{"id":18359,"date":"2021-11-23T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T15:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=18359"},"modified":"2021-11-03T11:29:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T15:29:38","slug":"living-vegan-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2021\/11\/23\/living-vegan-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Living Vegan in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Ruby Sturm, VRG Intern<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a German-American teen, and I\u2019ve been\ntraveling to Germany every year since I was two. We missed our trip last summer\nbecause of the pandemic. This year I became a vegan (after being a vegetarian since\nI was born). I wondered what it would be like to return to Germany with my new\nlifestyle. I have to say, it was not what I had expected it would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our trip there in August started out rough.\u00a0During our 8-hour flight to Z\u00fcrich, we had nothing to eat. My mom had called the airline before our fight, and whoever answered the phone assured her that they had meals for us. But spoiler alert they didn\u2019t. United Airlines used to let you reserve vegan meals but stopped after the pandemic. At least we had croutons … I remember journaling (at I\u2019m not sure what time in the morning), and writing about the exquisite \u201cflavor\u201d of the croutons.\u00a0Once we arrived in Switzerland (my Oma\u2019s house in Germany is close to the border) we snacked on overpriced dark chocolate and bread at the airport. Sometimes, you just have to make do.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once in Germany, the rest of the trip was much\ndifferent. After only two years of not being there, things had changed so much.\nAt the gas station, a huge ad for Burger King\u2019s plant-based Whopper mentioned,\n\u201cnow with vegan mayo!\u201d Two years ago every swimming pool still sold ice cream,\nnaturally. But now most of them have at least one type that is actually labeled\nvegan! That\u2019s right, they did the work for you. There was a big green \u201cV\u201d label\non any food that was vegan, and it was honestly incredible! I remember the\nfirst supermarket we went into after arriving. I started to excitedly run\naround and photograph everything vegan I saw. And, believe me, there was a\nlot!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meat-and-cheese-loving southern German\ntown where my father grew up, the grocery stores now seemed to be competing for\nthe largest billboards and posters, announcing, \u201cWe have more than 600 vegan\nitems!\u201d \u201cLook at our selection of vegan and vegetarian products!\u201d Heck, Lidl (supermarket)\neven had a vegan yogurt cup for 75 cents, 75 CENTS! The new vegan products\nwere also highlighted on a full-page insert, in the daily newspaper my Oma got\nand showed me. At the thermal bathhouse in \u00dcberlingen that I\u2019ve visited since I\nwas little, the caf\u00e9 had a vegan chicken nugget kids meal! And it cost less\nthan the regular chicken nugget meal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living Vegan with The Family<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At my Oma\u2019s house we mainly just ate vegetables.\nOf course, she didn\u2019t know exactly what to feed us. She bought us a box of\nchocolate and didn\u2019t realize it was milk chocolate. Oma also wanted to make us\nSemmelkn\u00f6del but couldn\u2019t find any packages that were vegan. Eventually, we\nbaked vegan shortbread cookies together and they were delicious! Later, at my\naunt and uncle\u2019s house, they and my cousins surprised us with vegetables and\nrice in a coconut curry sauce, and for dessert, they even baked a vegan cake!\nIt was a really <\/em>good cake! My cousin Luisa took the photo. It wasn\u2019t\nalways easy to eat vegan while living with relatives, but everybody tried their\nbest to feed us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eating Out<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, at some restaurants the only choice on the menu is salad and fries. At a caf\u00e9 in the Black Forest they made an interesting meal out of this —Pommes mit Hummus und Falafel<\/em> \u201cfries with hummus and falafel.\u201d I added guacamole. It might seem strange, but it tasted delicious! The only problem was that at first instead of falafel they gave me meatballs. For five minutes, the waitress argued that it really was falafel, just fried differently. Eventually, I got my meal. The funny part was that afterward, the waitress started a conversation with my parents to get tips on being vegan.\u00a0Apparently, she had tried hard and failed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A lot of German restaurants have veggie burgers.\nYou could ask them to take off the cheese to make it vegan. After visiting\nthe Meersburg Castle, on the Lake of Constance, we went to a restaurant on the\nmarket square that had tasty, but expensive, homemade veggie burgers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To get a break from eating out, when we were in\nthe Black Forest we stayed at a lodge where we thought<\/em> we\u2019d have our own\nkitchen. But we didn\u2019t. The lodge did have a vegan soup–but I wasn\u2019t going to\nlive off of soup after having to live off croutons, vegetables, and Pommes so\nfar! We ended up eating out at a lot of places, but we also brought groceries\nback home to cook at my Oma\u2019s. The German grocery stores were amazing! They had\nso many vegan products that don\u2019t exist or are hard to find in the United\nStates. However, they do have fewer international foods, such as Latin\nAmerican and Asian. Now that I think about it, a lot of the\ngoing-out-to-eat places were overpriced. But I suppose the food was good, so it\nwas worth it. A lot of German supermarkets, like Aldi, Edeka, and Lidl were\nfilled with vegan and vegetarian products that were cheaper than at home. I\nhope some of the products, such as Lidl\u2019s vegan mozzarella sticks, will come to\nthe United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Shoe Store and More<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this is quite an interesting story. We\nwere shoe shopping and I had bought some Rieker shoes (my new favorite pair)\nmade out of vegan leather and on sale for 20 Euros; what a bargain! My Papa\nbought sports shoes, and my Mama was at a different shoe store. When we found\nher she was in a deep discussion with the owner about apple leather. Apple\nleather is quite interesting. After researching, I discovered that to make it\nyou need to pur\u00e9e and dehydrate apples and mix them with polyurethane. The shoe\nstore owner was explaining that the apple leather shoes weren\u2019t selling well\nyet because the price was high (120 Euros) and many people didn\u2019t trust the\nmaterial well enough. After we all had bought some new vegan shoes, we left the\nplaza for the day. We ate lunch and then took a walk. While we were wandering\nthe streets we saw some local political signs posted around the square\nadvertising candidates for the upcoming September elections. The signs were for\na local vegan political party! That\u2019s right, in addition to the Green Party,\nGermany now has a Vegan Party, V-Paretei3!  It was founded in 2016. They\nare still new and I have no doubt that this year they probably didn\u2019t do well.\nBut Germans are very environmentally aware, so who knows what will happen in\nthe next four years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I asked former VRG Intern, Alicia H\u00fcckmann, from\nGermany, for her input. \u201cIn the big cities, vegan products in supermarkets are\nthe usual standard, and restaurants usually have at least one vegan option,\u201d\nH\u00fcckmann said. \u201cBut I am not so naive to think that in a few years every person\nin Germany will be vegetarian or vegan. People might be ready to not eat meat\nand animal products once a week. But to fully give it up, only a few would do\nthat. Also, the trend doesn\u2019t really seem to be happening in rural areas and\nwith older folks. Because meat is still a big part of German cooking and\nculture, deeply rooted, and still counts as a symbol of masculinity and\nstrength.\u201d H\u00fcckmann says that the German vegan movement is being led by\nthe young. \u201cThings are<\/em> changing for the better, mainly thanks to the\nyounger generations who are second-guessing the status quo, and loudly fighting\nfor our planet!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was Alicia\u2019s perspective from a few years\nago: https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/03\/is-it-reasonable-to-travel-to-germany-as-a-vegan\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ruby Sturm, VRG Intern I\u2019m a German-American teen, and I\u2019ve been traveling to Germany every year since I was two. We missed our trip last summer because of the pandemic. This year I became a vegan (after being a vegetarian since I was born). I wondered what it would be like to return to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18365,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18359\/revisions\/18365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}