Three questions for blogger Verena Hirsch
Verena Hirsch is blogger, nutritionist, freelance editor and speaker. She reaches over 25.000 followers on Instagram alone every month. Through her childhood on a Bavarian organic farm, Verena grew up with an awareness of the appreciation of food. After some time in the big cities of Munich and Hamburg, where she studied law and worked as a journalist, she deliberately moved back to rural areas.
She has just written her first cookbook (“Your kitchen can be sustainable!”) with over eighty recipes that deal with sustainability in cooking. Inside you'll find lots of seasonal recipes using regional ingredients and tips on how to make the most of leftovers. We asked Verena Hirsch our three questions and look forward to her inspiring answers.
1. What was or is your motivation behind allmydeer?
As a child, I always thought that it was clear to everyone what the difference between organic and non-organic was. When I moved away from my parents' farm, I quickly realized that that wasn't the case! I kept coming across statements like “Organic doesn’t contain organic at all”, “Organic is also injected” or “Organic is just more expensive”. That got me thinking a lot. In addition, I have repeatedly experienced that a lot of food was thrown away in shared apartments - of course not maliciously or intentionally, but due to a lack of sensitivity and knowledge. These experiences motivated and moved me to start allmydeer and to spread knowledge about organic farming and an appreciative approach to food to my generation. That's what drives me to this day. Because for me, every food is worth eating.
2. What do you advise our readers: What can you do specifically for a better future?
Let's just stick to food. In fact, you can get a lot of exercise relatively easily, because we have to eat (several times) every day. These are the most effective points for making your diet more sustainable: Eat as plant-based as possible - it doesn't have to be vegan! You should also throw away as little food as possible because that is a wasted resource. And green electricity actually has a lot of leverage when we prepare meals at home or store them in the refrigerator. Anyone who then does their shopping by bike or on foot, also goes organic and chooses seasonal products from the region, is already doing a lot for a better future in terms of nutrition.
3. How do travel and sustainability fit together for you?
Sustainability doesn't rule anything out for me, including traveling. The only question is how we design it. As with food, I travel consciously and try to enjoy and appreciate every moment. Traveling also offers us new culinary impressions from other regions - even if we stay in our own country. And if you want to go further away, there are also great alternatives to flying. I once took the train to London and it was so memorable for me that it is one of the trips I remember most.
Geraldine Voss
Geraldine works as a freelance writer for Good Travel and has just completed training as a sustainability manager. After twenty exciting years in film, she now devotes herself full-time to her other passions - travel, food and design.
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