
cellular health, your blood pH must be slightly alkaline with a pH
between 7.365 and 7.45.Your body will maintain this range no matter what, since even the
slightest dip or rise in pH can have seriously dangerous consequences.
Now here is where food comes in: when you eat loads of acidic substances and foods, like meat, dairy, highly processed food
products, white flour, and refined sugar your body has a looooot of work to do to keep up with a healthy pH.
To keep up the pH between 7.365 and 7.45 your body is forced to borrow minerals—including
calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium—from vital organs and bones
to neutralize the acid and safely remove it from the body. Because
of this strain, your body can suffer severe and prolonged damage due to high
acidity — a condition that may go undetected for years and can lead to various symptons, such as cardiovascular damage, bladder and kidney conditions, including kidney stones, immune deficiency, premature aging, osteoporosis, joint pain, low energy and chronic fatigue.
By eating a more alkaline diet (leafy greens, veggies,
sprouts, fruits) as opposed to an acidic
diet (high in animal products, white flour, refined sugar, soda, etc), you will give yourbody more alkalinity, vitamins and other nutrients.
So far so good. But what is an alkaline diet and how many acids do you need?
The most acid foods are animal products of any kind, white sugar, white flour, all processed foods, soda etc. The most alkaline foods are all fruits (except for cranberries), all veggies, all greens, almonds, quinoa, amarant, wild rice etc. However, some foods are somwhere in the middle - like oats, corn, or potatoes. So even on a plant based diet you will get some acids. And this is good! Because you need SOME (around 20%). However, you only need SOME! When eating animal products, white flour or sugar you will easily come up with muuuuuch more than 20% of your total food intake as acids and hence, you will be out of balance.
This is why I decided to stop eating white flour and refined sugar on top of eating a vegan diet :) Does this sound too complicated to you? Its not! Its easy - just eat all the good whole plants out there and you will have so much fun in the kitchen, feel full of energy, save the planet (animal production is responsible for 50-85% of emissions!) and be happy :) And in case you need some help to begin with, there are tons of awesome ready made products out there which are truely healthy for you and the planet. I recently tried this yummy quinoa mix from Alvito which is composed to help you to get your alkalines. Its full of alkaline ingredients such a herbs, veggies, quinoa, amarant and millet. Plus its really tasty. I added some extra veggies to it and had some chicory and chili-soy-yogurt with it. Delicious! Feel free to check out more alkaline products on alvito.com (German only as far as I can tell)
Writing my Thursday posts is always so much fun! I am really happy with the decision to post only twice a week instead of three times. I have more time to prepare my posts and I enjoy writing these long posts on Thursdays. I am already looking forward to next weeks Thursday post (it will be beauty related...;)) and for the one the week after (which will be sweet and yummy ;)).
But now tell me how you liked this post and if you were familiar with the topic before! Are you now able to understand better why I decided to stay away from refined products such a white flour and sugar? Sending sooooo much love to all of you wonderful readers and friends!
Do you perceive yourself as being a Real Fashion Blogger? For some reason I have been thinking about if I am a real fashion blogger or not and what a real fashion blogger actually is. I came to the conclusion that I am not a real fashion blogger and that I cannot ever become a real fashion blogger. why? Well here are my top five reasons: 1. Real fashion bloggers KNOW about fashion Thats what I think. I think real fashion bloggers should know about fashion. This does not mean that they have to know the newest trends, but they know either about current trends or about past trends, they know about designers, about materials, shapes and prints. I do not know and I do not feel like I want to know. I love clothes and I love to think about what to wear but I am not interested in designers, in fashion history or in the latest trends. So this is reason no 1 for why I could never be a real fashion blogger.
2. Real fashion blogger try new items/styles/designs/colors
I pretty much stick to the same style and even to the same colors in yeeeeaaars. I always liked and always will like blue, black and white. Pink and grey have been added in 2014. Thats about it ;) I wear the same sweaters and jeans that I bought back in 2011 and my favorite dress is from 2006! Of course I add new items and somehow also new styles to my closet every now and then but at the end of the day, I look pretty much the same every day, I stick to my style and thats why I think I could never be a real fashion blogger.
3. Real fashion bloggers have loads of shoes and bags
I have tote bags and two pairs of shoes for Winter and two for Spring/Fall. And I do not feel like getting more because I think two pairs of shoes for one seaon is absolutely fine. 100% failed for being a real fashion blogger! ;)
4. Real fashion blogger truly inspire
I follow like a few fashion bloggers on instagram and here in the blogger world and I LOVE looking at their OOTDs and I get inspired by them - because they wear things differnetly, they have really individual outfits, they are creative in their looks, they just truly inspire. My blog here is a lot of fun for me and I love taking those outfit snaps with my husband. But I do not believe that I truly inspire with my rather casual looks. I may inspire with my food-posts though ;) 5. Real fashion blogger iron their clothes Haha. yeah, true story. I never iron anything and hence, I can never look like a real fashion blogger ;)
One more reason could be that I am against fast fashion and most fashion bloggers are living fast fashion. But this one does not really count, because I am convinced that one can be a great fashion blogger without promoting fast fashion.
By the way, I do not think that it is a bad thing not to be a real fashion blogger. Its not like my goal to be one. My goal is to be happy and I totally am happy - with my style, my blog, my life. These are just some thoughts that I had.I do not mean to criticize anyone with this post and I complety respect if you think a real fashion blogger does not have to fit into any of the five points I mentioned here.
I can totally see that this post is sliiighlty provocative and I am looking forward to read your commnts on it! What do you think makes a real fashion blogger? Do you see yourself as being one? I really would love to know!!!
Sending much love to all of you wonderful people out there! Thank you for passing by!
Today I want to talk about one of my New Years resolutions... ... I told you back in this post in a sidenote that I have this little challenge going on for the year 2016. I will not eat any white flour nor any refined sugar during the entire lenght of year! Oh yes! Today I want to tell you a little bit more about this challenge and why I decided for it :) Maybe you have heard of the term acid-base-balance!? In case you havent, let me just tell you a little bit about it... our blood basically needs the right balance
of acid and basic (alkaline) compounds to function properly. Kidneys and lungs work to keep the acid-base balance. So food is digested in our bodies and is broken down to a kind of ash residue, which determines alkaline vs acidic foods.
This ash residue can be either neutral, acidic, or alkaline. In general alkaline foods contain higher amounts of potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron,
and will leave an alkaline ash, while acidic foods contain higher
amounts of sulphur, phosphorus, and chlorine and leave an acid ash. Food such as meat, eggs, dairy products, sugar, coffee, white flour, and soda ar highly acidic! A diet high in acidics is responsible for various diseases such as arthrosis, gallstones, high blood pressure, depression, fatigue, etc. etc. etc. Now as you may guess I am already doing pretty good eating loads of alkaline foods, since I am not eating any animal products (which are all highly acid). However, I still used to eat white flour and refined sugar from time to time. Because I want to get an even better balance when it comes to my acids and alkalines, I decided to stop eating refined sugar and white flour - for now I say for one year, maybe it will be forever after this one year :)
Now that I wrote a little bit about the background let me continue with how the challenge went so far. First of all, leaving out the white flour and the refined sugar I realized that I end up leaving out all the empty calories, so this challenge somehow also became a no-empty-calories-challenge to me. Since January 1, everything I put into my body is rich in nutrients and can actually be used by my body - it does not stress my organism (as meat and dairy products, sugar, white flour, etc. do). Do you wanna now how I feel since?
Its been three weeks so far and I have to say that the first few days without sugar have been a little hard for me. Those of you who have babies too, you know how much you are craving energy when you are breastfeeding. And sugar is the fastest and easiest way to get energy. When I left out the sugar, I ate even more to get all the energy I need. The first few days this was difficult to me but now, three weeks later, I feel great with it! I do not have any cravings for sugar and I enjoy eating a loooooot of carbs to get the energy I need (without gaining any weight). I do not miss white flour at all, to be honest. I love my whole wheat pasta, my whole grain spelt pancakes and my whole grain bread. I need to find a place where they have whole wheat brezels though, cause I begin to miss pretzels ;)
So I feel GREAT and I am happy that I decided for this challenge... but this does not mean that its easy or even possible not to eat refined sugar and white flour! Why? Let me tell you!
In almost every processed product there is sugaar! Go to the wholefood shop and take any hummus, any vegetable broth, any sandwich spread - in every second of the products you will find SUGAR! So far I was not able to find a vegetable broth without sugar so I cannot say that I am doing perfect in my challenge, because I still use the broth. Also white flour - in Germany, when a bread is declared as "whole grain" it must only contain 80% whole grains so the 20% left is white flour in every second bread. Also, there is sugar in almost all breads. Hence, in case you do not do EVERYTHING by yourself, it is more or less impossible to go 100% sugar and white flour free!
I realized from the first day on that I will not be able to make this challenge 100%. I do not yet know great alternatives to vegetable broth that do not contain sugar (any ideas?), I cannot bake my own bread every day (we do aorund once a week but sometimes we also buy organic whole grain bread) but I am getting better every day :) I am totally fine with the fact that I am not doing it 100% because I know that I do my best and I feel already a difference. Also I know that those traces of white flour and sugar will not have much impact on my acid-base balance nor on my intestinal flora (which is the second reason for who I do this challenge - a healthy intestinal flora is key to good health and wheat and sugar are destroying the healthy bacteria down there (as do animal products by the way))). By the way, there are of course also some processed foods who are very alkaline and I am definetly going to share a few with you on the blog throughout the year :) I will also share more background information on why sugar and white flour, next to animal products, are bad for your intestinal flora and for your health in general - so be ready for that ;)
So far, I hope you enjoyed this post! Have you every thought about if your acids and alkalines are in balance? What do you think about my no-empty-calories-challenge? Could you do without refined sugar and white flour for a year or even longer? I would love to know!
This is a post I wanted to make for a looong time...
... about a year ago, I wrote a post about eating a plant-based diet during pregnancy (you can find the post here). You can actually find a lot of information about what to eat during pregnancy on the net, also loads of info about a vegan diet during pregnancy, but for some reason the period of breastfeeding is less popular. Its harder to find information about that actually- as if it is less important! I think it is AT LEAST as important what you are eating during the period of nursing as what you eat during pregancy. So here are some info about this topic. First of all: it is absolutely easy to get all the vitamins, minerals, all the protein and all the calcium you need, when you are vegan and breastfeeding. It is actually much EASIER than when eating an omnivore diet. Because when you eat meat and dairy this automatically means that you eat less fruits and veggies and since meat and dairy is less nutrient-dense than fruits and veggies you get less nutrients (on an equal amount of calories). That said, let me go into the details :) Breastfeeding is very exhausting for your body! You need loads of energy (food) and loads of nutrients to make sure YOU get enough of everything. Your baby will take what it needs, it comes first - so make sure there is always enough left over for you! Eat 300-500 calories more than before pregnancy. Of course you do not have to count calories. Just always eat in abundance and you will get the right amount! Never restrict yourself, always eat until you are fully satisfied. And do not be afraid of gaining weight: as long as you eat healthy foods you can eat as much as you like and you will not get fat. Look at me - I often eat up to 3000 calories a day and I do not think that I am a fatty!? When you eat healthy (low fat, plant-based) you will loose your pregnancy weight automatically because your little one will suck it all out of your body, dont worry. My current weight is below me before-pregancy weight (-2kg) even though I eat really a loooooot... but my baby also drinks a lot ;)
Now there is this craze about proteins and that you may not get enough on a plant-based diet. One question: have you ever heard of someone with protein-defiency? No? Well, it will be difficult to find someone because only when you go hungry for weeks, you risk to become protein-defienct. Here is a quote to explain further:
“When your caloric needs are met [by eating whole foods], your protein
needs are met automatically. Focus on eating healthy natural foods;
forget about trying to get enough protein. Your protein needs increase
in direct proportion to increased caloric demands and your increased
appetite. Guess what? You automatically get enough. The same is true
during pregnancy. When you meet your caloric needs with an assortment of
natural plant foods, you will receive the right amount of protein- not
too much and not too little.” -Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Eat to Live
The same goes for calcium by the way - more and more studies prove that too much calcium (loads of dairy products) actually harms the body andwe get right the perfect amount when we eat a diet based on fruit and veggies. Iron? Not to worry about, as long as you eat ENOUGH! The key to getting enough nutrients really is TO EAT ENOUGH! Now you may say that I am crazy and that you learned your whole life that you should eat less!? Well, just think about it - the more good food you eat the more nutrients you get, the less you eat the less you get. When you decide that you want to eat only 1300 or so calories per day than better make sure that those are superfoods only so that you get your nutrients. In case you do not only want to eat superfoods, just make sure you eat enough during the day, loads of veggies and fruits and you will get everything you need. During pregnancy, during the nursing period and beyond :)
This said, I have a few recommendations for you, representing the way I eat during nursing period (and beyond): 1. Eat vegetables in abundance!
Your veggies are life! Make sure to eat loads of green veggies such as salads, kale, broccoli, spinach, swiss chard, etc. etc. they are extremely nutrient dense. One great way to get your greens is by making green smoothies! Just blend your greens in a high speed blender with your favorite fruits and voilà; you have a nice healthy snack! 2. Eat Fruit in abundance!
Fruits
are the highest quality source of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients!
Plus they are super sweet and yummy. Have you tried to make a whole meal
of 1000 kalories from fruit only? Its fun and yummy! You can find loads
of inspo on the net. However,
I know that those of us living in the northern hemisphere have a hard
time to find an abundance of fresh and ripe fruit in Winter. This is why I recommend for anyone who feels its difficult to get hand on an abundance of fresh fruits (which is the case in Germany): 3. Add nutrient dense juices and super foods! In Summer its easy to eat loads of fresh and ripe fruits but in Winter it is difficult here in Germany. Its important to eat your fruits fresh and ripe to avoid bloating and problems with the digestion, but except for apples, bananas, oranges, and a few others, you will have a hard time to find ripe fruit during the German Winter. This is way I like to add Barley Grass to my daily routine. I wrote more about why I LOVE barley grass back here. I also like to add a little bit of nutrient dense juice to my water. Juice from e.g. aronia, acerola, cranberry or sea buckthorn have loads of vitamins and minerals plus they add some flavor to my water ;) As with the barley grass and with everything else, quality is very important to me. I get my barley grass from Jomu and I love the high quality demeter (organic) NFC juices from Voelkel. Please do not misunderstand me here - I do not recommend drinking loads of fruit juice! I recommend adding small amounts of high quality, carefully pressed, nutrient-dense deliciousness :) 4. Eat enough calories!
This really is so important! When you are breastfeeding you. need. to. eat. enough. Really! When you loose too much weight at once during nursing period, the toxicants stored in your fat will go directly to your milk and, hence, to your baby. Toxicants are always stored in fat, so be careful about it :) Further, as I wrote already above; you can only get enough nutrients and energy when you eat enough. Dont worry about your shape, it will come back automatically when you eat healthy!
Plus - make sure to always supply vitamin B12! The baby will not get any of your stored B12 reserves through the milk but only the one you actually EAT! Wow, what a long post! It was so much fun to write! A huge thanks to Voelkel for the juices and to Jomu for my much loved barley grass! I am such a lucky women, I am! :) By the way, most of you know, but I still would like to repeat, that I only recommend sustainable, organic brands here on my blog. And I only recommend products that I really USE in my everyday life and that I really like!
It is the very end of the year... ... and it is the time of the year where we like to think back of what happend in the past year and we like to make plans for the new year. I have quite a few plans for 2016, more than usual when it comes to the end of the year, actually. I have some blog related plans and some personal plans. And I have a lot to look back to.
2015 - looking back on my life
In 2015 my life changed more than in any other year before - I became a mother. A huge step which felt so normal and natural to me. My daily life changed, my status in society changed, my role in the household changed and yet I embraced all of these changes and I was nothing but grateful for my little daughter during this entire year.
The birth of my daughter was definetly the biggest happening in 2015 but loads of other small thoughts, moments, conversations and inspirations made this year so special to me. I learned a lot about me in 2015, I learned a lot about how I want to live my life. I actually think now, at the end of the year, that I understand and know myself better than ever before. This makes me feel good with myself because I can see now that I live in accordence with my beliefs, my ideologies and my personality. I feel good. I feel better than ever actually. I am happy at the end of the year, even very happy. Full of gratitude and without any regrets. Its been a while since I felt like this on New Years Eve! 2015 - looking back on my blog
In 2015 loads of things changed on my blog. I finally dared to change my blog in a way that made it more personal and brought it back closer to my values and ideologies - I decided to cooperate with sustainable companies only, not to make posts for cheap clothes anymore, to share more about my personal thoughts on life, to make my blog more personal in general and to be more critically with myself and my behaviour as a consumer, not only in real life, but also, and especially on the blog.
I critically reviewd all the clothes I bought during the year in my My Purchases column, I wrote a few posts in my About Life column, I wrote about my Pregnancy, and I wrote more about brands I really love and which I love to support. I am happy with my blogger year of 2015 but still, there are a few things that I still want to change...
Lisbon January 2015
2016 - looking ahead to my blog
I have a few plans for my blog for 2016. Of course I want to continue to cooperate only with sustainable brands and I want to show you even more "good" brands in the coming year. I also want to continue with the My Purchases posts because they are really helpful for me to critically analyse my shopping behaviour. Furthermore, I plan to post slightly more on healthy food. You will not see a single recipe containing refined sugar or white flour on my blog in 2016 and you will be able to read slightly more on why to eat in a certain way. Since I am a nutritionist now, I think its okay to share a little bit more of nutrion advices :)
Also - I plan to go down to two posts a week! Since I am usually blogging at night or early in the morning I would have a night per week more to read books, watch movies, or write letters, and a morning more to go running. So there will be fewer posts on the blog but more quality time in my life :)
2016 - looking ahead to my life
I have quite a few plans for 2016 when it comes to my life in general.
Here is the first one: I will not eat any refined sugars and no white flour for the entire year of 2016! Bam! This is mainly because I want to get my acid/base ratio into balance (its not bad since I am already eating a healthy vegan diet, but I am not yet where I want to be). I am totally looking forward to this small challenge. I will share with you how things go every few months or so and I will share even more healthy recipes with you :)
But now to a more emotional level. I plan to accept myself the way I am every day, every minute, every second. I love myself and I want to be able to feel the love I have for myself every single day. I do no longer want to blame myself for things others feel disturbed about. I did this for a long time but I understand now that when someone feels disturbed by my way of living, it is mainly because the other is not happy with his/her way of living. So my goal for 2016 is to simply be ME every moment and not to be afraid what others think of me when I am being me :)
I also want to want to take the responsibility for my relationships with others. When a relationship that is important to me does not go well, it is not the others fault but it may also be my fault. So I want to take responsibility for every relationship that is important to be and make it be a good one. On the other hand, I want to let go with relationships that are draining energy from me and are trying to "keep me small" if you know what I mean!?
There are of course also loads of travel plans, work plans, what-to-do plans for 2016 but these are not as imortant to me as are those more spritual plans I have. I could write a lot more but I think that I managed to put down what is most important to me. The rest can wait and you will see it anyway on my blog as I will post about my travels, my business, my outfits, my food, any my life :)
Iran October 2015
I am looking forward to 2016, to life in general and to everything that is going to happen here on the blog! Thanks for having been with me in 2015! I am looking forward to see you all in 2016 and to stay in touch, keep inspiring and getting inspired and exchanging news :) Happy New Year to all of you! Sending loads of love for 2016!
I am a mother since more than seven months now... ...can you believe that? I sometimes have a hard time... today I want so share some thoughts on this topic with you.
My little girl is sleeping right next to me at this moment, I try to type without noise so that I am not going to wake her up. She is sleeping really good since the first day, we never had a hard time with sleepless nights with her. Thats not the only thing I was surprised about. Before becoming a mother, I thought this is a really difficult, exhausting and enervating job. I found out that its not. Its rather the most normal thing ever, from the first day on. The moment I became a mother I simply WAS a mother and thats it. It was the most normal thing and life continued...
Did I change? Did my life change? Sure, I am a mother now, no longer only friend/sister/wife/cousin/etc. but also mother. But to be honest - I am not sure if I really changed that much. I feel like I am doing the same things as before, blogging, seeing friends, working (a little), cooking, travelling (to Iran with my little one) washing clothes (and cotton diapers now) and spending time with my husband. Plus I spend some time with my baby now, of course, but somehow its like a good friend who is there every day, making your day a little brighter but not asking for too much attention. Of course things changed but I do not really feel it too much since the current state is just the norm for me. I feel its normal not to go out at night and I do not really miss it. I feel its normal that I carry my little one with me to the supermarket when I go grocery shopping and I do not complain about it. I feel its normal to lay down every three- four hours with the little one to feed her and to make her sleep, and I enjoy those little breaks. I never asked people from the outside if they think that I changed. Maybe I should. Maybe they see things completly different and they think I changed a lot, being a mother now. But for me - I think I just AM. Thats it.
However, having changed or not, I definetly can say that I love being a mother. It makes me proud. I am proud of what I am able to do - making an entire new human being! I am proud of that its ME feeding this little angle, it is ME making her grow and getting bigger and heavier every day. It was ME who carried her for nine months and it is me now carrying her every day close to my heart. This makes me proud and this gives me more confidence for life in general. So in this context, yes I changed and I am perceiving a few things differently - myself between others.
What about my relationship to my husband? I know many couples face loads of problems when they get children. And I feel very sorry for them. I think it is sad that something as beautiful, wonderful and perfect as a little baby is causing problems in some relationships, even destroying some. I am very very grateful that the relationship to my husband is as wonderful as it ever was - no actually, it is even more beautiful. Because every day we can see the result of our love. This little human being was made by the two of us. This is miraculous. This is simply amazing. And we are grateful for this every day. We do have time for the two of us, we go for walks together several times a week, we watch a movie together on the sofa once a week, we sit down together to drink tea and talk very frequently and we are always able to discuss everything that is currently bothering us. In a nutshell, our relationship really is as profound and wonderful as it ever was. Our baby did not change this but rather deepened our feelings.
I know that I am not alone, feeling the way I feel about being a mother, but I also know that there are many women out there feeling very differently. Actually, most women I know, complain that they do not have enough time for themselves, because their husbands are busy earning money or doing other things. I can understand these women and I feel sorry for them because they are not able to enjoy the most precious time they can have with their babys, because they are focusing on the fact that they do not have enough time for themselves. I know that I am in a very very fortunate situation because my husband can help me a lot but even if he wasn't, I think that this time that I have with my little one is worth much more than ANYTHING else. Maybe I am conservative and boring but I am okay with that because I am happy. And in the end I think the most important is to be happy :)
Are you a mother? How do you feel about being a mother? How was the first year with your baby? I really would love to know!
This is another post for my About Life column... ... today I want to write about change. I was inspired by various really nice people, by conversations, the slow living conference (I posted about it here) and also by my husband to write this post.
I guess its not new to anyone out there that we change over time. We think differently when we grow older, we behave differently, we change our interests and hobbys, we change our style, we somehow change who we are all the time. Of course we are always the same persons and there are many things that do not change when it comes to our personality, our thoughts and our ideologies - but many do change.
Since I started this blog (that was back in 2012!) I changed. When I started this blog I just left northern Germany and moved to Eastern Germany. Since I left my hometown, I did not have many friends in my new home in the beginning and when university started I found my friends solely at university. I found the most wonderful friends, thats for sure, but, since we got to know eachother from university, all we talked about was university related. I was studying African Politcs and Economics and my husband (boyfriend at the time) was studying European Politics and Economics and all my friends were from the same area, so all we talked about was politics! We had endless discussions about how to make this world a better place through the right policies, how to behave in society (very abstract though), which theories were bad and which teories were okay, etc. etc. it was great and I was very inspired, but I realized after some time that all of this was only one part of me - there was this other girl inside me that wanted to talk about fashion, about what to wear and where to shop and about cosmetics and make up and about food and all those topics that were thought to be "superficial". I could never have talked about these topics with my friends because I would have been afraid that they could think I am stupid and superficial. So I never talked about these things with anyone (except my poor husband who had to listen to me when I explained him why I was wearing this or that outfit this or that day ;)). And then - to be able to live this side of me - I started blogging.
As I told you already in previous posts, I did not tell anyone (except my husband) about my blog since I thought it superficial and stupid to blog and to talk about clothes and food and those kind of things. And I just kept it going for years, not putting too much effort in it because I somehow thought that its stupid anyway (its not world politics so how can it not be stupid ;) ?). Then, when I finished university I was lost for a while and then I began to realize what I really love doing (I have been posting about this a little back here).
By now, I know that topics such a clothes, cosmetics and food - especially food actually - are just what I really like. This does not mean that world politics are no longer important to me, but they are no longer the sole topic I allow myself to show interst in. And this is now where I want to make my point - after I realized that I am not the girl that is 100% academic I ALLOWED myself to show interest in the area of interests I was hiding for a long time. Along with that actually went a huge change: the moment I allowed myself to show interest e.g. in clothes and I started talking more with other people about this interest, I began thinking about in which way I want to be related to this topic - and I took the decision to buy only organic, fair trade or second hand clothes (find out more about that here) because this is much more consistent with my ideologies and values. And when I began talking more about food, I realized that people do not think that I am stupid but that they find it intersting and I realized that its okay to be intersted in food (yes, this may sound stupid to some of you but coming from a family of academics it really is a big step to prefer talking about food than philosophy!) and so I realized that it is okay to change. And to be authentic. And to show what I like. And maybe even to talk about my blog sometime. Because sometimes it seems that it is not that stupid that I always thought it is. :) Now what again has this to do with change? Well, when I realized that its okay to talk about food, about general thoughts, about cosmetics and clothes, my first impulse was to create an entire new blog. Because I thought "okay, now I am okay with what I like and now I will make a really good blog with only organic fashion from the beginning and only pretty food images etc." and I really started planning a new blog. But then I stopped and I thought "hey, its okay to change and my readers are allowed to see this change!". And thats where I am now - I think its okay that I do not like some of my older posts wearing clothes I got from bad brands and even promoting these, but I will leave them there on my blog anyway because they show how I changed and my future posts will show how I change in the future and all of that is okay. My blog will certainly change again and again over time and I hope that I will be able to be more and more proud of it and maybe even tell more and more people about it. I may loose some readers over time and win others and I will loose some partners over time and win others. And somehow I feel like that I will not regret the losses and always be happy about the new additions :) Wow, in case you really read all of that - I love you ;)! Thank you for showing so much interest!
I would love to know your thoughts on this! Are you proud of blogging? Are you proud of yourself? Are there parts of you you prefer to hide?
Today I want to share some book recommendations with you... ... back in April this year I posted a post on WHY to be vegan and today I want to write a little bit about HOW to be vegan. Eating a vegan diet does not always mean that you are also eating a healthy diet. And eating an unhealthy vegan diet can actually be pretty bad for your body. This is why I think it is important to think about HOW to be vegan.
I have some book recommendations, some of them are German but I am sure that you can also find similar English books :)
First of all, I have two books by American authors, which I both really love. The Starch Solution was also named in my WHY to be vegan post because it does explain a whole lot on the health benefits of a vegan diet (plus a little on the benefits on the environment) but it is mainly about HOW to be vegan - namely starch based, with loads and loads of greens and fruits! WITHOUT any added fats, without any "fake meats" and other processed foods and without much refined sugar. It is basically as simple as this: Avoid processed foods (this includes loads of oils, sugars, prepacked food...), eat loads of starches, veggeis and fruits and you will be fine - not only fine, but healthier than ever before :)
The same is said in the Campbell Plan which is another GREAT book that I can recommend to anyone who wants to know more about what to eat on a healthy vegan diet. Both the Starch Solution and the Campbell Plan have each around 50 really good and super easy recipes in the back of the book (which I use A LOT because they are so easy and so yummy!). From this book you will also learn what to stock in your kitchen, how to read labels and shop, and
what to watch for in social and eating out situations. Very practical!
Next to these two books, I totally recommend to get one or two GOOD cookbooks! When I say GOOD cookbook, I mean a cookbook which does not only show you the dishes you normally eat in a vegan version but new and easy vegan dishes (its totally fine to eat vegan bolognese, vegan mac and cheese and those kind of things and I love eating them - but usually, when you crave for something like this, you just go online and google "vegan mac and cheese" and you will find a million recipes, however, when it comes to really NEW recipes then you need a good cookbook to get inspired :)).
My favorite cookbook is a German one, and the English translation of the name is "always vegan". There are only recipes in this cookbook which have always been vegan, recipes from all over the world. This book showed to me that there are plenty of recipes out there who have always been vegan, because they are just BEST when they are made vegan. Maybe I will share some of those really good recipes with you on my blog sometime :)
Google for the China Study Cook Book for the English Version of this book:
If you are interested in a vegan diet, I thnk its really important to get some research done. I hope this post inspired you a little on how to be vegan and please feel free to go back to my post on why to be vegan to get some information on that. Please also feel free to ask me any questions, if you have any :)
Here comes another post about consumerism... ...I wrote a post about consumerism back in February and since this topic is still one I think of every single day, I decided to write another one. When I watched the movie The True Cost I came across the term "fast fashion" and I want to share a few thoughts on this term and the whole topic behind it.
The movie The True Cost is basically a summary of why the way most of us consume, namely using clothes as disposables, is everything but sustainable.
The main problem is our approach to fashion, to fast fashion. Too many of us buy a new dress for every party! The documentary elaborotes on the topic; on the effects of genetically modified cotton (and why 250.000 cotton farmers comitted suicide in the last years), the use of pesticides which bears the blame for thousands of disabled children in the Punjab area in India (and other areas in the world), the working conditions of garment factory workers (and beatings by bosses who resent unionization and requests for higher wages), the different collapes and fires of garment factories (with thousands of deaths), and the effect our used clothing has on the local factories in countries of the Global South (e.g. Haiti and different African countries) - since they local industry has no chance to compete with the much cheaper imported second hand clothes. Furthermore, the movie explains the environmental impact of the fast fashion industry (additionally to the impact of genetically modified cotton and pesticides), with emphasis on the enormous amount of trash and chemicals. In my opinion the documentary is not very well made (chaotic, no real order, difficult to follow different arguments, difficult to understand the connections when you do not have a certani background knowledge) but it still is great food for thought and I wish everyone out there will watch it (or has already watched it!?) At least, it made me (once again) think of my behaviour as a consumer. I am thinking about this a looooot in years already, but sometimes its good to watch a documentary like this one to remind myself why again I am thinking so much about it. Its like with me being vegan. Sometimes I just have to read a little bit on the environmental effects of eating animal products, or I have to watch a documentary on the topic, to remind myself why I am vegan and why it is the only sustainable diet. So this documentary certainly reminded me again, why I want (in theory) to consume less and more sustainable. In practice, I find this really difficult to be honest. I tried so often to stop shopping, to buy second hand only, to buy organic only, etc. but I failed, failed and failed again. I am making the My Purchases posts here on my blog to be able to analyse and criticize my shopping behaviour and to be aware of how much I buy. Well, also this did not help much so far (in contrast, in May and June I bought more than ever...). Thats why I decided to watch The True Cost - it made me set new goals once again. So, once again, I decided that I want to stop buying cheap clothes, that I want to buy second hand or fair trade and organic only, that I want to buy a lot less and a lot better! I stopped e.g. already a while ago to cooperate with companies like "sheinside" because this is not sustainable fashion at all. I will continue to use my blog as a reminder to myself and I will continue with the My Purchases posts to be able to analyse and criticize my shopping behaviour. And I would LOVE TO KNOW if some of you have similar thoughts and if you want to share your experiences with me.
Maybe we can help each other, reminding each other, posting reminder to eachother every once in a while, writing reviews on documentarys or books, sharing stories etc. We could even design a cute little button which says something like "conscious blogger" and put it on our blogs to make us become a little community (or maybe even a big community!? :)).
What do you think? Is anyone out there in? Do you have other ideas? Please share this idea with your followers and lets try to reach as many people out there as possible. We should not forget that we only have this one world to live in and I really want to see my daughter grow up in a beautiful world, not one where more than half of the world poulation is suffering and where the environment is close to collapse. Lets change this world together :) Sending much love!
